One word: sous-vide (or 2 words, depending on if you use the hyphen or not)
Say what? Sous-vide – it’s R’s new culinary experiment, and it was a screaming success. He’s been wanting to test out this cooking method for weeks now, and last night was the debut. Basically you vacuum seal food in plastic bags then cook it in a water bath to your desired temperature. I’ve mainly heard him talk about it for steaks, but I’m pretty sure you can cook other foods this way too. (for reference: sous-vide)
He’s spent a lot of time buying parts to make the temperature control for the water, figuring out which vessel would work best to maintain the water temperature once reached with little variation, and finding the right heating element. I was so happy that this worked, because I know how much effort he’s put into it and would have hated to see it fail and ruin the steaks. Yesterday he got a ribeye and NY strip for himself and 2 filets for me, and last night was our first round of steak sous-vide (part 2 coming on Sunday). Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of the setup to show you what this process looks like, but here you can see the amazeballs final result:
The steaks turned out spectacularly! Every single millimeter of meat was done to exactly medium rare – how often does that happen? It was tender, it was juicy, it was like tasting rainbows bite-by-bite. Apparently the magic of this system is that you can cook the steaks hours and hours ahead of time, and the water bath will keep them exactly at the doneness that you want. Then when it’s time to eat, you take them out of their bags, flash sear them on each side, and voila! Soup’s on! For a side he made twice baked potatoes with more of his homemade lardons on top. Yes please, and thank you very much.
And don’t forget the wine. We paired one of our old go-to favorites with this meal, Bogle Cabernet Sauvignon.
I have totally dumbed-down the explanation of this fine art, mainly because I’m dumb and need simple explanations to figure most things out, especially in the kitchen. But that’s the jist of it, and the final products are outstanding. I’m sure R could expound on the intricacies and whys and hows of it for you, but alas, you’re stuck with me. Keep an eye on TinySausage, though – I’m sure this one will make for a new post soon.
And of course, TGIF!!! We’re meeting up with friends for happy hour today at a new bar downtown, and I, for one, am stoked! This has been a week, and mama needs a cocktail. Have a great weekend, and a very Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there!
