Today I wanted to experiment confit duck legs. The idea came to my mind while reading Casqu8′s blog who cooked some weeks ago a couple of confit duck legs.

I copied Casqu8 recipe consisting in curing the meat with salt, thyme and bay leaf. I vaccum sealed the pouch and stored it in the fridge for 24 hours.

I rinced the legs with clear water and took care taking off the thyme and bay leaves. No need to leave them in the pouch, otherwise the final flavour of these aromats will be too strong!

Then I vaccumed sealed the duck leg with some duck fat (3 tablespoons) I purchased in a supermark (300 gr cost EUR 4).

In my first try I cooked sous vide the duck leg at 80°C during 9 hours with my immersion circulator.

I have not be satisfied with the final result. The confit duck legs were to dry in my opinion. Casque8 recommended me setting my immersion circulator at 75°C instead of 80, raising the cooking time to 20 hours and adding more duck fat (I have added 150 g per leg). The result was much better and I liked that confit duck leg very much.
I also tried 75°C during 24 hours with the same amount of duck fat. I had the feeling the additional 4 hours have not improved the texture of the meat. In my opinion the 20 hours duck legs cooked sous vide were far better.

Don’t forget to sear the legs both sides in a hot pan in order to obtain a crispy appearance, 20 to 30 secondes are enough.

Bon appétit!

Jean-François

I have experimented Baldwin tables for a while now and I have to admit that I have never been sick or disappointed by the degree of doneness according to the temperatures given.

Nevertheless I realized that nobody on the net ever discussed if Baldwin tables are correct or not. Do I have to accept the fact that everybody is assuming these tables are accurate?

This the reason why I decided to purchase an external penetration probe and verify by myself. For those who would like to purchase such equipment I want to say that I made a mistake in my previous post when buying the needle probe from Thermoworks. The one that should be used for sous vide (water proof) is THS-113-181 only (see on the right of the picture). The needle is very thin (1 mm) and long enough to get inside a 7 cm thick beef fillet (incl. the turbigomme foam).

For my first test of Baldwin table I took a cut of salmon, 30 mm thick that I wanted to cook “mi-cuit” at 47°C. Douglas Baldwin table indicates 1 hour and 2 minutes cooking time. As mentioned in Baldwin document I raised the temperature of my immersion circulator of 0.5°C (47.5°C) in order to be sure to reach the target temperature of 47°C.

In order to comply totally with Baldwin table I took care the core temperature of the salmon was 5°C. This step made me realizing that my fridge is definitely not cold enough as the core temperature of my salmon was 10°C before chilling it! As illustrated on the picture I immersed the pouch in iced water for some minutes.

As mentioned above I set my immersion circulator at 47.5°C for 1:02 and noted frequently the data in order to make a graph out it.

And the result is EXCELLENT!

I was very surprised to see how fast the temperature was raising during the first minutes. I was also having some doubts when the countdown of my sous vide equipment was indicating 22 minutes left while the core temperature of the salmon was 36.6°C. The last tenth of degrees take really long to be reached and I now understand why you should set your sous vide appliance 0.5°C above the target temperature…if you don’t it will take ages before you really reach the target temperature.

Jean-François

Today Polyscience made the demonstration that a non stired water bath cannot be as efficient as an immersion circulator. It is funny to see that Polyscience directly mentions Sousvidesupreme in the TAG of the article.

Polyscience video indicates clearely that a non stired water bath has a longer response time to reach the desired core temperature. Therefore, it is obvious that Douglas Baldwin cooking tables sould be used with care. Douglas Baldwin indicates in the Pratical Guide to Sous Vide “With all these digital controllers, I highly recommend setting the temperature offset (measured near the temperature at which you wish to cook) using a high quality digital thermometer. Indeed, at the default settings the thermistors used in the above controllers can easily be off 2–4°F (1–2°C)”.

Freshmealsolutions mentions clearely in the user manual of the SousVideMagic : “If you don’t have a proper food core temperature sensor probe, always cook at desired core temperature settings for the duration as specified by reliable recipes with an additional safety factor of at least 25% longer…”
In addition the manual indicates “The default settings are designed to overshoot 1 or 2 degree higher for safety reasons. You can reduce the overshoot by making your own PID adjustments. See the document “PID Tuning”.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jean-François

• 1 pear
• 30 g chocolate
• 20 g vanilla sugar (vanilla extract plus sugar)

The recipes mentions puting the pear sous vide and immerse the pouch in a water bath set at a temperature of  8O°C  until the pear is “done”.

Their is no mention of the cooking time. I checked several times the pear before it becomes too soft and therefore decided to stop cooking the pear after 30 minutes. I chilled the pear and kept it in the fridge one day before serving it.

The result is a very nicely cooked pear but I can’t say this pear was something special. It was good but nothing amasing. I think the main advantage of this way of cooking pears is the possibility to keep them 15 to 25 days in the fridge (at the condition to keep them in the pouch). This is definitely a very good point for professionnals.

Jean-François

In France, during Christmas time, eating foie gras is very popular. Remember that the sous vide method was developed by Georges Pralus in the 70s  in order to cook foie gras in an optimal way.
For the first time I tried to cook myself a duck foie gras sous vide.
First issue is to choose a good raw foie gras of quality…The South Ouest of France is the region where the foie gras is originally produced. If you choose one of those, there is a small risk to make mistakes.

Then, you must take off the veins of the foie gras (sometimes you can purchase the foie gras without the veins). This is where the problem started…This is not an easy part of work. I looked on internet some videos illustrated the key points and technique to take off veins of a foie gras and then I tried myself. The difficult thing is to find the veins, take them off without destroying the whole structure of the foie gras.

It was very hard to do. On the right you can see the pieces of foie gras containing the veins and on the left the foie gras I almost totally destroyed!

Then I added 13g salt per kilo and 3g of pepper per kilo of foie gras. Some people recommend seasoning the foie gras with Armagnac or Porto. I put no alcohol at all.
Next step is to create a “ballotine”.

The “ballotine” was also not easy to form. I took a food grade plastic wrap, put the foie gras pieces inside and compressed them, first to take off the air but also to create a cylinder. Several plastics wrap pieces were necessary to fulfill this step.

Next step was to vacuum the foie gras in a pouch. I read on internet that the best way to keep a frame while cooking was to use a “shrink” bag. I didn’t have any so I did it with a regular cuisson sous vide bag.

Cooking the foie gras ballotine: my foie gras cylinder was approx. 17 cm long and 6 cm of diameter. The more an ingredient is fat the best it conducts heat. I cooked my ballotine at 58°C during 47 minutes with immersion circulator.
During the cooking process air appeared in the ballotine and my pouche started to float on the surface. I have probably not compressed enough the foie gras and not vacuumed enough the pouch. Therefore I fixed the pouch with a heavy tool down in my cooking pot.

Next step was to chill the ballotine. As you can see I took this task very seriously.

My foie gras became slightly brown and a significant amount of yellow fat appeared on one side of the pouch (unfortunately you can’t see it on the picture). I was surprised to see that by ballotine kept its cylinder frame. My worry was to maintain this frame until the total cool down of the foie gras. For this purpose I took a piece of carton I curved like a half-cylinder and place the ballotine inside. After I left the ballotine in the fridge for a night with the carton, the whole ballotine kept its perfect frame of a cylinder.

The result was really not so bad! With a little bit of fig, the taste was marvelous and the texture fantastic.

In addition, a little bit of Sauterne Château de Rolland (Barsac) 2004…Très, très bon!

Jean-François

Three months ago I tried a soft boiled egg at 63°C during 1 hour. I have admitted that it was not the perfect egg for me and promissed to make another try. This time I cooked an egg 50 minutes at a constant 64.5°C temparature.

And here is the result!

(Soft boiled egg cooked at 64.5°C during 50 minutes)

 The egg at 64.5°C has nothing to do compared to the 63°C one (see the last picture down this post). The appearance of the 64.5°C is better, the white egg is more compact and doesn’t fall down like the 63°C one.

(Soft boiled egg cooked at 64.5°C during 50 minutes)

The yolk is also very different compared to the 63°C one.

(Soft boiled egg cooked at 64.5°C during 50 minutes)

See bellow the picture I made 3 months ago of the 63°C soft boiled egg with the Sousvidemagic and above the 64.5°C egg with the swid of Addélice. This is crazy to see how a difference of only 1.5°C can change so much the texture of an egg.
As I told it before I didn’t really like the 63°C egg but the 64.5°C was fantastic!! Absolutly incredible…I strongly recommend anybody trying it!
I read on internet that such egg was impossible to do without the precision and stability of an immersion circulator. I know understand why. If the temperature variation is equal or higher to 1°C then this can change the final texture of the white egg and yolk. The cool thing is also to be sure to reproduce the same result each time you set your immersion circulator at 64.5°C! I am definitely getting found of this cooking equipment.

(63°C soft boiled egg cooked during 60 minutes)

Jean François

October to April is the scallop season in France. When going on markets you can see very often fishmongers’ stalls full of Coquilles Saint Jacques.  The white flesh of the scallop (the “noix de Saint Jacques”) is very thick and looking beautiful. I purchased 3 noix de Saint Jacques for a very fair price.

I have seen several post on the net with poeple who cooked scallops sous vide at 50°C. I was scarred to get it a little bit overcooked and therefore decided to cook it at 49°C.
I cleaned the scallop, put it in a pouch with salt, pepper and a bit of butter. I left the scallop 40 minutes in the water bath.

