My sealer has a “moist” and a “sous-vide” mode. Both work pretty well when liquid is present.
How does the “sous vide mode” work?
I’m not completely sure, but it pulses instead of continuously pumping air out. The result is about the same–there might be a little air left in sous-vide mode, but the bag stays submerged.
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Yes, I’ve tried that. I should just shut up and buy a chamber unit.
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If I have a bag I want to seal that has any liquid in it, I freeze it first. Otherwise the seal usually fails, in spite of me carefully following instructions.
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This
might be here already, but I can’t find it. Good for a variety of firm vegetables.
I’m doing fennel with orange jamalade
and carrots with vaduovan, maple sugar, spicy Turkish bibir with the carrots this weekend.
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Yes, this carrot SV recipe works. It is my most-used.
Two caveats: (1) The cook time is so short and the temperature so high, I think there are other means to the same end; and (2) Beware doing medleys of different vegetables this way; squash in particular doesn’t play well cooked SV with root vegetables. I have pouches of poor SVed medley veggies in the freezer I should throw out.
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Trying Cantonese-style soy sauce chicken via sous vide today (having stopped myself from buying it yet again) to see if I achieve the silky meat texture.
Chicken thighs, the marinade / poaching liquid more concentrated, recipes said 149F for 4h, but I looked at SE and other sites just now and I’m going to increase the temp to 165 and let it go another 2h (it’s been going for 2h already).
Fingers crossed!
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Oh, I want to know how this comes out.
It turned out well, my only complaint was the skin didn’t color evenly, but that may have been because I made twice as much chicken as I had planned to and and doubled it up inside the bag. If I had a single layer of pieces with the skin side down maybe it would not have been an issue.
I’m going to try 149 again to see if the texture is more what I’m used to from restaurants, 165 wasn’t as silky as I wanted. Will also try breast vs thigh to see what’s what.
The sauce flavor came through beautifully, and i strained and reduce it for drizzling over, and to reuse.
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While I have it set up for turkey legs and pork belly, , I think I’m going to temper semisweet chocolate for some bark using sous vide. Has anyone else done this? I did it few years ago and don’t recall it being as easy as I expected. I think I couldn’t get all the chocolate out of the bag, and wondered about using a canning jar.
From a few years ago
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Here’s a step in the pork belly adventure
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This years trial, which used scraps of various chocolate samples, left something to be desired. Sliced almonds, pistachios, dried cherries and apricots
I will try again with a better sample.
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Sous vide cantonese soy sauce chicken again today, reusing the liquid from last time and adding to it.
I cooked it at 150F for 2.5 hours, then 155F for another 2.5 (had intended to cook 3-4h but it stayed in longer).
The texture was perfect, exactly what I was looking for – silky and tender. The skin also colored evenly this time because I only cooked 2 pieces and not 4 lbs jammed into one bag 
.
I didn’t have the patience to reduce the sauce, I just drizzled the liquid over the chicken and rice. Dinner pictured here.
Next time I’m going to see if marinating for a day or two makes a difference.
(@vinouspleasure if your IP has the sous vide function, recommend this)
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One thing I’ve found SV circulators useful for is defrosting. 70 f for 10 minutes defrosts things pretty fast, even a chunk of deep frozen animal protein.
Otherwise I sous vide regularly, mostly for animal protein. Chuck steak for 48 hours at 132 seared in a pan afterwards. Ribs for 2 hrs at 152, then finished on grill. Turkey and chicken at 142-ish. That sort of stuff. Also do asparagus once in a while.
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Ooh never thought to do this. I just stick it in a bowl of water in the sink. But I will try now.
I like to sous vide a chuck roast for 48 hours at 125f, build a hot charcoal fire and give it a quick sear. Alternatively, a little canola oil in a cast iron pan and sear each side for a nice crust. Only gotcha is remembering to turn our smoke alarm back on
I have used sous vide in a cooler at bbq competitions where we are not allowed to use electricity, allows me to offload the cooking from our bbqs/smokers, I’ll sear right before serving and the judges see a perfectly cooked steak.
Also, sous vide chicken breast cooked at 145f makes the best chicken salad.
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I got a new vacuum sealer that does liquids.
Sous vide corned beef done after a 48 hour cook. I checked it at about 30, and it was good, but needed more time. I did 135F for the first phase, and increased to 145F for the remainder.
There was a crazy variance in the temperatures recommended. I think I preferred the texture midway at 135 vs the end at 145 (which was closer to what you’d buy) so maybe I should have let it go the whole time at 135.
Anyway, it was good, and scratched the corned beef itch I’ve had for a while. Sliced up and frozen.
Also lamb shoulder chops at 135F, which needed to go a bit longer, I think. Sichuan rub, seared after SV, then diced and mixed with the rest of the recipe ingredients.
.
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