Sous Vide Cooking

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”.”

Jean-François

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Last time I cooked salmon sous vide I tried two different temperatures and cooking times, one to pasteurize the fish and one to cook a “mi-cuit” salmon. Baldwin guide mentions different tables for pasteurized fish. One for lean and one for fatty fish. Even though I knew salmon was a fatty fish I suddenly asked myself if a Bream or a Halibut were a lean or a fatty fish. I searched on internet and found interesting to share this information with you.

Low Fat Fish

Middle Fat Fish & Shell Fish

Fatty Fish

Jean-François

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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

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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

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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

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