Sous Vide In An Esky

[Brewing_Brad]

G'day all,

I just wanted to share this little gem of a technique for cooking steak perfectly:

"Cook Your Meat in a Cooler" (also, here's a video of someone trying it)

The basic ideas is that you cook your steak exactly the same way you mash your grains.

Bring your "strike" water up to the cooking temp (eg: 51C for rare). Throw your steak (and any herbs and spices) into a zip lock back. Remove as much of the air from the bag as possible and dump it in an esky for an hour. You may also need to weight the bag down with something. If there's any air in the bag, it'll cause it to float and not cook properly.

After an hour it should be cooked perfectly from edge to egde. All you do now is fire up the BBQ or fry pan and cook the steak for no longer than a minute on each side, just enough to give it a bit of charring and extra tastiness.

I'll be adding a small esky and a couple of t-bones to the shopping list this week to give this ago. I'll report back how it turns out.

Cheers
Brad

--Edit: Bad grammer --

 

[zebba]

I've done this a few times just using my electirc hlt and tempmate. I wrap in gladwrap and butchers string, throw it in, wrap it all up in a heap of towels and leave it all day. Yeah, it floats, but as i live it for a lot longer, it still gets "cooked" evenly. Then out of there onto a smoking hot griddle and cut up and serve.

The guests have always been mighty impressed. Great thing to do for a real "wow" factor, and so bloody simple.

edit: only issue i've had so far is the fat in the meat. The fat stays tough... I have resorted to using fillet steak and trimming the thin line of fat off the outside to get around this. The attempt at lamb was brilliant... except for the fat running through it. Lots of mess left on the plate.

 

[brettprevans]

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...%5CSous+Vide%5C

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I've found the same issue with sous vide and fat - in the few goes i have had at it, the technique seems to be best for super lean cuts that would otherwise be a bit tough and stringy.

And/Or you can just pop the temp up a little till the fat gets a bit more cooked. Because you are cooking evenly from edge to edge, you can go a bit further without any of the meat becoming over done.

 

[Bizier]

What happens to a steak at 65C? :lol: a 2 bird stone there, unless you want to incorporate a long protein rest in your mash schedule.

 

[Brewing_Brad]

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...%5CSous+Vide%5C

I searched the forums with Google and none of that came up! I swear!

 

[brettprevans]

I searched the forums with Google and none of that came up! I swear!

its fine i was on iphone and cbf screwing around with linking a message. i was just linking in the other threads on this novel way to cook food.

 

[komodo]

I just use my rice cooker (actually a second rice cooker I bought for $10 at the salvos) and a tempmate style temp controller.
Works for me and is a piece of piss to setup and operate. My missus even gives it a bash and the whole thing packs away in teh cupboard nicely.
I've been looking at going the PID route but in all honesty the on off operation works well.