sous vide round tip asada tacos. coffee. 55C 32H

This taco might be a bit different from your usual asada taco but amazing nonetheless and if you love meat and you love tacos and you love sous vide cooking… then, yes, you must try this.

By definition most asada tacos feature carne asada which is grilled or pan-seared flank steak. I didn’t have any and as much as I love flank steak I tend to take sides with the less popular tougher cuts when cooked sous vide.  Why? because they can be transformed into something that’s quite possibly superior in flavor and texture via sous vide. And you’re still within rare to medium rare range… which is just amazing. 

Yeah, that’s the thing… I love rare or medium rare steak and without sous vide cooking, it’s nearly impossible to achieve the doneness level I’m looking for when cooking these tougher cuts. You can choose to sous vide your steak to whatever level you want but most of my posts on this blog are about applying the least amount of heat to cook ingredients. Just enough to ensure the food is cooked, the texture is what I like and proper pasteurization is achieved.

Enough with this sous vide babbling.  Get your gear ready because this is extremely simple once you have all the components ready. This is not a recipe per se. More like a reference guide if you’re interested in this kind of cooking. Let’s do this. 

coffee flavored round tip sous vide @ 55C 32h

This should be a pretty quick one guys. As you know, brining is one of my things. I’m hoping to write a whole post about brining in depth (no pun intended) soon. Today let’s keep it simple. Just grab a beautiful round tip (you probably just want a portion of it, they can be big) at your butcher shop. A good size would be 3 to 4 pounds. Trim any excess fat if need be and let’s go. 

pork centre loin sous vide : 57C 12h : 5% sugar %5 salt

If you’ve ever cooked pork loin this way you know it makes a terrific cold-cut. It also makes me wish I owned one of those fancy meat slicers. Since it’s cooked sous vide it’s extremely juicy. Some of that juiciness comes from gelatine/collagen so in order to get extreme juiciness you probably wanna apply some heat.  I’ve prepared pork this way in past occasions (see my previous boneless pork centre loin sous vide post) usually sticking to pasteurization-to-core cooking times which are usually less than 12 hours but out of convenience I decided to let it go overnight. I was a little worried the long cooking time would have a negative impact on the texture but to my surprise it was actually an improvement.  Another thing worth mentioning is that one if not the most important reason behind me buying this meat was the beautiful fat layer covering the top of it. I had to.  There was nothing I could do.

pork tenderloin sous vide 58C 3hr and mango habanero sauce

And we’re back with some more sous vide cooking! A few things about pork tenderloin. It’s delicious but only if cooked properly otherwise is just boring. Cooking this cut with traditional methods requires some practice and a thermometer but if you’re looking for that medium rare finish and a pasteurized product then going sous vide is the easiest (and possibly the only practical …) way of getting there.

sous vide salmon with steamed rice and broccoli. 50C 40 mins.

I don’t cook at lot of fish sous vide. There’s really no good excuse other than maybe with proper technique similar results can be achieved and less gear is involved. But if you really want to experience the true potential of fish, cooking it sous vide renders an absolutely perfect and delicate finish. I’ve probably mentioned it already but for years I hated salmon. Every single time I had it, no matter where, the story was simply the same. Dry stuff.

Some fish can withstand heat better than others but most fish will easily overcook and if you aren’t obsessed with temperature control over the stove then chances are you’re over going to overcook the poor thing. Poaching and steaming are safer bets in most cases. Of course searing one side to get those beautiful and delicious golden notes or getting that crispy skin will require applying a ton of heat butI won’t go into details about this today because it isn’t trivial and depending on the fish the approach might differ a bit. But if you’re itching to know perhaps follow the same approach you would as searing a steak in general. I’d also suggest working with a non stick pan here. Fish meat is too delicate to risk cooking on a regular pan but it works if you’re careful and polymerize the bottom properly. 

