Came across this article, wondered what the cooks here thought about the subject.  I've read a bit about sous vide over the years, have never tried it.  Reading this got me thinking about trying this with my induction plate.  It is quite accurate in holding a constant temp, not sure about 126 degrees.  It might be worth a try.  I do have my Mapp gas torch available to brown up the steak...

They say,   DW salmon cooking works well.  I have never had it.

There are three culinary phrases I hope I never hear again as long as I live: sous vide, farm to table, and Meyer lemon.  In reverse order, allow me to gripe and moan.  Spoiler alert: I’m a bitter, middle-aged man teetering on the edge of a mid-life crisis, so feel free to skip this post.

1. Who wants a lemon that doesn’t actually taste like a lemon?  I want to meet that person, and have them tell me to my face that they want to buy a lemon but never actually taste one.  What exactly is the purpose of that nonsense?  If Meyer lemons were sweet enough to eat raw, then I might understand.  But they are not that sweet.  All they are is somewhat less sour—and of course, incredibly less flavorful.  So basically, they are a not-very-good lemon that costs a lot of money.  Save me, hosts of heaven.

2. “Farm to table” is an explanation of food distribution, not a culinary technique.  After all, is there any other way to handle food?  Drainage ditch to table?  Nuclear waste facility to table?  But here’s why I despise this term.  It is an excuse, pure and simple, for not actually cooking, and for not actually running a restaurant.  What the purveyors of this BS are trying to emphasize is freshness; but what they’re really doing is running a glorified roadside produce stand where the owners boil the food for you, instead of selling it raw for you to cook at home.  There’s no creativity, nothing interesting, just boiled vegetables.  SO FRESH, they scream.  SO DELICIOUS, they scream louder.  GREAT, I scream back.  You’ve reminded me why I’m cooking more meals at home.

3.  And then we have sous vide.  It’s trendy, it’s fabulous, it’s fun.  And it’s easy.  Never mind that it simply isn’t as good as properly sautéed, or pan-fried, or grilled, or broiled, or roasted meat and vegetables.  It isn’t even as good as plain boiled vegetables.  But the great virtue of the technique is that it is consistent in the hands of restaurant staff who aren’t really up to handling the more difficult techniques.  Closely allied to this technique is the recent trend of roasting joints at insanely low temperatures.  But the simple reality is that no blow torch on earth can make up for the missing Maillard reaction that is so obviously lost in these techniques.  I’ve tried sous vide over and over, I’ve roasted at low temperatures, and when it was all done, I have been furious with myself for giving up so much of my life (because these are long, long, long processes) for such a profound sense of disappointment.  I’ve had enough of that for one lifetime. 

‘Grains of paradise’ are the seeds of the African plant Aframomum melegueta.  The plant is related to ginger and cardamom, and it is spicy-hot like they are, but it doesn’t taste like either one.  It’s supposed to taste gingery, but to me, it tastes like black pepper, but in a slightly different sort of way.

This is one of those medieval spices that sounds terribly exotic, but in fact it’s fairly common in west and north African cuisine.  My own experience of it comes from medieval cuisine; cooks of that period used the grains as a substitute for much pricier black pepper.  There’s a good article in Wikipedia that covers some of this. 

I like grains of paradise, but I don’t understand why they seem to have caught the attention of so many foodies.  As a small ingredient in a dish, it really isn’t all that different from round pepper.  Even on its own, it isn’t all that dramatic. 

A much more interesting ingredient from the past is long pepper, which has a really distinctive flavor.  It is NOT a substitute for regular round pepper, but I like to use a bit in sausages and things like that.  It works particularly well with lamb sausages. 

It’s strange to me how a truly unique spice like long pepper gets no attention at all, while halfway-lemons and not-quite pepper steal the show.

Well I tried it today.  Had a nice T bone steak in the freezer so I thawed it.  I vac sealed and cooked it for a little over an hour at about 128 degrees.  The induction plate really maintained the temp well, I was surprised.  It was a little off the 120 setting was closer to 135, so I used the 110 setting and got it about where I wanted it. I kept a thermometer in the pot the whole time to monitor the temp.

The result?  Fair to good. I like my steaks medium rare and this was.  I used my Mapp Gas torch to brown it up, didn't take long.  Will I do it again? No.  too much time to accomplish what can be done in a few minutes on a grill or in the broiler  and in a pinch the George Foreman Grill.

MattL, I’m sorry the sous vide went so poorly, but honestly, that’s been my experience more than once.  The technique works no better in restaurants, by the way; and I continue to cringe when I read about it or see it on a menu.  Have the chefs and critics ever actually compared sous vide to the alternative cooking methods?  Do they care?  Do clients love it only because their last meal was a frozen, skinless, boneless chicken breast microwaved on high for 15 minutes?

