INGREDIENTS
one pork tenderloin, about one pound
HERBS AND SCHPISCHES!!!!
salt
olive oil
Jaali Bean Lentil and Brown Rice Kit

Input to the spice rub.

Spice rub!

Pork tenderloin.

Coat that motherfucker with the rub.

Stick the coated motherfucker in the fucken bag, add some olive oil, and vacuum the motherfucker uppe. Sous vide at 135 degrees F for at least two hours.

Jaali Bean.

Sautee the spices and peas from the small bag in olive oil.

Add the shizz from the big bag–rice and lentils and some other spices–and sautee some more.

Add the requisite amount of water, stir, cover, and put in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Check that motherfucker out! Looks like fucken Moby Dicke!

Let the Jaali Bean shizz rest for five minutes after cooking, and then check it out.

Sear the motherfucker.

Seared Moby Dicke!

Slice the motherfucker.

DEEEEEEEELISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

INGREIDNTS
two cans tuna
two cans salmon
diced purple onion
diced celery
finely chopped dill
mayo
salt and pepper
nice cheese(s) to melt on top, shredded
multigrain bread

Here’s the tuna, salmon, onion, celery, and dill.

Mash it all up together with some mayo, and season with salt and pepper.

Cheeses for melting. On the left is French mimolette cow’s milk cheese and on the right is a Dutch sheep’s milk cheese called “lamb chopper”.

Toast the bread slices and place on a baking sheet or broiling pan.

Apply a generous portion of the fish salad to each piece of toast and top with a generous portion of shredded cheese.

Broil the fucke out of it until the cheese is melted to your satisfaction.

INGREDIENTS
eggs
sliced Iberico de bellota ham tenderloin
sliced multigrain bread
fresh-ground red chili pepper flakes
fresh-ground fennel seeds
salt

Large eggs.

Boil for three minutes. This firms up the white nicely.

Immediately plunge into an ice water bath for at least one minute. This stops the white from getting too hard.

Cook in the sous vide immersion cooker at 147 degrees for 45 minutes. This doesn’t further cook the white at all, but brings the yolk to a nice hot soupy consistency.

Multigrain bread.

TOAST!

Beautiful onsen egg.

Generously layer slices of the Iberico ham on the toast. Peel eggs and plop them on top. Grate some pepper and fennel, and sprinkle a little salt.

Perfect!

INGREDIENTS
trimmed hanger steak, about one pound
middle eastern spice blend
one cup rice
one or two tablespoons cracked linguni pieces
quarter to a third of a cup of finely diced carrots, celery, and shallots
fresh-ground black pepper
salt
fresh-ground fennel seeds
olive oil

Hanger steak.

Middle eastern spice blend.

Coat the outside of the steak with the spice blend and vacuum seal it.

Sous vide cook at 130 degrees F for at least two hours (since the steak is somewhat thicker than 1 inch at its thickest.

Sautee the vegetables in olive oil until starting to caramelize. Based on how long they each take to sautee, I usually dice my carrots and start them sauteeing while I dice my celery, throw them in, and then dice the shallots and finally add them. Start simmering two cups of chicken stock, salted to taste.

Add the linguini, and continue to sautee until the linguini is starting to brown.

Add the rice and sautee until the rice is toasty and fully coated with oil. See how the vegetables are browning? That is good! Add the simmering broth, put on the lid, and bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 35 minutes.

When the steak has cooked at least two hours, remove and pat dry well with paper towels.

Sear the outside just for about a minute on each side on a superhot grill pan or flat top.

When the rice is done, remove from the oven, let rest with the lid on for at least five minutes, and then fluff with a fork.

Finished hanger steak.

Perfect! I should have taken a better picture to illustrate this, but one of the great advantages of sous vide cooking is that when cooking a non-uniform shape of meat, even the little skinny end pieces are cooked perfectly to temperature. If you grill or broil a steak shaped like this (or a flank steak), when the thick middle part is cooked perfect, the skinny ends are hammered.

Delicious!!!!

INGREDIENTS
four 1-inch-thick beef tenderloin filets
olive oil
chimichurri spice blend
La Yu
salt
crushed red pepper flakes
one cup long-grain basmati rice
some broken pieces of linguini
finely diced shallots
two cups chicken stock
fresh-ground black pepper
some saffron threads

Here are the filets. Our local butcher wraps the whole tenderloin in a layer of fat and then ties with string, which is great for grilling or broiling to add more flavor. For sous vide, you don’t want that extra fat, so I asked him to take it off.

Components of the marinade. I used 1/3 cup of olive oil with a good amount of the other stuff. Stir it all up real good!

Filets sealed into their own vacuum bags with the marinade. You can sous vide them immediately, or leave them in the fridge for as long as you want, up to over night. I held them about two hours before cooking.

