Ben C., my good friend from high school, has become quite an amateur chef. Amateur only in the sense that he doesn’t get paid! He’s been to a number of cooking schools, meat clinics, etc. And he practices regularly.
A few months ago Ben introduced me to “sous vide”, a way of cooking meat at a low temperature used by professional chefs and restaurants worldwide. Evidently it is used on both coasts and in Europe, and probably in many restaurants in most large cities, yet most folks I know have never heard of it. It amounts to seasoning and vacuum packing the beef, then placing it in a carefully controlled water bath at say 130F. After a period of time the beef is removed from the bath and vacuum packing and is seared on both sides on the grill.
Now this is one of those things on which we have to say, “don’t try this at home”. Namely, if you don’t do it correctly you could create bacteria issues. Ben uses an iPhone app that determines the temperature control and rise from the thickness of the cut, etc.
Anyway, the results were fantastic! As were the green beans and special potatoes (I didn’t get the name of the potato presentation.) So shown below are some pics of his system:
Condalia Farms Brand New York Strips:
Lightly seasoned with salt and pepper:
Vacuum packing:
Cooking time calculus, on an iPad app:
The PID controlled water-bath cooker:
Steaks in the water-bath:
Our of the water bath, dried, ready for searing:
Seared 30 seconds on each side:
Plated!
