I recently bought a new foodie toy, a sous vide cooker, which I hope will be useful to prevent duck breasts from shrinking when I cook them. It should also enable me to cook medium-rare steaks, without the risk of over or under cooking them. I found it on eBay, for £30. Apparently, I could connect to it with my phone, and control it that way, but there’s nothing wrong with the control panel on top, which is what I shall use instead.
As a very safety conscious Walrus, naturally, I have read the instructions carefully. It’s the usual stuff, you know, don’t use this in your sword swallowing act, etc… Later on, I shall be heading out into the World, in order to Read all instructions.
I already had a nifty device for vacuum packing the steaks, so I seasoned them, and got the air sucked out of the bags. You don’t need this device, really. It’s entirely possible to use Zip Lock bags, and get as much air out as you can, though they may tend to float if you don’t get it all out. But it’s a cooking toy, so I love it. Made by Tayuugo, if you want one like it…
Next step: fill a big pan with water, clip the sous vide device on, and set it going. The temperature should be 55°C, and up to two hours is plenty of time. It doesn’t take long to get up to the right temperature. Meanwhile, I baked a couple of potatoes, and then fried some mushrooms in butter.
After almost two hours in the water bath, the steaks are cooked, but they don’t look like it. They need a quick flash fry in a very hot pan.
It was a very quick flash fry, and I didn’t take any pictures while I was doing it… but here’s the plated result…
Now, you may call that rare, rather than medium-rare, and you may be right, but it is definitely what I was aiming for. The big difference between cooking the steaks this way, and frying them, is the way they’re not overcooked at the surface, with a smaller pink area inside. Now that I know the process, I will not be using cheap supermarket steaks like these, but really good ones from the friendly local butcher.
Update: This sous vide device died the third time I used it, and I got a refund. My new one is an Inkbird one, and cost twice as much. Let’s hope it lives longer…