Go to the Recipe: Simple Sous Vide Steak With Red Wine Sauce
So your pre searing and then again searing after sous vide. Very interesting.
what can i use in place of the butter? will margarine work?
Beautiful. And so damn easy too!
Pre-searing helps initiate the Maillard reaction, so that when the steak goes into the sous vide bag, it cooks together with all of the flavorful compounds created by searing. The post-sear is to develop a nice crust, and a beautiful brown layer that's gorgeous to serve. (I also love the way the post-sear makes my kitchen smell right before dinner time.) Do you like to do it differently?
Skipping the butter is skipping the flavour. Might as well just use canola oil then. Neither will work well in making the sauce.
Pre-searing attends to any food safety concerns (kills surface bacteria, which is where 99.9% of the baddies are going to be, anyway, presuming an undiseased animal) and also kickstarts the Maillard reactions that will develop flavor as the steak cooks through in the bath. Post-searing refreshes the crust to enhance the textural difference between the outside and inside of the steak. I'm sure there are other reasons, but those are the ones I know.
I just wept a little.
In the sauce? Bone barrow.
In the bag? Don't use anything, or you could use oil, but I almost always use nothing.
If you have access to a vacuum packer, what % vacuum do you suggest? e.g. 95%? I ask because I think I have read that using a vacuum packer can "boil" off moisture potentially drying meat. It would seem to me that this would be trivial, but did want to ask.
Any estimates on the pre-searing and post searing times per side?
In my experience, chicken and fish are much more affected by high vacuum levels. Some people say that they see a slight texture degradation when you draw a high vacuum. Not my personal opinion tho. If you are using any liquid like in this recipe usually a good idea to pull a lighter vacuum. Makes your life easier. Hope I answered your question.
Have you guys not gotten in your Searzall yet? I was surprised you didn't torch the steaks for their first searing.
"Cook for one hour, checking the thermometer every once in a while to make sure the temperature stays at 135 °F / 57 °C."
Oh. Then I don't need any tools to do sous vide? Just drop some steaks in a Zip-Loc and magically ensure my water stays at 135 F?
I Sous Vide Beef Filet medallions @ 110° for 2 hours, Brush with clarified.Season with Morton's, Not Red Diamond, too fine for my likening as it feels like sand and melts. Bought a case once as an experiment for staff, boycott ensued and it ended up in brines and foie torchons. Also butcher blend Black Pepper. Place 20 each on sheet tray, 3 trays max,and roast in 475° oven for 6 min.
Caul wrapped baby Axis Venison leg,natural redux,port,girottine cherry veal glace,hassleback baby Yukon, Korean Sweet potato alumette. Sous vide @ 110°,pan sear,meat naturally so tender it could be cut with a plastic spoon, even the Raw shank meat is tender,not chewy after a quick sear.
Eminim o görünüşü çok güzel tadı iyi iş tebrikler var
I'm sure it's appearance is very nice taste good work congratulations
Correct!
What they don't actually mention here, is that to ensure the temperature stability; You're best bet is to transfer the big pot of water to a small dimmed fire for the rest of the cooking time.
Throw in a few ice cubes and stir them in if things start heating up beyond control (i.e.: more than ~3ºC)
My goodness. Boiling a butter sauce? Is that correct, or would you finish the reduction by mounting some butter?
But isn't the steak cold when you prepare the sauce? Or how do you prevent it from not loosing temperature without loosing that nice crust?
Jinx
I think they're shooting for a "look, anyone can do sous vide, no fancy setup needed!" target here, hence the emphasis on the stovetop method for sous vide. Requiring special equipment like the Searzall would run counter to that.
I'm not a fan of cooking most steaks sous-vide, especially these fresh USDA Prime or very near Prime strip steaks. Bagging the meat creates a moist environment and doesn't allow the evaporation and cartelization that dry heat does. If you don't have access to a outdoor charcoal or gas grill, simply cook them in a hot pan like in this video. On the plus side it's nice to get the purged liquids from the bag to use as a base for a simple pan sauce.
Searzall sounds like a good gadget, but they're not actually available. Their website says "Booker and Dax is currently filling Kickstarter and Shopstarter pre-orders, but the Searzall will soon be available for purchase on Amazon.com." No indication of what "soon" means. It doesn't make sense for ChefSteps to test now.
For the pre-sear it's about 60-90 seconds. Post seat should be much quicker 15-20 seconds should be sufficient.
Great job ChefSteps guys.Thank you all for creating and supporting this site.
hmm, bone marrow, that sounds like it could work. would add both flavor and texture. i would use evoo, but i dont think it would give the same textural benefits.
