Sous Vide Beef Rib Roast

Everyone loves a roast, right?

Well not everyone, but those of us who do, want to enjoy the cooking of it as much as the eating of it and when we've shelled out a huge chunk of change for a huge chunk of meat the last thing we want to do is worry about over or under cooking it.

So last night I had a go with a big chunk of meat in the Sous Vide bath.

The theory behind cooking in a vacuum bath at a low temperature is that the piece of meat cannot be overcooked. The core temperature of "rare" beef is 54C so if the meat never goes above that temperature it will always be perfectly "rare" when served. It will also lose far less moisture than traditional roasting and will therefore be that much juicier.

The catch here is that it wont have the beautiful, caramelised exterior of a traditional roast (the Maillard reaction) so after removal from the water bath the meat requires a quick browning in a very hot pan on the stove top and then can be seasoned and rested briefly.

The other consideration is the thickness of the meat - we want the core to get to 54C so we can refer to any number of handy charts online to help us figure out how long it will need to cook for the core temperature to reach that number. By the way - so long as the meat is in long enough to reach the core temperature it can stay in the water bath for longer (much longer) without overcooking.

My cut of choice was a beef rib roast - around 1.5kg but the important number is it's thickness - in this case 70mm. That equates to a minimum of 3.5 hours in the water bath at 54C to be cooked "rare".

Vacuum bag the joint and immerse in the water bath

Remove after the required time
Not looking so appetising - yet!

Remove the cooked joint from the bag
and dry it ready for caramelising

Sear quickly in a lightly oiled pan

Brown on all sides then remove, season
and rest briefly before carving.

The moment of truth!
Perfectly cooked.

Sous Vide Skate Wings

First post here is going to be fairly detailed look at an interesting approach to cooking skate wings.

Skate wings are underrated as a culinary fish and therefore very reasonably priced - usually about $6 a kilo and not much wastage when cleaned.

The technique I'm using here involves forming the skate meat into a thick piece by sous videing the flesh and then pressing it in the refrigerator for a few hours allowing the natural collagens in the fish to bind the separate fillets together.

For the Sous Vide bath I'm using a Sunbeam Duos Sous Vide which is like a Breville Sous Vide Supreme but more affordable. Mine cost $170 new and is excellent for home sous vide experiments where a commercial immersion heater, Nomiku or other solutions are unaffordable or impractical.

Sous Vide Skate Wings

First remove the upper and lower fillets from a good size piece of wing.

The piece used here is about 1kg.

The skate consists of a thick and thin fillet on either side of a thin layer of cartilage.

Remove the larger fillet by running your knife along the cartilage

Turn the wing over and remove the thinner fillet

With the two fillets removed you can now get rid of the thin flexible layer of cartilage.

Reverse the thin piece and lay it on top of the thick piece

Cut the whole lot in half and place the halves together

The aim is to create a single piece of flesh of even thickness

Vacuum seal in a bag.

Place into the water bath - this piece was in for about 45 mins at 56 C.

Remove from the bath and then press in the refrigerator under a heavyish weight for a few hours.

After pressing unbag and rinse then pat dry.

The natural collagens in the fish will have bound the layers together.

Trim and divide into portions. The four here are approx 150g each.

Pan fry in butter quickly for colour and then warm through in a low oven.

Finished and served with a nice beurre blanc. 

I'll be posting some more of my sous vide experiments using the Sunbeam Duos shortly so check back now and again.

Hope you found this interesting.

While cooking this: "Descending Moonshine Dervishes" - Terry Riley

While eating this: "Denizens of the Deep" - Ferrante & Teicher