Just wondering, have any of you attempted to use a traditional recipe and ‘translate’ it into Sous Vide?
I’m aware that certain things are a no-go, but just wonder if there are any suggestions as to how to, say, take one of my old
hand-written recipes and try it SV?
My other question is regarding SV cooking 2 things at once (steak and asparagus, for example).
From what I can gather, cooking the veg first (higher temp setting), then cooling the water and cooking the steak should be OK.
Is this correct?
You may certainly cook your asparagus first say 190-195 deg for 2 hrs. turn the temp down to your meat temp and add your meat. theveg can stay in and be maintained at that temp. when searing your meat (if in a pan) you can throw the veg in for a flash to raise the temp if you wish.
Adapting recipes is a little harder. You can research the different ingredients and see if they have similar temps to cook at the same time, or you’ll have to decide if you can do them separate - high temp first, and keep warm while the lower temp ingredients cook as you mentioned. Anything that cooks down in a sauce may need to be made from the drippings as a finishing step. Mostly it will come down to experimenting and finding someone to help you taste test it Keep good notes.
Herkimer, in recipe development as opposed to recipe conversion it may help to consider SV as a unique cooking technique that’s just not appropriate for all things. What traditional recipe were you considering?
For your other question, technically you are correct, - but not quite at once. You should not cook a steak while SV cooking asparagus. However you can hold the asparagus as the steak cooks but the quality of the asparagus will degrade significantly being held over time. You might as well buy canned asparagus. Asparagus needs so little cooking why bother?
If it is a stew/casserole/braise recipe you are endeavouring to convert to sous vide, I wouldn’t bother. Meat and vegetables require different temperatures for perfection. Sure you can cook meat at the higher temperature required by the vegetable, but then the question becomes ‘why sous vide?’
Even cooking a 100% vegetable stew, you’re not going to get the subtle intermixing of flavours that are achieved in traditional cooking methods. Sous vide items processed together tend to retain their individual flavours rather than creating a melange of subtle flavours that is greater than the sum.
Yes you can cook the Veg at the higher temperature, then drop the water down to the lower temperature to cook the steak once the vegetables are done.
But if you mean keeping the vegetables in the water at the lower temperature along with the steak, I would not think this would give great results and vegetables served at the lower temperature tend to seem “cold” to me as we are used to them being served hotter.
Using your example of asparagus and steak…
Asparagus at 85°C (185°F) for 12 mins
Steak at 53°C (127°F) for 60 mins (Or what’re temperature you like your steaks)
So the asparagus would be way over cooked.
In this example, I would cook the asparagus ahead of time for slightly under the 12 mins, say 10mins… then but the bag in cold water to cool quickly, then refrigerate. Could be done the day before.
Cook the steaks, sear the steaks and reheat the asparagus either by putting the bag in some boiled water for a few mins to come back up to temp, or griddle them to reheat them.
The good thing about using 2 cooking temperatures is for people who like steaks at different levels, you could cook a steak to well done for 60mins, leave it in the water… drop the water temperature to rare and then cook another steak for an hour… you would have one well done and one rare steak… but both at the rare steak serving temperature, but the well done steak would have the consistency and texture of well done and not rare