Hello World…and Hello Steak and Eggs

Just when you thought I would finally shut up, I come back again for more food blogging. It’s not that I haven’t had anything to blog about. Plenty has gone on but I don’t have a kitchen of my own yet. I left my old apartment, the rain and my job in Vancouver and decided to go back to LA which is where I currently am and the city in which I started my blog a few years ago. I won’t bore anyone with the details of the last 2 months of amazing and much needed time off. I’ve been relaxing , exercising , cooking and going to the beach. I’m pretty sure this idilic existence will be soon be over as I will need a source of income and a dose of reality but I will enjoy it while it lasts. Without my own kitchen (I haven’t rented a place yet), blogging and cooking have been less than usual but never come to a full stop. I have been posting a few things on instagram (hopefully you’re following me!) and I wanna share those here in the next few posts as I catch up.

I have posted about steak and eggs previously but I haven’t documented a more traditional presentation of this dish yet, well.. until just now. Facts about steaks and eggs. Yes, my favourite breakfast period. Any hour of the day is a good time for steak and eggs. Sunny side up is the path to enlightenment. Takes 10 mins to make, or 15 if you make home fries from scratch (the one in the picture took a lot longer but that’s because I wanted to get all fancy with my sous vide equipment and prolonged fridge curing times, but you can do without and it would seriously take like 10-15 mins).

Recipe list? seriously? eggs and a steak. Ok, throw some potatoes in there and bunch of rosemary. Fish sauce for those who aren’t afraid of the dark side. 

My Definition of a Perfect Egg?

5 hours is a long time. But if you aren’t dying for an egg right away this might be of your interest. 5 hours at 60C. The yolk is very creamy. The white is very soft but set.  I’m sure a degree or two above 60C and less time would render amazing results as well…. but this right here so far is my personal favourite. End of post. Happy Thursday. My shortest post ever.

Sous Vide Beef Tenderloin Medallion. 52C 1h

Really quick post. Not really a recipe. I mean, the recipe is in the title if anything. Not much more to it other than mentioning that the golden brown crust came from flash frying the whole medallions in Ghee @ 450F for about 15 secs. I just wanted to log this to keep record since is probably the best piece of steak I’ve cooked in a long time and I am very proud of it. Salt the steaks. Add to the sous vide pouches right away, and add vegetable oil . I don’t have a vacuum sealer here in Vancouver, so using the water displacement method is good but isn’t great. Adding fat to the bag gets around the issue of having some pockets of air around the meat and it probably helps the meat retain its shape better. A theory of mine…. 😛 Anyways, cook away. Remove from baggies and serve immediately. No need to rest the steaks. They are already at the serving temperature. Happy Sat. I had fun taking some pics. Hope you enjoy.

Ox Tail Sous Vide. 100h 60C

I’ve been eating ox tail for a while. Specially when I was a kid. This is the kind of meat that is used to flavour beef soups and makes some wonderful stews. My mom loved using it a lot but hated eating it. She literally set it aside. Not a true carnivore… obviously. Me and my cat didn’t mind its rubbery cartilaginous texture. In fact, I truly love this stuff. Many awesome dishes can thank the humble Ox’s tail for their success. Its flavour is unique and doesn’t need much help from any seasoning to bring out its boldness. This is no shy cut of meat and it’s relatively inexpensive.

 

Like any super tough cut, long cooking times are required to break down the collagen and make the meat tender to eat. After reading a post from my friend Stefan on Ox tail cooked sous vide I was encouraged. I’m not gonna lie, when I read about the cooking time I was … ok, I was sold! It will require more or less 100 hours of slow cooking so plan ahead… like a real far ahead, specially if you’re planning on feeding other human beings at a dinner party.

If you are obsessed about meat and don’t fear the the oceans of time between the ordinary and the awesome then this article might be of your interest. Besides, at the next potluck when the subject of slow cooking gets brought up (which I’m sure it will since you’ll be there), guess who’s gonna blow them all away.  That’s right.

But joking aside, cooking ox tail this way has definitely taken this cheap cut to a whole new dimension of wow. The meat almost melts in the mouth. Another thing to notice is the presence of some maillard reaction or at least what seems to be so. I hope that’s the case. I know this reaction can happen at very low temperatures over a long period of time… basically what happened here. Wish I knew but maybe is just oxidation. 

Meat and Potatoes. Sous vide brisket. Baby creamer potatoes. Baby kale Salad.

9:07PM. For whatever reason today I remembered the worst accidents I’ve had in my kitchen in the last 4 years. I don’t want to forget them I guess. They taught me a lot. I can recall at least 4 relevant ones: