Dateline: December 3 , 2021 Sous Vide Rib Eye Steaks, Brussel Sprouts with Butter and Vegemite, Tomato Jam, and Baked Tater

 

Fresh Direct had rib eyes on sale, so I bought a couple, thinking that I would cook one, we would split it, and then freeze the second.  When I saw them, I realized that I should just cook them both!

Sous Vide Steak

Ingredients

2 Rib Eye Steaks, trimmed of gristle and excess fat

coarse salt

pepper

onion powder

garlic powder

Method

1.  Liberally salt, pepper, onion and garlic powder the steaks on both sides.

2.  Place in a vacuum sealer bag and seal with 2 seals 1/2 inch apart.

3.  Set up your water bath and bring to your desired temperature.  I like medium rare steak, so I set the temp for 129°F, if you like medium, use 135°F, and if you like it more done than that, set it higher, just don't tell me.

4.  When water bath is at the correct temp for you, lower the steaks into the hot water and set a timer.  If your steaks are 1.5 - 2 inches thick, then 2 hours is good.  If they are .5 - 1 inch thick, then 1 hour will work.  You can't over cook the steak.  It will never get any hotter than the water temperature.

5.  Now the fun part, playing with fire.  After cooking is done, remove steaks from the bag and gently pat dry on a wire rack over a sheet pan under the hood of your stove.  Why under the hood?  Because you are going to use a torch to sear the steaks on the outside.  The visual draw back of sous vide is that the cooked protein does not look very appetizing.  In fact, it looks down right gray.  Light your torch and let it rip.  Sear the top and sides well then flip the steak and do the underside.  Be sure you have the hood on so that the heat escapes and you aren't melting anything plastic that is next to the stove.  

6.  Plate and serve.

Sprouts with Butter and Vegemite

Ingredients

1 lb brussels sprouts, washed and cut in half

1 T olive oil

1 glove of garlic, smashed and minced fine

1 T butter

1 T vegemite or marmite

Method

 

1.  Heat a skillet large enough to hold sprouts in a single layer.  Add the olive oil and the sprouts.  Cook until slightly charred and almost cooked through.  I did throw in a few left over broccoli bits from the fridge, if you look closely.

2.  Add butter, vegemite, and garlic and coat all of the sprouts.  Continue to stir and cook until the sprouts are cooked through.  If you need/want more butter and vegemite, toss it in.  No one is looking.

Tomato Jam

Ingredients

3 Pints cherry or grape tomatoes

2 small or 1 large Shallot, finely diced

3 cloves of garlic, finely diced

Olive Oil

salt and pepper

glug of white wine

Method

1.  Add oil to a pan that can go from stove to oven.  Heat and add the shallots and garlic and cook to soften them up without browning.

2.  Add tomatoes and season with salt and pepper and the glug of white wine.  Stir everything up to combine and try your best to level out top.  Add a good additional glug of olive oil and put into a 350°F oven until the tomatoes have burst and the liquid is bubbling nicely.  

3.  Remove and hold.  It will thicken up as it cools.  Serve warm, not piping hot

Cheater's Baked Taters

Ingredients

enough russet potatoes to serve guests, washed and prick the skin generously

Method

1.  Get a paper bag and put potato in the bag, fold it over and put in the microwave on high for 10 minutes.  You can put 2 in a single bag, but you will need to flip the bag over after 5 minutes.

DONE.  

Dateline: December 31, 2020 Let's Kick 2020 to the Curb. HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYBODY

Since we are not able to party with friends, I wanted to cook something fun and special.  So we are having picanha steak.  This is a South American cut of steak, the sirloin cap, with fat cap.  

If you have been to a Brazilian steak house, you have seen the skewers of beef that is put on the skewer in the shape of the letter C.  That is picanha.  It has a generous fat cap and well marbled beef.  I bought mine from Grand Western Steak in Florida.  I found this outfit through my favorite sous vide YouTube channel, Sous Vide Everything.  This hosts are 2 South American men and a Cuban.  They are absolutely hilarious and have great tips and directions for learning how to sous vide food and how to finish it.

Back to dinner plans.  I ordered some lumpfish caviar and shrimp for a bit of caviar on idli (instead of blinis), shrimp cocktail, then steak and veggies.  

The sous vide of the steaks will take about an hour +, idli will be done shortly before that and the shrimp cocktail will be ready by then as well.  Maybe bubbly, but not sure yet.  Bill is not a fan, and I must say, I prefer cava.

I made the idli, which are steamed rice cakes.  I really love them, they are Indian breakfast food eaten with soup and curries.  I made a pretty platter and put the jar of caviar in the center.  Another two dishes  had chopped scallions and some sour cream.

This is the batter.  I used a packaged dry mix and added water and sour cream.  I read the instructions and they said to add sour curd.  I know in most Indian recipes when they write curd, they mean yogurt, so I assumed sour curd was not yogurt but sour cream.  

Found out this morning that sour curd is still yogurt!

 

Here we have the steaming little rice cakes.  They are steamed in these special idli trays that you can make out the little black plastic knob which unscrews and the trays separate from each other.  I also decided to add a little bit of scallion to some of the rice cakes.  

 

The steamed rice cakes are resting on some paper toweling to remove any moisture.  You can see the little bubbles on the edges of the cakes.  They are sooooooo tasty.  Light and fluffy little delivery bases for anything you can think of.

