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Browsing Tag: sous vide
Here is a holiday meal that I believe is a wonderful change from turkey or ham. I decided to give this recipe a trial run (sorry holiday guests!) for my Christmas dinner. I figured it would make holiday cooking a bit easier as I could prepare the roast for cooking a day or two ahead, vacuum seal, and refrigerate it. Then on Christmas Day, I could cook it in a sous vide water bath and once done, it would only need to be seared before serving. The pinwheel slices are festive and special, especially when paired with this Balsamic Rosemary Cranberry Sauce. Is it a little bit more work than the average meal? Sure… but aren’t you and your family/guests worth that effort. This…
Lately I have been cooking several different side dish staples using sous vide and I thought it was time to start sharing them with you. I know it may seem boring and a bit redundant to write about cooking rice, but trust me this is great information for cooking small amounts of rice perfectly while helping you minimize waste or to help you from over indulging! The first of these posts (except for the Mashed Potato for One post I wrote at this time last year) is cooking white rice for one. I’ll admit, rice is common ingredient in many of my recipes, but it is difficult to cook the optimal serving size for just one person. I’ve tried stove top in my smallest…
Here is a perfect Summer dish – a Vietnamese-style Noodle Bowl with Chicken. Herbs like mint and cilantro bring a freshness while lime brings brightness, chili brings heat, carrot sweetness, and the dressing tons of flavor to support it all. And let’s not forget the chicken; cooked in oyster and hoisin sauces before grilling or searing to add even more flavor. You have to agree there is a lot of flavor in this meal. Go ahead and take the challenge by making this dish. The lengthy recipe is not difficult and the results are spectacular! Save Print Vietnamese-Style Chicken Noodle Bowl Prep time: 20 mins Cook time: 2 hours 10 mins Total time: 2 hours 30 mins Serves: 1  …
With Summer weather here in the Pacific Northwest for this Fourth of July weekend, I decided to prepare a small flat iron steak with chimichurri for dinner tonight. Of course, regular visitors to the blog will know I love cooking beef sous vide style to get incredible results and this meal is no different. Cooked at 125 degrees F using my Anova One immersion circulator and finished on the grill, just writing about this dinner has my mouth watering. This is my first foray into making chimichurri and I am excited to enjoy this Argentinian delight with my steak. And is this meal easy? You bet it is. Simply it is a vacuum sealed steak taking a bath for a few hours before meeting the grill for some…
I just had to try using the sous vide cooking technique with scallops. Delicate and delicious, scallops usually come out under or over cooked. Under cooked, they are cool and gelatinous. Over cooked, they are dry and rubbery. The challenge is always when to know when the scallop is done. The touch test is most popular, but let’s face it that takes a bit of experience – i.e. expensive trial and error experience. Well, I can say using sous vide took all the guess work out of knowing when the scallops were done. Yet there are a few tricks to successfully sous vide cooking scallops. First, I started with frozen scallops – they can stand up to the vacuum sealing being frozen hard. Thawed or…
One of the many ways I like green beans is spicy. Whether spicy pickled, sauteed with dijon mustard sauce, or Szechuan style, there is something special in spicy green beans. Today, I tried sous vide cooking some green beans in a Szechuan style spicy sauce. The flavors were intense and wonderful – and perfect as a side dish for the pan seared garam masala scallops. So if you ever needed a reason for a second sous vide immersion circulator or water bath, this is it. Vegetables need higher temperatures and longer times than delicate scallops, salmon, and ahi so you will not be able to cook them all together in one water bath. Yet the results are incredible, so make that investment in a second sous vide set…
“What?” you say? Well, last night I tested something I have wanted to try for a while. Based on the ever popular London Broil, I slathered a top sirloin in Korean gochujang and cooked it sous vide style before grilling it as a finish. The results – amazing! My pairings with this dish are a bit of a hack based on what I had available. I had Brussel sprouts, so I made some as balsamic glazed and the rest shredded with rice vinegar and sriracha as a fake kimchi. Rest assured, I will create a post for this recipe (and more appropriate side dishes) in the future, but I could not resist sharing the photos of my ‘experiment’ with all of you! Enjoy! Save…
Tonight’s dish was created to support the side dish I wanted to make. Sounds backward, right? Well, it is but let me explain. Recently I had a friend extol the spice blend known as Berbere. This spice blend is a key ingredient in Ethiopian cuisine and I was thoroughly intrigued. Recently, I bought some to taste and use in new recipes. Berbere is spicy and robust… and wonderful! Now my mind was in overdrive as I contemplated ways to use this unique combination of flavors. I settled on tonight’s side dish – Sauteed Broccoli with Berbere – and knew that I would need a robust main dish to pair with it. So as you can see… the side dish drove the main…
Tonight I decided to prepare seared ahi, a dish I regularly enjoyed ‘back in the day’. But as you all should be used to by now, I wanted to try something different and preparing it using sous vide sounded like a wonderful way to go. So after doing some research, I opted to use the information provided by the Serious Eats crew for preparing ahi using sous vide. The beauty of this dish is it’s simplicity, it’s richness, and it’s versatility. And for this preparation, I opted to cook the ahi with no seasoning or oils until time to sear. This decision allows me full latitude to enjoy the tuna as well as indulge whatever flavors that pique my tastebuds…
Have a hankering for carnitas? Well, let me tell you that cooking it sous vide style will blow your mind! When cooking for one, portion control is the toughest aspect. If you make too much, you either fall prey to over-eating or having to ‘enjoy’ that same dish numerous days in a row or eventually you end up throwing the extras out as waste. Carnitas is a dish that I have not typically made since it involves cooking a pork shoulder for a long time over moderate heat. The results are wonderful, but it makes too much for one person in my opinion. Today, I used sous vide to help me overcome that issue while using a lean cut of pork. And the results were…