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I cooked a non-sous-vide meal and survived!

Brendan_Lee_56950

I made an entirely common, non-precise, non-SV meal last night and it actually felt kind of weird haha. I kind of forced myself to be inexact and not measure anything, eyeball things, and I found that it was quite difficult since really diving into the tenets of SV and modernist cooking techniques.

Anyone else experience anything like that? I kept thinking to myself while eating how I could have done this differently and been more precise (not that this is much different from how I think normally).

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seijoed

@Jack it is one of the first things I hunt down when in the UK, then a greasy Kebab

Jack_Mayer_85396

Dang @Johan, I love fish 'n chips and that looks outstanding! And I have a buddy whose email address is "fishnchips333" $30/lb for crab legs! yikes, sometimes I get them at Costco.

seijoed

I've only seen them on TV, I can only imagine.

Brendan_Lee_56950

I saw one live once. All alone inside a huge fish tank in the chinese grocery story in Calgary when I was home visiting my folks one winter. It was massive and I really felt kinda bad for it. I doubt anyone was ever going to buy it and it was pretty much filling up the entire tank without much room to move at all.

seijoed

I like pub grub, it is one of those tasty things that are easy to do, did get shell-shocked though at the store... $29.99 for king crab legs...

Mason_Perry_34060

Nice sounds good

seijoed

Yeah

Pacific cod, cornstarch dredge with S&P.

Batter, bloomed yeast, flour, seltzer , paprika, old bay, colemans mustard, S&P, cayenne.

Sauce - cornichon, lemon, oil, sour cream, mayo, S&P, green onions.

Steak fries, S&P, oregano.

Mason_Perry_34060

Cod?

seijoed

Hah! I didn't even fill up a bath last night.

Fish n' chips!

seijoed

@Susan - you are welcome - I was pondering this a bit more, my dad got his VacStar unit two years ago, for some reason it became a special occasion item for him, I think I changed that this last christmas in showing him how to cook pretty much anything with it, simpler, more exact and better.

Using it as an advanced micro/coffee machine with a timer is another way I see it taking over the average household - you just set the timer for say 55C and start at 5PM, if you are home at 6PM or 7PM won't much matter, you'll still have a perfect steak at that point in time.

Jack_Mayer_85396

dead on @Johan!

susan_fox_33805

@Johan THANK YOU. Eloquently put. It almost reads as poetry ;-)

Mason_Perry_34060

@Johan that should definitely be a sticky sir, well done.

Brendan_Lee_56950

Amen, brother @johan!

seijoed

Well, it is both -

It is precise in that you cannot overcook,

it is forgiving in that you don't have to worry that much about timing.

It is also great since you can cook from frozen, you can cook and re-heat, you can hold.

You can perfectly cook large volumes.

It saves time - since you don't worry about cooking time, need 30 more minutes, sure - you can focus on everything else on the plate.

You get new and I think better textures on veg.

You can do traditional custard more easily, fish is fantastic.

Not to mention it isn't a holy grail, nothing stops you from combining this with other techniques - thus a recipe like the tonkatsu (Well, technique) - it is perfectly tender and perfect pork - no need to bang it out flat for cooking, you get less greasy food and so on.

susan_fox_33805

Confess I still have vertigo about sous vide. I understand the precision to a point - and this may be because I'm very new to the process and modernist cuisine - but low and slow SV seems to be far more forgiving than conventional cooking. I think this concept will be the biggest hurdle for the masses. I'm a total newbie. SV precise or forgiving? In what ways?

seijoed

Yep!

Jack_Mayer_85396

@Johan, I've shared the tonkatsu post with a bunch of friends ... Definitely gonna have that soon! So the method is, season, cook SV, bread, quick fry?

seijoed

http://forum.chefsteps.com/discussion/256/cryofried-tonkatsu/p1

seijoed

@Brendan posted the chicken, I posted a tonkatsu a few days ago.

Jack_Mayer_85396

@Johan, I've been wondering about that. Like the post on fried chicken here (was that you @Brendan?) I'll have to give that a try. I assume that you bread post-SV and then use the fry step in lieu of the post sear? Thicker might be more interesting from a textual angle and then quicker fry for crust/color ... Time to experiment! Just that I've been doing it the old fashioned way for 30+ years

seijoed

I do things like schnitzel and tonkatsu sous-vide, just a little thicker and then much quicker fry on the coating, much better :P

Jack_Mayer_85396

You guys kill me! I do a lot of non-SV cooking too. Made a wiener schnitzel with a spinach salad and warm bacon vinaigrette over it last night and loved it! Also did spaghetti and meatballs, tossed salad and garlic toast the other day. I love the precision (is that right or am I meaning accuracy?) of SV and will continue to use it often, probably even more because of this site and the course and the people here. Am headed to visit my elderly father soon and I'm gonna treat him to that awesome ribeye roast and potato pave dinner! Maybe with a horseradish foam (looking for any and all excuses to try out my new toy!)

Mason_Perry_34060

Haha epic

Brendan_Lee_56950

Yeah that's exactly how I felt. I felt kind of bored actually, like shouldn't I be working out some calculations of some sort. I love the idea of sitting something in a bath and timing it by how many episodes of tosh.o I can watch

Mason_Perry_34060

I made regular old spaghetti last week just eyeballed everything turned out fine but seemed too simple lol I felt like I spent a lot of time just standing there waiting...

Brendan_Lee_56950

You lost me at bacon jalepeno popper.

Shannon_Barnes_68642

I did the same thing for Superbowl Sunday; I made an array of fried things, like garlic and cheese wontons with marina sauce; mini bacon and jalepeno popper egg rolls with a spicy apricot dipping sauce; onion rings, caribbean hot wings, coconut shrimp... I didn't measure anything, I just guessed. And everything turned out awesome. I think the MC tenets most certainly apply to MC recipes, but there is also a lot of flexibility in cooking everyday stuff that doesn't require that amount of exactness. Otherwise a lot of people would be really bad cooks! And we wouldn't have the amount of variances we do in standard foods, where home cooks add their own touches.