TADAH!

Now on to the shrimp cocktail.  I did buy a ring of shrimp from Fresh Direct that came frozen.  I defrosted it and then after tasting the cocktail sauce that came with it.  Decided I could do a lot better in that department.  I had some cocktail sauce in fridge, along with horseradish, ketchup, and lemons.  After tasting and adding, I finished up with a pretty good version.

I re-plated the shrimp, and this was the second course!

 

We washed down everything with this delightful Cremant from Alsace, Ginglinger.  It was really tasty!

We were so full that we never ate the picanha steaks!  Don't they look lovely all crisped up and glistening!  We did finish the salad, though!

 

December 14, 2020 Sous Vide Strip Steak, Potatoes, and Salad

Since I have been baking cookies like a possessed demon woman, I closed the dinner kitchen a couple of nights.  I had ordered steaks, and had seasoned them and bagged them for sous vide and put them in the freezer.  You can go directly from freezer to sous vide without any worries, so that is what I did.

I set up the Joule for 129°F and set the time to 2 hrs 15 min.  I had my torch at the ready and also had a cast iron fry pan on the stovetop already.  Instead of just torching the steaks when they are removed from the water, I thought I would try a two-pronged attack.  I would heat the fry pan to scorching and torch only the top half of the steak, thereby getting both sides done at once.

The sear on the steaks was excellent, but the heat from the fry pan kept the beautiful pinkness from going end to end.  Small price to pay!

These steaks were enormous, and we only ate one that night.  The other was eaten by Bill for various other meals over the next day or two.

My friend Jeri taught me a trick for microwaving potatoes!  Wash them, and dry them, prick with a fork, and put them in a paper bag in the microwave for 10 minutes.  They come out fluffy and perfectly cooked every time.  You can do sweet potatoes this way as well, but they take less time start with 6 minutes and up it as needed.

The meal was rounded out with the crunchy salad and all said, it was a great way to start the week!

With the steak I opened a bottle of Barbaresco.  OMG!  This is a delicious wine.  Had a bit of age on it and drank really smoothly with a lovely mouth feel and sufficient tannins to stand up to the steak!

I really do love sous vide for steaks, you can never overcook them, depending on the strength of your torch, you can get a decent crust on them and the entire steak is perfectly cooked from side to side and end to end.  No raw bit or leathery bit to worry about.  Clean up is a breeze and so is setup.  

 

Dateline: April 20, 2020 Steak, Steak, baby

I asked Bill a question, a simple one, really, "What would you like for dinner?  Steak or Chicken?"
"STEAK" came back the reply in a nanosecond!

So out came the sous vide circulator, a plastic bin, 2 strip steaks from the freezer, and the propane torch.  All set for a post zoom call dinner.

I used the Joule app timing suggestions for strip steaks about 1.5 inches thick and cooked to 129°F.  Exactly 1.5 hours once the water had heated up.  That gave me time to season the steaks with salt, pepper, and garlic powder before vacuum sealing them.  I took the steaks out of the freezer earlier in the day and they were thawed when I put them into the water at around 5:00 pm.  It really doesn't matter, if they were frozen, you could still cook them sous vide but you would need about 2 hours.

I love cooking steaks sous vide.  There is no guessing about temperature, no unnecessary poking of the meat with a thermometer to check temperature, it's easy peasy and fool proof.  You can reverse sear them if you'd like.  You would do this especially if you didn't have a blow torch.  Come to think of it, you could do it even if you did have a torch.  I prefer to use a torch.  I get a nice brown coat on the exterior of the steak without the brown ring on the interior.  I have grown to hate that damn ring.

after torching

cut and you can see, no ring!

To round out the steak dinner, I made potatoes "baked" in the microwave, 5 mins in a brown paper bag, turn bag over, 5 more minutes, perfect baked potatoes! And I made asparagus and broccoli with onions, garlic, hot pepper flakes, chicken stock and a bit of pancetta and a few toasted pine nuts.  Finishing the meal with a salad of onions, tomatoes, celery and cucumbers dressed with sherry vinegar and Spanish olive oil

veggie

salad

Dinner was absolutely perfect.  The perfect amount of meat, Bill and I split one of the steaks about 1/3, 2/3 along with baked potato, veggies and salad....I will not eat until breakfast tomorrow!  Well, maybe some fruit later tonight!

If you have never cooked sous vide, I strongly suggest you visit Sous Vide Everything.  This YouTube channel is great.  It is 3 guys conducting experiments cooking various foods using the sous vide method.  Not only is it informative, it is hilarious.  These guys taught me not to fear sous vide and to relish the torch!  I have cooked lots of stuff using the sous vide method.  You do not need a vacuum sealer, you can use the water displacement method and everything will be fine.

In fact, the new 8 quart duo crisp instant pot has a sous vide function.  So you don't need a circulator either.  I have only used the instant pot to make yogurt using the sous vide function.  Most sous vide circulators now have an accompanying app to help you choose temperatures and time lengths that suit your tastes.  Chef Steps is a great app for figuring things out with this technique.

Be fearless and experiment!  What have you got to lose?  One iffy meal?  Small price to pay in order to expand your horizons!

Cheers.