I am going to make a few packages of ready to eat buttery snappy broccoli side dish. Can not find any temperature or time suggestions. Please help.
I’ve not tried it. Perhaps @AlyssaWOAH has. But there is a common opinion that green vegies don’t sous vide well, something about the bitter compounds in them.
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Hmm, I haven’t tried to sous vide broccoli - at least not successfully anyway. Too many issues with air and floating, so I’ve pushed that project aside. Because it’s broccoli, I’d probably go for something around 185F for 30 minutes. Experiment and see where that takes you.
This might be something that could help: https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/tender-and-snappy-broccoli
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For the 30-40 minutes time it takes to prep, bring the water up to temperature, the extra plastic or silicon bag, etc, I’d opt for microwave about 2 to 3 minutes max in a glass bowl.
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If you can keep it from floating, it comes out very tender. I put a stone in a smaller zip-lock and inside the bigger ziplock and it keeps it down nicely. You need to cook it at about 180F to break down the fiber.
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Yes, I used this one. 190 for 20 min .It turned out ok. not mushy, maybe slightly too hard. tastes ok but I am not the picky eater. My main concern is the colour, it didn’t turn bright green, but a bit of wilted colour, with a brownish tint to it.
I did it at 185 for an hour with a pat of butter in it. Soft but not mushy and yes it has a wilted colour to it. Flavour wise I would say it’s kinda like an amplified broccoli taste, very strong ‘greeny’ taste in fact. And yes to the point it has some bitterness but it’s kinda nice for me. Exotic probably. Not my favourite but I wouldn’t mind doing it again if I have the time and the effort to keep it submerged.
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Gosh - I love sous vide food but…
Sous vide is not a panacea.
It does some things wonderfully well.
Yes you can sous vide broccoli, but putting into a steamer pan or one of those lovely Chinese steamer bamboo baskets for five minutes gives superb results.
Setting up sous vide for this seems like overkill to me.
Just my thoughts.
Cheers
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I guess the idea would be to have the convenience of “one-pot” cooking, like no need for additional pans and no need to wash additional utensils.
But having said that, I do agree that vegetables are better done using more conventional methods, and sous vide should be saved for proteins.
However I prefer to sous vide: carrots (with a dab of butter; new potatoes; beetroot and such other roots - they don’t loose flavour to the water that way.
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I see your point. Do you find that your vegetables float, and/or the bag fills up with gas? I’ve seen people encounter that problem, and have experienced it myself.
I tend to vacuum pack stuff… So I get a little less air than if I was using ziplock.
I don’t get floating bags with Carrots, beetroot, potatoes and such.
And I prefer to steam greens - but they can float a bit. Partly because they have air between their leaves.
I got the idea from this site of just banging an IKEA pot holder upside down vert bags. It keeps them all down no fuss. If they are very floaty you can put a plate on top. No diddling around trying to seal cutlery or weights in the bag or mucking around with bulldog clips.