Sous Vide Party
Jul 27th, 2010 by Paul
On the weekend I was lucky enough to attend a Sous Vide party at Jack’s ( from Eating In a Box ) house. The place was filled with food/tech geeks, notably Ryan ( Nose To Tail @ Home ), Michael ( CookingForEngineers ) and Kent. Addie Broyles also attended ( Relish Austin ) along with wives and girlfriends.
It was a great way for us all to get in some practice with our equipment, which for most of us is still relatively new. and try some things that we wouldn’t ordinarily try. Highlights of the night were the blind taste testing of different grades of the same cuts of meat.
Sous Vide Dishes that were prepared and served :-
- Feral hog shoulder cooked for 48 hours
- Steak taste test ( Prime, Select, Choice Prime Rib. Prime, Choice Sirloin )
- 72 hour Beef short rib taste test ( Grass fed organic, HEB, Randalls )
- Shrimp in butter ( 140F for 50 minutes )
- Pork belly two ways ( plain, with marinade )
- Soft cooked eggs
- Duck Rillets ( confit in sous vide )
Along with this we had :-
- Pea and Ham soup Terrine ( smoked ham hocks and baby peas )
- Home Cured Pork Belly
- Cauliflower Soup
- Home made Jalepeno Jam ( from garden )
- Fried Okra ( from garden )
- Fresh Figs ( from garden )
- Sourdough Ciabatta
- Beans cooked in pork backfat with crispy garlic
- Peach Crumble
- Chocolate Fudge
- Almost ( dry ice ) Nitro Fennel and Pandam Ice Cream
Everything was brilliant. The surprise standout for me was the figs … I’ve never been a big fig eater, and I don’t think I’ve ever just eaten raw figs straight, so I was very surprised at how tasty they were. Other standouts were the shrimp, they had a moussey texture ( or Mouthfeel if you want to get food snobby ) that was amazing. The taste tests of the different meats were really interesting … Everybody could tell the difference between the Prime, Choice, and Select meats. They all still tasted good ( with maybe the exception of the select, which was okay, but not worth writing home about … oh wait I just have … damn ). The Sirloin had a much meatier taste to it than the Prime Rib, and the colour range was quite remarkable with the Prime being a strong red, to the Select which was more of a dull red colour.
[...] confit is the ultimate in duck recipes ( well it’s more of a mother recipe as it spawns off rillets, cassoulet, and all sorts of Charcuterie applications [...]