For the sauce, a traditional way to finish and thicken it is to use bone marrow, such as in a bordelaise.
looks great... just wondering what happened to pan searing your meat. It's a critical step to develop your flavor and pan sauce.
Hello, I'd like to add a few tips here:
I hope this helps
Im a bit confused, here you say 1 hour sous vide, in the sous vide steak post: http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sous-vide-steak i read 2 hours and in the latest sous vide guide i read 1:30 hour ?? What to use.
Keep up the good work :-)
Tend to agree with Jack. In double blind tasting, we couldn't tell the difference in fish or chicken breast. If you are going to vacuum package, I would suggest at least 95% so you don't end up with a bunch of floating bags.
Ole, the time and temp guide gives a range from 45 minutes to 3 hours in the bath. Our Sous Vide Steak recipe is for a rare steak at 54. This is a simple method for making a medium rare-ish steak. I did this recipe last week but went with 58 for 1 hour. It was fantastic.
I would think that you want the steak as cold as possible for the presear, not room temperature. This would limit the 'over cooking/gray' zone on the steak, something about heat transfer rates and temperature gradients. The more water in the bath (thermal mass) is what attenuated temperature variation.
Okay, i Think i will try 58 to.
Thanks
If you do a post-sear, the meat will still be nice and warm by the time you're finished making the sauce, and then the hot sauce poured on top of the steak will heat it up even a bit more. At restaurants, your steak usually rests for a few minutes (on the butcher block, and then on your plate), before they serve it to you. As long as you don't wait TOO long, a little resting is good, and you likely won't have a cold steak.
I disagree, the meat should be very cold before the pre-sear, in fact I personally stick the meat in the freezer for 30 mins before I pre-sear. The reason is simple, you want to avoid cooking the meat during the presear, my recommendation mimics the use of Liquid Nitrogen discussed in Modernist Cuisine for pre-searing. The meat will be placed on a cold plate after the sear is done, and in fact it can even go back into the refrigerator to be stored until it is time to cook sous vide.
Thanks for pointing that out I meant to say after you pre-sear the meat, not before, I'll edit. I do agree that meat should be cold when pre-searing to minimize the gray layer
Thanks for pointing that out, I meant to say after you pre-sear the meat, not before, I'll edit. I do agree that meat should be cold when pre-searing to minimize the gray layer
Thanks for pointing that out, I meant to say after you pre-sear the meat, not before, I'll edit.
Why did you opt to add oil to the pan for the sear step as opposed to just oiling the meat as explained in the Tender Cuts class?
Did my first Sous Vide tonight following this recipe using rib eyes. I used a cooler and water straight from the tap. The original temp was 147 so threw in a few ice cubes and dropped it to 135. After adding the steaks, I checked temp 20 minutes later and it had dropped to 131. Added another pitcher of hot water and it came right back up and stayed that way for the remainder of the hour. Awesome steak & the red wine sauce was the perfect compliment. Thanks for the great video and instructions!
About how long will it take for the wine to reduce and somewhat thicken?
Forgetting to check my temperature, I let it reach 72ºC =(
(probably 10min to reach that temperature)
My steak wasn't too read, more light brown than red inside.
And wasn't too tender.
MY QUESTION: those minutes made a lot of diference? or maybe not?
I noticed that the cut I used (from brazil, cuts are very different) when ready to cut, the fibers were perpendicular to the cutting table, so in any direction I would but with the fibers, not against it.
That was probably the worst error: I should had managed to cut in angle or cut a big chunk, rotate it 90º and cut against fibers...
OTHER QUESTION: took a lot to reduce the wine for me... and the meat wasn't too hot when I finished... any tips?
And what about the acidity of the sauce? Mine was a little acid, I liked it. But is really like that? First time I deal with wine reductions...
Any thoughts?
Thanks!
(know that is not this recipe, but the smashed potatoes with the wine sauce was delicious, even without the most tender meat...)
We just got an Anova circulator and tried this recipe out last night to break it in. It was amazing. I am a crazy person so I made a video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsvls0M8AZw
I should have trimmed the steaks, put too much oil in the pan because bad reading comprehension (which kind of ruined the sauce), and our steaks were not quite 2" thick so they probably could have come out sooner.
loved the video and that looks gorgeous
which cut of steak did you guys use in the video?
In general why do you need to add butter or canola oil when cooking meats sous vide in a bag? I understand butter may give the meat more flavor, but what about neutral flavored oil? Does adding oil or butter help keep the "juices" in the meat? Has this been scientifically tested?
Amazing! check it out @Kristina
@Rick Wallace
@Tim Salazar nice!
How do you keep the water from getting hotter?
