as mentioned on another thread I thought would start a thread on Sous Vide. Iput it here as it is much less about cooking, than about a commercial kitchen developing sous vide techniques.
first off; an immersion circulator is more efficient than a water bath, but most places- mine included- use water baths as they cost a bit less and the difference is not so great.
Cheaper cuts of meat.Sous vide is perfect for Chuck, give
n proper timing Chuck will come out like filet mignon.
In order for chuck steak to do this you need to heat in water bath at 55-60 degrees C or 135 to 140 F for about 30 hours. In reality depending on the thickness of the cut the timing can be anywhere from 24 to 48 hours. At these times the tough connective dissue will begin to dissolve and decrease the myofibrillar tensile strength.
In effect sous vide is a very long and very controlled poach. so meat will need to be finished for service, we either sear in a hot pan and then oven or sear with blow torch straight out of the water bath. to serve meat at around 60deg.C
The big advantage to using sous vide is the ability to hold cooked meat for a long time, as in effect you are pasteurizing the meat.
If you do this it is important to keep a very close eye on the cooling. ideally you should use a blast chiller. There is a lot of info on cooling after sous vide, and it would be very wise to research as pathogenic spores can be hard to get rid of. I say this in order to protect myself we have not had problems cooling and holding.
Hope this helps and that this thread is useful to those wanting to use sous vide to reduce food costs.
If you can get chuck steak to the texture of filet mignon you can charge filet mignon prices. That looks good on your balance sheet
first off; an immersion circulator is more efficient than a water bath, but most places- mine included- use water baths as they cost a bit less and the difference is not so great.
Cheaper cuts of meat.Sous vide is perfect for Chuck, give
n proper timing Chuck will come out like filet mignon.
In order for chuck steak to do this you need to heat in water bath at 55-60 degrees C or 135 to 140 F for about 30 hours. In reality depending on the thickness of the cut the timing can be anywhere from 24 to 48 hours. At these times the tough connective dissue will begin to dissolve and decrease the myofibrillar tensile strength.
In effect sous vide is a very long and very controlled poach. so meat will need to be finished for service, we either sear in a hot pan and then oven or sear with blow torch straight out of the water bath. to serve meat at around 60deg.C
The big advantage to using sous vide is the ability to hold cooked meat for a long time, as in effect you are pasteurizing the meat.
If you do this it is important to keep a very close eye on the cooling. ideally you should use a blast chiller. There is a lot of info on cooling after sous vide, and it would be very wise to research as pathogenic spores can be hard to get rid of. I say this in order to protect myself we have not had problems cooling and holding.
Hope this helps and that this thread is useful to those wanting to use sous vide to reduce food costs.
If you can get chuck steak to the texture of filet mignon you can charge filet mignon prices. That looks good on your balance sheet