For the carnivores: Kenji does it again

[torquill]

I am, at this moment, cooking a steak for my lunch.

The stove is not on, nor is the oven. The grill is cold. No microwave is involved. Yet I am assured of delicious, tender steak before the end of the next half-hour.

The secret is sous-vide. And Kenji, bless his foodie heart, figured out how to easily (and cheaply!) perform sous-vide in an ice chest.

No, I'm not kidding. I pulled out the standard-size ice chest, filled it with a combination of hot tap water and boiling water, and put two gallon ziplocs full of a chuck cross-rib roast (sliced into one-inch-thick steaks) into it, along with the attendant garlic, pepper, thyme, and rosemary. With the probe telling me the water was a comfortable 136F, I put the lid on, and it's been sitting there for about a half-hour. It can continue to sit all afternoon if I need it to.

I've done this before a year or so ago, with a standard chuck steak. The cheaper and tougher the meat, the better it turns out. And boy, is it worth it, to have melt-in-your-mouth seasoned steak for $2.99/pound. I'll freeze what I don't eat today, as it's easy to thaw and sear it later.

There's just something so delightfully wrong about getting excellent steak by putting a very cheap cut in warm water and ignoring it. The only reason I don't do it more often is the hassle of pulling out and filling the ice chest... which is really not much of an obstacle. Hmm.

Comments

[digitalsidhe]

Oooooh, this sounds tasty! Thank you, I'll have to try it out some time.

It can't work miracles...

[torquill]

It turns out it wasn't as tender as all that, but given I started with cross-rib roast (which most of the time is edible only after serious marinating and/or stewing) to have it turn out like Safeway tri-tip was impressive. I left some of it in for another couple of hours, and it should be more tender... if you start with a more expensive cut of beef, or a naturally cartilaginous meat like lamb shank, it would be even better. The chuck steak I did over a year ago really was tender enough to cut with a butter knife.

[akienm.livejournal.com]

i am going to go buy a smaller ice chest just for this :) And bookmark that site, as it was new to me! Thanx.

[luna-torquill.livejournal.com]

I confess, after an hour plus, the steak was about as tender as the average tri-tip from the grocery store... but given that I started with a cross-rib roast, that's still impressive. I left the other pieces in for another two hours (reheating the water once) in the hope that they'd tenderize a little more. Quite edible, nonetheless, and if you start with a better cut (chuck steak, perhaps, or top sirloin) it would be better still.