In my quest to create more room in the freezer, I grabbed a big hunk of picanha and decided to sous vide it.
I seasoned the steak with a mixture of smoked salt, dried garlic, and ground pepper. Bagged into a large vacuum bag and set up the sous vide rig. As the steak was frozen still, I had to sous vide for 3 hours! In the mean time, I set up the sheet pan with broccoli florets, fingerling potatoes, some chunked sweet potatoes and additional white potatoes. I oiled them and seasoned with salt and pepper. I added for good measure 1/3 of a yellow bell pepper and 1/2 an onion and scattered that over the veggies. They went into a 350° F oven for just about an hour....when I started to smell the broccoli, I pulled it out and tented with foil for a few minutes. I turned off the oven and stuck the pan with its foil into the slowly cooling oven.
When the steak was finished, I pulled it out of the water bath, patted it dry from the juices in the vacuum bag and then torched it on the fat side to crisp up the fat and give the meat a good look. Without the torching, the meat is kind of grayish, and very unappealing. After torching, it looks like a good steakhouse!
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| Sliced steak, quite rare |
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| Baked veggies |
I tried slicing the steak in two different directions to see which would be the more tender, and definitely slicing against the grain created a more tender thin slice, not that the steak was tough either way, but it was a little bit more tender in the across grain cuts.
The meal was rounded out with a winter salad of cukes, tomatoes, onions, and celery with a sherry vinegar and olive oil dressing.
Cooking sous vide is very easy and allows one to have a cocktail without screwing up the meal timing! It is all about the cocktails, after all. I am currently on a Manhattan or Boulevardier kick, depending on which Bourbon or Rye I am pouring. I am very particular about my Manhattan or Boulevardier cocktails!
