Mirozen, being a recent adopter of SV you need so much advice and ask for it just prior to when you need to start cooking. Knowing you have had your Anova for three weeks is not helpful. Knowing the degrees of doneness you expect in your steaks would be.
Anyway, here's a few tips.
It seems to me our community's consensus is not to pre-salt steak before cooking. However i always apply Kosher salt and grind fresh pepper over my steaks before packaging and sealing. I always have, i always will. Bad habit? Maybe, but I don't notice any substantial loss of moisture as a result and i get the flavourful steak taste i expect.
Now then, the next time you want to prepare this kind of a meal you need to think through the process and formulate your meal preparation plan well in advance. If you care about achieving a successful outcome please never attempt cooking a complex meal without having a written plan.
Start with meal timing. When, and in your case, where will service occur?
- That sets your total cook timing end-point and gets you thinking about potential problems you need to address.
May i suggest logistics is one of them in this case?
Working backwards, what degree, or degrees, of doneness do you require?
- all the same? - or all different?
- That informs you of the cooking temperature(s) you need. It's important.
What is the thickness of, and type of items being cooked?
- Most of us time our cooks by a using a combination of thickness and the specific attributes of the items being cooked. For example in your request, the Prime grade NY Strip Steak will require less cooking than the Coulotte Steak if they are of the same thickness because the NY will naturally be more tender.
- You can find lots of detailed advice on cooking times on this site. It's important too, but you are going to have to take some time to do it for yourself.
- You can also fine-tune your cooking time by deciding just what degree of tenderness you want to achieve. Longer time = more tender. It's up to you. That's why keeping a personal record of each cook with comments and suggestions is so important.
Before it's too late, write down your cooking process for Christmas dinner so you will have a record of your success, and perhaps some ideas on how to potentially improve in the future. It should be every cooks objective to become ever-better. Do the work.
And i hope you got to enjoy some of that Coulotte Steak, it's my personal favourite when properly cooked SV with Rib Eye firmly in second place. Did you serve a BĂ©arnaise Sauce with your steaks? I can't think of any method that says steak-celebration better than steak with BĂ©arnaise Sauce, oh, - except maybe Choron Sauce. If you are a steak lover then you owe it to yourself to try them some time. Do the work.
