How to Cook Sous Vide Meat in 6 Easy Steps
How to Sous Vide?
Using a sous vide machine is very simple and following these 6 steps will produce consistently amazing results.
Season
Season the food before it is sealed in the foodsafe pouch. You can get as simple or as fancy as you like. Sprinkle some salt and pepper, add some butter, herbs or try a marinade to flavor the food while it cooks. This is a great opportunity to experiment with different flavors.
Seal
Sous Vide Supreme comes with an easy to use vacuum sealer. Use this with the provided food safe bags to vac seal the meat or veggies. Sealing keeps all the moisture locked in and surrounding the food while it cooks. All the flavors and juices, which typically run off the food when it is cooked through other methods are re-concentrated right back into the food. This results in food with intense flavor, but true flavor, the way it is supposed to taste.
Set
Set the Sous Vide Supreme to the temperature that you want the food to finish at. Whatever the final internal temperature will be for the meat, that is the temperature you set on the machine. So, for chicken, set the Sous Vide Supreme to 146F and you will get th most juicy and tender chicken you have ever tasted. Steak all depends on your preferred level of doneness (130F for rare, 135F for medium rare, 140F for medium and 150F for medium well). The Sous Vide Supreme comes with a cooking chart to show the temperature to set the machine at for each cut of meat and veggies.
Swim
Once the food has been sealed and the Sous Vide Supreme has reached the set temperature, drop the bag into the water and let it swim in there. Each cut of meat and every kind of vegetable has a minimum cooking time. Check the guide that comes with the machine to make sure that the food is in the Sous Vide Supreme at least that long. But what is truly amazing about sous vide cooking is that you can leave the meat in the hot water bath for hours longer than the minimum cooking time. Leave a steak or a chicken breast in the machine for 2 hours or 8 hours and there is no change in the level of doneness of that piece of meat. Since the water bath is set at the temperature of the final internal temperature of the meat, once it reaches that it will just stay there It will not cook any more. This allows you to prepare the food before work, throw it in the Sous Vide Supreme and then once you come home, delicious restaurant quality food is ready for you.
Sear
Some food is great right out of the Sous Vide Supreme. Others need to be quickly seared right before serving. If there is one limitation of the Sous Vide Supreme is that it is not able to brown food. Steaks, pork chops, scallops and more taste best when there is a nice browned sear on the outside of the meat. This is easily done by placing the meat in a high temperature skillet with a little bit of oil or butter. Take the meat out of the pouch and sear for about 30 seconds a side. This sears the outside but does not affect the amazing cooking the Sous Vide Supreme did and the inside of the meat will be as tender as ever.
Serve
Plate the food and use a variety of sauces, glazes, butters and more. There is truly no end to the kinds of dishes that you can create with sous vide cooking. Not only can you try brand new dishes, but you can transform classic dishes and family favorites into something even better.
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