sous vide question

Hi there,

I made a parrot fish last week using sous vide and cooked it for temp 140 F and it was so tender and delicious ( cooking time was around 90 minutes). this week I did the same however the fish came very tough and not as good as the last week one. Any thought what might have happened ?

Find more posts tagged with

Everything Else

Comments

davidattala

I can't speak to why it became tough, that would be a new one for me. What I will say is that 140F and 90mins cook time both seem a fair bit higher than I would go with most fish. I would think you'd get a more pleasant result in the 110-120F range, even lower if "just cooked" fish is acceptable to you. Considering that fish protein is not as forgiving as animal protein, I would lower your cook time to 15-25 mins...a lot longer and the flesh will tend to become mushy. Finally, a light cure before cooking could help the overall texture. I would suggest brining your filets for 10-20 mins in a 10%salt solution or just simply coating the flesh of the skin with coarse salt and/or herbs for 10 mins, rinse and then bag. Hope that helps.

Samuel_68313

I agree that that temp and time seems far far too high/long.

All you can really do when something like that happens is search for variables. Was the fish the same size, did you do anything at all different either time (salt, spices, etc.), was the fish as fresh, was it sealed the same way?

If all these things are the same then it was probably human error, maybe you set the bath the wrong temp, or some water leaked in and it basically poached, etc.