Sous Vide to rare?

I worked in a restaurant where the sous vide all the proteins to rare so the pick up would be faster. Has anyone heard of, or practice this? If so I would like some clarification on why this would be the way to go.

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Chris_Young_80640

Let me ask a clarifying question that is key: Are you saying they hold the proteins at a rare temperature during service so the pick up is faster? Or are you saying they precook to rare, chill, and then reheat on pick up?

Chris

trev_teich

They would re-cooks and chill.

trev_teich

Sorry they would precook to rare, chill, then reheat at service.

Chris_Young_80640

Okay. In general I cannot recommend this practice for a few reasons:

(1) First and foremost, it doesn't speed the cooking process. It takes just as long to reheat something to a particular core temperature as it did to heat it to that core temperature in the first place. A caveat here, if your cooking process requires a holding time at a particular core temperature to achieve pasteurization or to tenderize the food, then precooking and reheating is a useful strategy. But I don't believe that is what you are asking about.

The physics of heating time for anything is governed by the size (length, width, height) and shape of the food (flat plate, cylinder, sphere, whatever), what it's made from (metal, wood, muscle, etc), the starting temperature, and the desired final temperature. That's it. Precooking and then chilling a steak pretty much puts you right back to where you started, refrigerator temperature. So it takes just as long to reheat.*

People are always skeptical of this, but it is easily tested with a decent thermometer. So it's worth trying.

(2) This has some food safety implications—and may even be illegal. Cooking to rare temperature is not hot enough to destroy harmful bacteria. If you cook and serve the food promptly from raw, then the risk is minimal and no different than serving a rare steak cooked conventionally. But if you cook and chill the food, you are allowing time for harmful bacteria to proliferate. In the USA, you are only allowed to cook, chill, and then reheat food if you pasteurize the food during the cooking process. This involves temperature and holding time and combinations above 52 °C / 125 °F.

(3) Please don't advocate this approach in your restaurant. Health inspectors will not like this and it only serves to continue to make sous vide cooking in restaurants a controversial cooking technique.

* If someone wants to be really picky, precooking food can slightly shrink the dimensions of the food and get rid of some water, so reheating a precooked rare steak can be about 1% faster to reheat in tests I've run in the past.

Chris

trev_teich

Thanks I thought this did not make anything faster. I always thought it was just wasted time that we don't have. As far as safety goes, what is the proper safety for placing food in a sous vide bad? I was told years ago by a chef instructor that we have to use gloves if we are pre seasoning, or adding anything to the bag because cooking in an anaerobic environment without using gloves whist putting food into the bag will ensure bacteria thrives and not might but will get someone sick. I have the modernist and have read it three times. I could not find a direct answer. Maybe I need glasses and less run on sentences.

Chris_Young_80640

I'm actually writing a lecture on this right now. So look for a more detailed—and more carefully worded—answer soon. But basically, for any kind of cooking you should be considerate that every time you handle the food you are going to spread some bacteria. The world is covered in bacteria. And all too often, our gloves are just as dirty as our hands (how often are you washing you're gloved hands in the kitchen).

The basic idea is to realize that bacteria are present and therefore you should cook things appropriately so that they don't have time to grow in number to dangerous levels. This generally means carefully handling ingredients, cooking them and serving them promptly if you are going to cook at temperatures between 5 ° C / 41 °F to 54 °C / 130 °F. And if you're cooking above 54 °C / 130 °F using reasonable holding times to kill bacteria or recognizing that you are serving food that is no different than other rare or minimally cooked food—and therefore has some risk associated with eating it.

Also, bacteria are generally on the surface of things, so searing before and/or after cooking will help to increase the safety of your food.

There are deep misconceptions—even among health inspectors—about the safety of sous vide. Everyone is very concerned about the anaerobic cooking environment and scared of the dangerous pathogenic bateria listeria and botulinum. It turns out these are unlikely to be present or to grow to dangerous levels if you cook and serve food promptly (within four hours).

So here are my simple rules to practice safe sous vide:

(1) Keep ingredients, sous vide or otherwise refrigerated at temperatures below 5 °C / 41 °F (and 2 °C / 36 °F is even better).

(2) If cooking below 54 °C / 130 °F you must cook and serve food within four hours by FDA rules and precooking and chilling is strictly prohibited (other countries are different, and in the USA you must file a HACCP plan with your local heath agency to be governed by the FDA rules).

(3) Food cooked below 54 °C / 130 °F should be considered rare and minimally cooked, meaning it has some risk associated with eating it (you may need to note this on your menu).

(4) Above 54 °C / 130 °F you must hold the food at that core temperature for long enough to pasteurize the food if you want to chill it and reheat it later. If you don't hold it for long enough, you should treat it as rare or minimally cooked as described above.

Here are some holding time and temperature combinations that will achieve the required FDA pasteurization level (a 6.5D reduction for salmonella, which is particularly difficult to kill):

54 °C / 130.0 °F requires holding the food at that core temperature for 1 h 54 m

56 °C / 132.8 °F 1 h

58 °C / 136.4 *F 27 m

60 °C / 140.0 °F 12 m

62 °C / 143.6 °F 5 m

64 °C / 147.2 °F 2 m

66 °C / 150.8 °F 58 s

Note, this requires that every part of the food first reach the holding temperature, then you get to start the clock.

Another note for the pastry folks: If you need to pasteurize dairy (like an ice cream base) then you must do it above 65 °C / 149 °F for at least 30 minutes in the USA because the pathogenic bacteria of concern to the FDA is called Coxiella burnetti and it is more difficult to destroy.

Chris

trev_teich

Thank you for taking the time to give me the real rundown. There is a lot of misinformation going around in kitchens these days in regards to modern cooking techniques, heh, and classic cooking as well.

Chris_Young_80640

Happy to help. It's worth spreading the word, a few bad kitchens can ruin it for everyone.

Chris

Brian_67134

Chris,

Thank you for this explanation.

Does the 104 degree Salmon meet the requirements that you have outlined (Rule # 2) since the fish is cooked below 130 F and then chilled for at least 6 hours before serving?

Thanks,

Brian

Chris_Young_80640

@Brian This turns out to be a bit more complex because of the added salt, which in combination with heat, help reduce the potential for bacterial growth. In tests run on our salmon 104 °F dish, there was no bacterial spoilage after even several weeks of refrigerated storage. But if you were to put this on a menu, you might need to indicate that this is a raw, or partly cooked product.

What science supports and what the law supports are not always the same.

jwrupple

Chris,

In the latest version of Salmon 104 you say that its good for 5 days which is contrary to the comment on January 2013. Now I'm confused.

Jim

Matthew_Snyder_68770

The '104 recipe says "the combination of low-temperature cooking, mild curing with salt, and oxygen-free packaging keeps our salmon mi-cuit fresh for 10 days or more". And, to paraphrase Chris' January comments, I imagine what they do in the lab and what they recommend to the public are not always the same thing.

FWIW, the longest I've ever kept salmon mi-cuit is about three days. But that's because I eat it all.

Leonard_13847

@Chris Young

Very interesting, indeed! What type of strength does the brine need to be to suppress bacterial growth in fish cook at a low temperature? And how long does it need to immersed in the brine?

It would be great to find a method to preserve fish cook sous vide at a low temperature and be able to store it at below 2C for a few weeks.

And what if I just pre-sear the fish?
Or hold vacuum packed fish a minute or two 80C water?

jwrupple

Just to Clarify, I was preparing for a large dinner party and held the mi-cuit in the fridge after the sou vide and in the vacuum pack for 7 days and found it to be very good. In this way I got one of the small plates ready well in advance with no appreciable drop-off in taste.