yeah, they were doing it wrong
Ah! The royal cheeto skined short fingered vulgarian is on the record about his preferences in steak:
And, like a great deal so many other things, heâs wrong. Empirically speaking.
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Okay, I understand going off on how Americans like their steaks, but correlating that with how they like their burgers is just flawed analysis.
Burgers need to be cooked to a higher doneness than steaks do, because burgers have harmful bacteria all the way through, whereas steaks (assuming theyâre not mechanically tenderized) just have them on the surface.
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Totally agree. I just wanted to make sure to finish the story that you started re: Trump and steaks.
Because.
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Understood. That was just the biggest thing that caught my eye in that article.
I mean, Iâll eat a burger medium rare.
If I sourced and ground the beef (and cooked it) myself.
From a restaurant? At least medium, please. Medium well is better.
Burger =/= steak
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Sous-vide ribs done for 48 hours in vacuum seal bags. No bag taste but the best ribs Iâve ever had at home.
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In the US outside of California, if you have trouble finding Tri-tips, you can ask your butcher for a NAMP 185D cut.
Tri-tip was first popularized at the Schaefer ranch in Santa Maria, and has become central to âSanta Maria-style Barbecue.â
In New York, you may find it labeled âNewport steak.â
Many other countries have other names for similar cuts. Outside of California, many butchers slice it into steaks, grind it into hamburger. But if you give 'em the NAMP number, theyâll know what you want. (Or at least they can look it up).
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I didnât say I could taste the bag, I said the food didnât taste good. Itâs nasty. The texture is gross and usually it smells vaguely nauseating too. The difference between sous vide and good food is like the difference between Wonder Bread ÂŽ and good bread.
That being said, people were doing boil-in-bag vegetables for at least a decade (probably longer) before we found out about endocrine disruption from plasticizers, so I am happy I didnât eat those, either, and I wouldnât be in the least surprised to find that sous vide bags are leaching something we donât know about yet.
Eventually Iâll probably get some horrible brain disease from all that microwave popcorn in the 90s, though⌠so itâs not so much the bag that offends me, itâs the icky tasting food.
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and again, they did it wrong. You donât just sous vide the meat and youâre done. there is further technique to gain proper texture
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âEat, you fool!â or "Eat you, fool!
Commas are important.
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This is a good point, and itâs another reason sous vide burgers might be the best idea ever.
That said, I havenât found a great recipe. Would love some suggestions.
@Medievalist: Maybe youâre a super-taster or something, but personally some of the best meals Iâve had come out of a sous-vide. Iâm on the fence about steak - Iâve had some success, but some have also been decidedly âmeh.â The last steak I cooked (two days ago) I decided not to sous vide, instead opting for just making sure to add some flavored salt about an hour before cooking, and then grilling super hot. It wasnât better than my best sous vide steak, but it was better than my worst. For chicken and pork though, there really isnât anything better than sous vide - chicken legs/thighs at 155 for two hours will make an incredibly tender chicken. Pork tenderloin at 145 for an hour or so, again incredibly good. Because chicken is so important to cook through, and pork is so easy to overcook, I wonât cook either anymore without a sous vide.
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I prefer to leave things up to the reader. Kind of like a âchoose your own adventureâ, but you get to decide whether or not there is cannibalism.
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itâs the same as the steak one i posted, except take the bath temp to 130. also; make those patties 1/2 lb each. if you donât, youâre wasting your time on sous vide. My favorite summer time method is actually the same as the articleâs steak directions. Reverse sear method. cook on cold side to +/- 5f from preferred done temp, then char on each side for about 60-90 seconds, then rest.
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My problem with the burgers Iâve tried is that they donât hold together well. Mouth feel is a little weird. Also, they get all sqiushed in the vide. Any solutions to those problems? Iâd love to perfect this before next MondayâŚ
Instead of learning to remediate nasty texture and off smells, Iâd rather use a cooking technique that doesnât cause such problems to start with. Why spend spend a lot of time trying to recreate flavor and texture I can get easily with far simpler equipment?
For me, sous vide seems like more work and more time and more fuel and more tools and more waste for less tasty food. Personally, I donât want to trap stuff in the meat that would normally be burned off; I think creating and releasing volatile fractions is part of cooking it right. I like it when fat drips down on to the grill and catches fire, and I donât really care that smoked food is slightly carcinogenic.
The whole sous vide thing kind of reminds me of how certain rich people of my acquaintance will go to great effort and expense to obtain meat that has the consistency of toothpaste and then rave about how tender it is. Yes, itâs as tender as can be, it literally does melt in the mouth, but that makes me want to gag. I glad they can afford the things they enjoy, but I donât want steak-flavored toothpaste, I want a steak that has layers of complexity in both flavor and texture. It should have tougher parts and tenderer parts, and the outside should taste very difference from the inside.
But obviously taste is personal. 
I donât like food cooked in plastic bags, and I can get food I like better with less work, less expense and less waste.
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That does sound like something that one would make for dogs rather than a gourmet item.
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Only time Iâve had an issue with off smells in sous-vide cooking was when I tried an ill-advised experiment including mushrooms with what was cooking. Didnât come out too good, and I havenât yet tried to figure out what went wrong. No idea what could cause what youâre talking about, though.
As for texture, thatâs usually a case of either cooking for too long, or not finishing the food properly afterwards. Cooking too long can be remedied by looking at different tables, and finishing afterwards is often just a matter of doing the same thing youâd normally do to cook the food but hotter and for a much shorter time.
Yeah, my sous-vide steaks fit that description just fine. So do those at the restaurants that use the method, generallyâŚ
Though, for me the biggest advantage of sous-vide is that I can take something like ribs or other things that would normally take a long time to cook other ways, put them in before leaving for work, and then just take a few minutes to properly finish them once I get home. Canât exactly do that with any other methods.
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Okay, so you donât like sous-vide cooking, thanks for weighing in. Sorry you didnât get to taste the work of a skilled practitioner.
I do my sous-vide cooking with a $30 PID controller unit and a cheap eBay Crockpot with an analog heating element and my dinner guests keep coming back for more, so your implication that the technique is for frivolous rich people is kinda ridiculous.
And if youâre grilling with charcoal, it seems a little disingenuous to get all high-horsey about the âextra energyâ (about 40 cents of electricity for a 3 hour cook, I reckon) sous-vide requires.
As for âtimeâ, I can have cocktails with my guests while dinner is in the cooker, and then spend all of 2 minutes searing the meat before plating.
In other words: you really donât know what youâre talking about.
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