I just took it as an experiment in cooking.  We all stagnate if we don't try new things.  Now, if I paid $199 for the tool that would be a much different story.  I would not exactly say it went poorly, my take is the effort involved did not produce anything that I could not have done in another manner with less work.

Over that last few years I've come across a number of mentions of this method of cooking, felt curious enough to try it.

You’re right, MattL, I should take your advice to heart.  I’ve certainly tried a lot of things that failed utterly, and I still got something out of the experience.  Above all, I gained knowledge, which is a wonderful thing in its own right.  But I also gained a great cocktail-party story, which is actually even better than boring old knowledge.  I like to turn all my failures into snarky little stories that I can use when I’m at a party.  I think I do it rather well, though I suspect that more than a few people who read my posts would disagree!

Personally I enjoy it when a thread goes off in directions no one would anticipate.  You never know where it will lead and what may be gleaned from it.

72 hours is just for a very large thick cut of meat.  As I mentioned steak , salmon and such takes much less depending on the thickness 1-2 hours.

Can't say I've ever wrapped a steak afterward, might try it.  However I do oil and season the steak as they did beforehand.

Mr. Toploader: We’ve been using a propane ‘patio stove’ for years.  There is no substitute in the summer when heating the kitchen is out of the question.  And it is the only place to fry things like fish!!  I also use it for canning, since it keeps the boiling water outside.  There are inferno models that really crank out the heat from a large central burner; those are great for heating great big pots of stuff, like a lowcountry boil or a fried turkey.  But for what I cook, I prefer a large-diameter model that creates a wider heated surface, even if it’s not as hot.  These are great for paella, but I use mine mostly to fry large batches that need plenty of contact with the pan, like all the ingredients for ratatouille. 

I must confess, though, that my Frigidaire RT-38 is the perfect appliance for pan-frying; I set the 8″ on med-low, heat up the pan with oil or butter, and away I go.  The heat is incredibly even and it turns out to be perfect for most pan-frying tasks.  You wouldn’t think medium-low would be enough heat, but it is.  Even in the summer, I prefer the Frigidaire for things like hash-browns and crab cakes and similar items that burn or overcook easily.

If I could have my dream patio, it would include a Frigidaire or Thermador cooktop with TK units, alongside the propane and charcoal options.

This short article gives some helpful insight into salmonella.  You can see from the chart why low-temperature cooking is fine.  I don’t care for sous-vide food, but I’m not afraid of it:

http://www.cookingsousvide.com/info/sous...

I’ve posted this article before, with some of my signature griping:
http://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?53933

Here is the most important information:

Bacteria begin to die in direct relation to the temperature they are exposed to.

The best way to visualize this is to think about how we humans react to heat.  We do fine in climates where the temperature is below 100ºF degrees.  However, once it begins to climb around 110ºF or 120ºF, you begin to hear about deaths in the news due to heat stroke.  If the temperature were to raise to 200ºF stepping outside for more than a few seconds would kill you.

Bacteria behave in the exact same way.  They begin to die at around 135ºF, and 165ºF just about instantly kills them.  You can see this in the chart below for 1% fat chicken.  The bottom axis is the temperature the chicken is held at and the left axis is how many minutes at that temperature are required to bring the bacteria to safe levels.

This concept is why the USDA recommends that chicken is cooked to 165ºF, because at that temperature it takes only a few seconds for enough bacteria to die to achieve acceptable safety levels.  In comparison, at 136ºF it takes 63.3 minutes at that temperature to achieve the same safety level, something that is virtually impossible using traditional cooking methods.  Using sous vide makes it possible to heat chicken to an internal temperature of as low as 136ºF and hold it there long enough to kill the bacteria.

Going back to that bit about resting the steak in foil, under a towel...

Thomas Keller ‘rests’ his steaks in a big ol’ bucket o’ butter, which sounds simultaneously delicious and revolting.  Apparently, this method ensures that 1) no juices can escape the steak (since oil and water don’t mix), 2) the meat is held at a perfect temperature, and 3) there’s an added unctuous quality to the finished steak.  The used butter makes its way into sauces and such.  (Actually, Chef Keller uses beurre monté, but ‘bucket o’ butter’ sounds so much more exciting.)

This would take a lot of butter in a home kitchen, but it would not be wasted.  I can think of a lot of things to do with steaky butter.

I have yet to try this, but it’s on my list.

Eddy,  that is beautiful sear on your steak.   I always think of the "Smith & Woolensky" steak in the "Devil wear's Prada".   Many times I have wanted to rip through the TV screen to get that beautiful steak.  Talk about product placement.  I really like your Terrace Top.   A

I tried the "cover and let stand" method last night and was impressed.  I either use a George Foreman or Cuisinart grill to do steaks inside and last night I put the steak in a covered warm frying pan that I pan roasted some cherry tomatoes in, and let it stand for a bit.  Steak was much more juicy and a bit more tender.  will try it again tonight when I cook the other half of the T bone.