Crusty exterior

I want to make the Halibut and Thai Green Curry. It says I will have a crusty exterior.

The halibut takes on a nice, crusty exterior, with an incredible, fudgy interior, kind of like the seared ahi tuna you eat at Japanese restaurants.

No where in the recipe does it say how I get this exterior. Also, in this recipe, it says:

...we intentionally cook the fish above the targeted core temperature, for a shorter amount of time

If I am working with a 375 g piece of fish, as opposed to the 750g called for in the recipe, can I assume it will get to where it needs to be in half the time?

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brian_martin2001

"The halibut takes on a nice, crusty exterior, with an incredible, fudgy interior, kind of like the seared ahi tuna you eat at Japanese restaurants. To accomplish this, we cook it sous vide—but with a twist. Here, we intentionally cook the fish above the targeted core temperature, for a shorter amount of time. The exterior of the fish cooks completely, while the inside remains soft and lush. It all adds up to a killer eating experience, one your family will request over and over."

The following sentence is the explanation of how they achieve this. Not exactly what you'd expect, but as I've never tried it, I cannot personally vouch for this method, but they've never let us down before.

"If I am working with a 375 g piece of fish, as opposed to the 750 g called for in the recipe, can I assume it will get to where it needs to be in half the time?"

Unfortunately this doesn't always work out as well as you might think. Water bath cooking times are often calculated with the thickness rather than the mass. As they do not specify how thick their piece is, you might have better luck using a temperature probe in the meat, using water displacement and just clipping the back onto the side of the bath, rather than vacuum sealing.

I hope that helps somewhat. Good luck.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

NOTE: Remember, we’re cooking above core temperature here. (If you don’t remember, go back and read that nice intro we wrote for you at the top of the page.) The internal temperature of the fish will reach about 118 °F / 48 °C in this amount of time, and you’ll wind up with steaks with a perfectly cooked surface plus amazing, fudgy insides. Be sure to remove fish from the bath after 45 minutes, however. You can’t let it sit in there like you can when cooking to—rather than above—that core internal temperature.

In simple terms, if you have less volume of fish, yes - it takes less time, divided in half, probably not.
Ideally you have a thermocouple for this. (@Brian, this goes back to cooking from frozen too

) - If you don't chill and "finish" the steak, I think "crusty" here means slightly drier and not sushi like, an interior that is super juicy and all good and tasty, you can do the same with crustaceans and larger firm cuts of fish that doesn't flake that easy, if it flakes, push it out with a spoon and pretend you wanted it to do that....

fisher23

Probably it's going to be closer to 3/4 of the time rather than half. But the only way to be sure is the use a thermocouple or at least a thermometer as both Johan and brian have said. Sous vide doesn't enable you to just cut the time in half with half the quantity of product. There is a mathematical formula to figure it out to be closer you can find the formula in Douglas Baldwin's book, SOUS VIDE FOR THE HOME COOK. Albeit he adds the caviot "But unless you're buying sushi-grade fish that's impeccably fresh, you'll need to cook the fish to 130° F (55° C), or higher until you have reduced any harmful food pathogens or parasites to a safe level" (Douglas Bladwin, (2013), page 15).

fisher23

Hi Bobby, I am running a test for you right now. I have a fillet 372 gms and I am putting my thermocouple in it cooking at 140°F. I will let you know how long it cooks to reach 118°F internal temperature.

fisher23

27 Minutes at 140 F was perfect for my halibut fillet weighing 372 grams.

micah_625920

Could som one share the recipe with me? I don’t want to spend $40 just to see it which I need to do if I decide before I want to make it

brian_martin2001

Sorry, but all information that ChefSteps puts out is copyrighted. If it's available free (not premium) it's usually alright to share the recipe, so long as credit is given. However, with the premium recipes, that's just like making photocopies of books that have been purchased and passing them around. You can check out all the specifics here, but I would tend to doubt that there's anyone on this website who is going to get involved in a legal dispute with ChefSteps over copyright infringement.