Immerse the filets in the water bath and start making the pilaf. One-inch thick pieces of meat take about one hour to come to temperature, and we set the temperature to 129 degrees F, aiming at rare-to-medium-rare. Sautee the shallots in olive oil until they are starting to brown. Get your chicken broth simmering, and preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Add the broken linguini, and continue to sautee until the linguini start to brown.

Crush some saffron threads into the broth.

Add the rice and continue to sautee, until the rice is just starting to toast.

Put the sauteed mixture in a ceramic or cast iron oven-safe vessel, pour in the broth, and mix it up well, distributing the rice evenly. Add salt and black pepper. You want something that has a partially porous surface, and not completely impervious like glass. I used my Le Creuset tajine.

Cover, put in the oven, and bake for 35 minutes. At this time, get a cast-iron flat or grill pan heated up on the stove top at the highest temperature.

Filets should be done! From what I have read, for tender cuts of meat like filet, it doesn’t matter if they go longer than the intended cooking time (within reason, as many hours at temperature can supposedly cause the meat to become mushy instead of tender). For tough cuts that you would normally braise, it is necessary to keep at temperature for longer, in order to allow the meat to tenderize. I will be experimenting with a tough cut soon.

Remove the filets from the bags and pat them dry with paper towel.

Grill the filets for 30 seconds on each side. Do not press down on them with a spatula! And do not cook longer than just necessary to char the outside! (Sorry for out of focus.)

Done! And note that there is no reason to let them rest–as there is when you grill or broil–because they are already at a uniform state throughout.

Remove the pilaf from the oven allow to rest for ten minutes before opening. Look at how nice that looks!

Gently fluff with a fork.

Beautiful!! The meat was tender and packed with flavor, and the pilaf was perfectly fluffy and flavorful.

You can see that the meat is absolutely uniform rare-to-medium-rare, with just a very thin layer of char on the outside. There is no extended gradient of doneness as there is when you grill or broil. (Sorry for out of focus.)

INGREDIENTS
three 8-ounce salmon filets, skinned
olive oil
fresh dill, finely chopped
La Yu chili sesame oil
ground fennel seeds
fresh ground black pepper
salt
one cup carnaroli rice
half cup finely chopped white onion
half cup dry white wine
six cups beef or chicken broth, salted to taste
four ounces creamy goat cheese
third of a cup grated parmigiano reggiano

Brine the salmon for a couple hours in the refrigerator in one liter of water with four tablespoons salt.

Sous vide seasoning is olive oil, La Yu, black pepper, fresh dill, and ground fennel seeds. No need for salt, as the brining adds salt to the fish, and the fish will be finished with a little salt just before serving.

Remove the salmon from the brine, rinse in cold tap water, and pat dry with paper towels.

Put each salmon filet in a FoodSaver bag, stir the seasoning well and add one third of it to each bag, and seal the bags using the FoodSaver vacuum sealer.

Ready to cook!

Get your risotto sofritto started, sauteeing the onions in olive oil with a little black pepper.

Put the vacuum-sealed filets in the immersion bath. We wanted medium-rare, which is 124 degrees F inside, so we set the temperature of the bath for 126 degrees. PhysioWife got me this Anova immersion circulator for christmas! Since the fliets were 1.5 inches at their thickest, I figured 35 minutes to reach temperature. I clipped the bags to the pot, so they wouldn’t get jostled around by the circulating water.

Continue the risotto by adding the rice and continuing to sautee until toasty.

Continue the risotto in the usual way by deglazing with the wine and then cooking in the already-simmering broth, ladling in a bit at a time.

When the risotto is nearly done, turn the heat down to low, throw in the goat cheese, reggiano, and a handful of dill, and stir until all the cheese is incorporated.

Risotto is done. Add some more broth as desired to get the consistency you want.

Remove the salmon from the bags after 35 minutes.

Perfectly medium-rare all the way through!

Plate with the risotto, sprinkling a little finishing salt on the fish, and EATTE!!!111!!11!!

Since this was my first foray with sous vide, here are some of my impressions:

(1) Most recipes recommend searing or grilling the outside very briefly after the sous vide is finished, in order to add some char flavor and nicer appearance. Next time, I’ll definitely try that, as it was a little weird that the outside of the fish was medium rare, just like the very center.

(2) I am used to salmon that is cooked medium rare in the center, which means it is substantially more done as you get to the outside. To my taste, having the entire thickness of the fish be medium rare was a little underdone, so I would cook to a higher temperature next time, like maybe 130-134 degrees.

(3) The flavor intensity of the fish was IMMENSE!!!! This is obviously because with sous vide, all of the juices, fats, and flavor stay embedded in the fish, instead of leaking out as they do while broiling, poaching, grilling, etc. It also seems like the flavors of the seasoning in the bag actually get drawn into the fish, and don’t just stay on the surface.

(4) So all in all, I am excited to try some more sous vide cooking! Next try will probably be with some terrestrial meat!