Sous Vide is a great way to cook your meat. It involves cooking meat in water, so you lessen the oil that you eat. And by using a sealed vacuum container you can also lock in the flavour and nutrients of your meat.
This makes your Sous Vide steak not only taste delicious and juicy, but it can also be a healthier alternative to regular steaks. With this method of cooking you can heat the meat to your exact preference. But how to sous vide steaks, now that is the question.
Surprisingly cooking sous vide steaks can actually be pretty doable or to some people very easy. You just need the proper ingredients and tools to use. You won’t need some fancy equipment like immersion circulators and precision cooker that make the process faster; all you are going to need is a digital thermometer, some Ziplock bags and a regular cooking pot. Then remember to follow these 5 easy steps:
Preparing the Water Pot
Fill your pot with water while leaving a little bit room so that once you add the meat and begin heating, the pot will not overflow. Now skewer or mount a digital thermometer to the side of the pot, this will guide you as you go along the process of cooking the meat.
You could also just stick the thermometer from time to time while cooking if you don’t have one that has a clamp or a skewer. The negative effect of this is by constantly placing the thermometer in the water it will need time to adjust to the heat so it can give you an accurate measurement.
Heat the Water
Now you can start heating the pot until the water will begin to boil. The key to cooking a sous vide steak successfully is by holding the water at a steady temperature long enough to cook the meat.
Please keep in mind that the water pot constantly losing while you are cooking, heat can pass through the sides of the pot and expelled by the evaporation of water. The fact is that temperature of the water pot will fluctuate quite a bit so a temperature can make sure that you can adjust heat right.
Place Steak in a Ziploc Bag
After the pot has sufficient heat and begins to boil it is time to place the steak into the water. But you have to prepare the meat a bit beforehand. You can use gallon Ziploc bag and place the steak meat inside. Depending on your preparation you can also add butter, herbs or garlic inside to enhance the flavour.
Then you can place the said bag in the water while leaving a small opening in the Ziplock sleeves. Now it is important that you leave an opening for the air to escape while you are cooking the meat because air can built up inside and might cause the plastic to pop if they can’t get out.
Cooking
Now that you have finished the preparation the meat and the cooking pot you can now proceed to the cooking process. This process can be very straightforward, just bring the water to the desire temperature that you want. Cooking can take some time especially if the meat that you placed in the water was frozen.
Once the temperature of the water is the desired level, you can now start your timer. For a 1-inch-thick medium-rare steak you will need to cook at a 136 degrees Fahrenheit for about 1 to 3 hours. For a rare steak you can cook the meat with 129 degrees Fahrenheit with the timer still 1 to 3 hours.
For medium you got to about 141 degrees and still 1 to 3 hours. For well-done you go to 160 or above degrees and still 1 to 3 hours. After that you can take out the meat and get ready to serve.
Season and Serve
Depending on your taste and preferences you can season your finished steak with some salt and pepper. Some like to add gravy on top of their steak before they serve it so it has an added aesthetic design. And steak can usually go well with some mashed potatoes, and a great thing about using this method is that you could add potatoes to your water pot to be used as mashed potatoes later. You can hit two birds with one stone.
So those were the 5 steps in making sous vide steak, pretty easy right? As an added bonus there is another optional step you can do to enhance the look and taste of your steak and it is called searing. Some people like to sear their steaks right before serving so here is the bonus step:
Searing (Optional Step)
Now before serving you can “sear” your steak by heating a large pan until it becomes very hot an placing the meat on it. You first remove the steak from the Ziplock bag with thongs and place it on the pan and sear for a few seconds on each side. Depending on your preference you both use butter or some aromatic herbs and olive oil to the pan, and then baste as desired.
You can also “sear” the meats before you cook sous vide but both methods can do just as well. But if you sear before the flavors that develop while searing the steak will cook with the food together in the ziplock bag. While searing after helps develop that clean and nice crust just right before the serving and release a nice aroma while you serve the sous vide steaks.
You can also do this technique with other meals you would like to prefer, the preparation will relatively stay the same. What will vary is the temperature and the time the meat or vegetables might need to cook. In some cases you might need to prepare before-hand like marinating the meat or preparing a special sauce. In any case what is important is you use a sealed container like a ziplock plastic easiest bag to put your food in.