As I just wanted to cook one piece of Saint Jacques at 49°C (I have 2 other pieces to make other tries at different temperatures) I thought it was a pity to spoil 8 litres water in a big pot. Therefore I decided to use a small pot that was big enough for the Swid and the tiny scallop pouch I prepared. I was surprised to see the swid was very stable with such few water. After 5 minutes heating the water bath temperature was remaining steadily at 49.0°C!

After 40 minutes cooking I seared the scallop 3 seconds on each side in a hot pan with a bit of butter.
The scallop was perfectly and evenly cooked but, in my opinion, not cooked enough.
Then, I decided to cook the other piece of noix de Saint Jacques at 51°C during 40 minutes. The result was much better. My sister who is a big scallop fan, said it was almost melting in her mouth. She was surprised by the moist texture of the scallop and agreed on the fact it was one of the best scallop she has eaten so far!

Tomorrow I’ll try my last noix de Saint Jacques at 50°C (yes, I know this was the temperature originally recommended by other bloggers!).

Jean-François

Today I woke up and decided to “swid my salmon”!
I purchased 2 pieces of salmon, 20 mm thick, seasoned them with salt, pepper and a little bit of frozen olive oil.
A common problem when cooking salmon, is that the protein albumin leaches out of the fish and coagulates unattractively on the surface. Therefore I brined the salmon 10 minutes in a 10% salted water.

I had look to Douglas Baldwin table about temperatures & times for pasteurized and “mi-cuit” salmon.

Pasteurized salmon (20 mm thick):

55°C         57.5°        60.5C
4:20        1:52            41′

I decided to cook 41 minutes at 60.5°C

Salmon “mi-cuit” (20mm thick):

Very Rare          Rare Medium Rare          Medium Medium Rare
38.5°C                        47°C                                      52°C
26′                               28′                                           28′

The albumin was very present at the surface of the pasteurized salmon. The “mi-cuit” salmon had really less albumin and I could easily take it off before searing it.

(very few albumin appearing on the “mi-cuit” salmon)

I seared the salmon in a pan with a bit of olive oil.
As you can see on the pictures the difference of colour between the pasteurised and the Medium Medium Rare salmon is not obvious.

(left, pasteurized salmon – right, “mi-cuit”)

To sum up I would say the salmon “mi-cuit” 52°C cooked during 28 minutes was definitely the most flavorful. Next time I’ll try both “mi-cuit” 47°C and 52°C during 28 minutes.

Jean-François

Good news for sous vide enthusiast who are not comfortable with the English language. Douglas Baldwin “Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking” has been translated en French and German by Addélice. This guide is therefore available in 4 languages (incl. Portuguese).

We are also waiting for the launch of addélice immersion circulator (the Swid) that should be vailable in some days (addélice postponed several time the launch of the Swid but told me some days ago that it should be available within one week. For the record, the Swid should be at EUR 449 incl VAT and sending costs! 

Jean-François

I was very attracted by the design of the Frisper when I saw it for the first time. The vacuum machine from Oliso is definitely a very cute and compact device.

You know my philosophy now …if I see something new, you have to try it!

First of all lets make a fast comparison between the LAVA 100 vacuum machine I purchased some months ago and the Frisper from Oliso. The LAVA 100 is a powerful appliance with a “safety box” but its price is 3 times the price of the Frisper (EUR 245 to be compared to approx. EUR 80). On the other hand the Frisper is really less powerful than the LAVA 100 and the price of the specific plastic pouches that must be used with it is significantly higher compared to “normal pouches” (without any zip). Pouches can usually be purchased in the range from EUR 0.11 to EUR 0.50 (if purchased in a pack of 50 or 100 pieces). Plastic pouches used with the Frisper can be sold in a pack of 20 bags for a price of approx. EUR 1 per bag. These bags a theoretically re-usable 8 times but this possibility id useless in the frame of sous vide cooking as bags should not be re-used for food safety reasons.

Therefore the main question is “can the Frisper vacuums enough for sous vide cooking purposes”. Please have a look of this previous post illustrating their is no need of a professional vacuum machine to cook sous vide.

I confirm the Frisper is good enough. For my try I took 2 chicken legs (35 mm thick), added a little bit of marinade, vacuumed them with the Frisper and cooked them at 66°C during 75 minutes.

Last time I cooked chicken legs sous vide (30 mm thick) I decided to comply with Douglas Baldwin time and temperature table (64°C during 60 minutes). The result was good but a little bit bloody on some parts. Click here to read the post mentioning that point.

This time I have decided to raise slightly the temperature and the cooking time.

The texture was again very good and the chicken not bloody anymore. Nevertheless the chicken was still a bit too pinkish for my girlfriend taste. I guess next time will be the good one.

In order to compare with the bloody chicken leg I cooked during my first experiment, find bellow a picture.

Jean-François