OV9

Beany wrote: ↑Sat Nov 30, 2019 8:52 pm I'm very simple when it comes to steak. Part dry, bit of salt, bit of pepper, Fry it hot and fast, let it rest for a few minutes, then fucking devour it.

dinny_g wrote: ↑Sat Nov 30, 2019 7:55 pm
@Nef - why should I try to draw moisture out of the meat before cooking?? Serious question. I know you know what you’re talking about...

Nefarious wrote: ↑Sun Dec 01, 2019 8:28 am

dinny_g wrote: ↑Sat Nov 30, 2019 7:55 pm
@Nef - why should I try to draw moisture out of the meat before cooking?? Serious question. I know you know what you’re talking about...

Getting technical about it, the thing that makes meat taste meaty is the maillard reaction - it's a sequential process of sugars and amnio acids reacting at the point of heat contact.
Drying the surface of the meat helps encourage the caremalisation of sugars, aiding key steps in this process. Or to put it another way, if the meat surface is wet, you're effectively boiling the sugars, which stops the caramelisation and prevents the maillard reaction from happening. Ever noticed how a cheap supermarket chicken breast never forms a golden brown crust - it just goes white/grey, then burns? That's the excess water. You can denature the protiens (strictly speaking "cooking"), but you're not developing any new flavours.

On the tenderising thing, I think the theory is that by salting the surface, you create an osmotic gradient throughout the piece of meat - water moves across semi-permiable membranes to try and equalise the salinity (I.e. water moves from low concentrations to high concentrations). The water movement helps ensure a more even distribution of water throughout the piece of meat, aids the breakdown of the tougher cell wall structures during the cooking process, and brings protein-rich liquids closer to the surface (again helping the maillard reaction). The absorbsion of some salt into the meat also helps with individual cells ability to retain moisture during cooking, which helps give a softer texture in the final product.

Nefarious wrote: ↑Sun Dec 01, 2019 8:45 am If you're short of something for the Christmas list, I can very much recommend this book:


Changed my way of doing a few things in the kitchen, just through properly understanding what you're actually trying to achieve.

ZedLeg wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2019 7:01 am The Netflix series based on the book is also very good. Would recommend Cooked as well.

GG. wrote: ↑Mon Jan 27, 2020 12:49 pm Trust me, the results are much much better than you'd get by cooking it the whole way through in the pan. Its perfectly cooked edge to edge and the setup time is literally seconds then it can sit there cooking in the background whilst you do other stuff.

dinny_g wrote: ↑Mon Jan 27, 2020 1:18 pm How long would take to get, say an inch thick sirloin or Rib eye to cooked - say 50 to 55 degrees - GG ?

DaveE wrote: ↑Mon Jan 27, 2020 1:20 pm

GG. wrote: ↑Mon Jan 27, 2020 12:49 pm Trust me, the results are much much better than you'd get by cooking it the whole way through in the pan. Its perfectly cooked edge to edge and the setup time is literally seconds then it can sit there cooking in the background whilst you do other stuff.

We were given one of these just recently and I would agree that it gives a much more juicy result than pan-frying alone.

A good tip for when you sear them in the pan afterwards is to fill a saucepan with water and use that to press the steaks down into the frying pan - you get a much better sear, more quickly (so it doesn't get chance to cook "into" the steak).

We did a big piece of pork the other week - it looked awful coming out of the sous vide, but after it had been seared it looked (and was) delicious. Nice and pink inside, but thoroughly cooked and really juicy (I always find that pork normally dries out in the oven).

Poached pears are lovely from a sous vide too...

GG. wrote: ↑Mon Jan 27, 2020 1:28 pm

dinny_g wrote: ↑Mon Jan 27, 2020 1:18 pm How long would take to get, say an inch thick sirloin or Rib eye to cooked - say 50 to 55 degrees - GG ?

Minimum time to be fully cooked is 45 mins I believe. 1- 2 hours is ideal and apparently the texture changes somewhat after that point (though you could in theory leave it in there for 24 hours and it won't be any more 'done').