First sous vide dinner tonight and I'm impressed!! I used a Sansaire Immersion Circulator and a 6 quart stainless steel stock pot to cook one strip steak. The equipment was pretty foolproof, maintained the temperature accurately. I definitely need to use a larger pot for larger portions. The steak (2 inches) was perfectly medium rare. Question, though: is there a reason why the steak isn't seasoned with salt and pepper before the pre-sear? Unless I missed something in the recipe and instructional video, this is not done until the post-sear. And on the post-sear, I wasn't too crazy about the salt on the second side being visible and quite toothsome. Maybe I just need to flip it a couple times to slough off the crystals. I appreciate ample seasoning, but I don't like salt being the first thing I taste when biting into my steak. Great sauce, too. Couple more tries and I should have it perfected. Oh!! And thank you @fedesol and others for the tips on chilling the steak before immersing into the water bath. Helped tremendously!!!
Salting before cooking sous vide can cause the meat to change texture, sometimes unpleasantly
I think it is just to stop the meat sticking in the bag, to stop the meat getting squashed into the corners of the bag and deforming and also to help with heat transfer
Thanks! I now have a lot of respect for the folks that film these. Hard to cook and film at the same time, especially when the smoke alarm is going bonkers when I was searing.
@Matt Patton! Your video, this plating, the shot itself was all so, so great to see! Thank you for sharing. I'm one of the videographers here, so let me know if you ever have any questions—I'm here to help (although can't help with the smoke alarm situation). Looking forward to more from you!!!
So we just tried this recipe again and we keep having the same issue with the wine sauce. All the butter/oil separates almost immediately after we strain it. Even when I whisked to try to emulsify it, the sauce separates again fairly quickly leaving it looking like the sauce in the photo above. An oily mess. For my next go at this I think it needs some flour. Do you guys have any suggestions? Am I missing something?
@Matt Patton Great video. I love crazy
You need to use a gadget like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Anova-Sous-Vide-Immersion-Circulator/dp/B00GT753W8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419712670&sr=8-1&keywords=anova+sous+vide+immersion+circulator
Just made this tonight, and it was so effing delicious!
My wife and I have had this steak a few times now... always delish. Using a 55MJ gas burner (outside the house) > pre sear (45mm of Aussie sirloin), then into a pot with some butter in the Anova for 1-2 hr, depending on how busy we are (baby + after work home duties) my preference is around 55C, that way I can really get an almost black post sear without over cooking, & still have it med-rare. Temp gun tells me well over 300C on the pan surface. Steam up some veg to go with it all (what ever is in the fridge). There was enough sauce from the first cook to last us 2-3 meals and the red wine sauce is such a great flavour combo with that meaty steak.
Cheers ChefSteps. This is really easy & damn delish.
P.S. I know I've shortcut a lot of the real recipe hear & substituted for what I have at home. Just saying how good the ChefSteps resource is.
I have my Searzall and completely forgot to use it for this - I"m assuming it worked great?
My red wine sauce turned out quite dark and it separated into oil and sediment. I'm wondering about how much of the meat juice to use when making the sauce? I made this to go with 72-hour Sous Vide beef short ribs. There was a lot of juice in the bag. Maybe I used too much?
Are you using salted butter or some sort of spread (like Country Crock)? If so, both of these would make your sauce split. Use real, unsalted butter.
Hope that helps!
we tried the steak and wine sauce for dinner tonight and it was out of this world wonderful!
Yes. Realize what happens in 72 hours--all that connective tissue breaks down, as well as all the fat in the cut. This is a very different kind of cook.
There are a lot of reasons why it could have been tough. first the cut. they use a steak, steaks, in the US anyway, are typically a tender cut, which requires less cooking to break down connective tissues:because there are less connective tissue. I'm not following how your piece of meat was cut. steaks, when properly butchered, go in pretty much one direction. again, not sure what cut of meat you were using, but if you weren't using a steak, this won't come out the same.
The time doesn't matter much (those 10 minutes) the temperature, however, matters a lot. 72 degrees is significantly higher than you want. these are past the well done threshold.
The wine sauce being acidic will depend on the wine you use. I'm not sure why it took you a long time to reduce it, or even how you're defining a long time. it shouldn't take too long, but it will take a little bit, because you do need to cook out a lot of the water.
Any progress with the sauce since you wrote this? I just made this for the first time and had the exact same problems as you! Thanks for the awesome video btw, I've shown it to several of my friends just as an example of how awesome SV cooking can be!
I have tried making this after both the 72 hour ribs and a regular steak. The ribs are too fatty and so the juice has more fat than good juice
Gotta keep the butter in constant motion in a pan sauce. The pan has to be moving constantly so that the butter emulsifies into the sauce as it melts. If you don't do this it will separate as you're experiencing. Just a thought.
