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I retooled my sous vide steak recipe tonight. It was seasoned with kosher salt, smoked pepper and smoked paprika. I still used butter, but left out the shallots and garlic, which were a little too prominent last time. The result was better.

I can imagine that using garlic powder would be better than fresh minced garlic in this case. The heat levels involved seem to make the garlic a little too bitter and pungent. By the same reasoning, the shallots had to go as well. They’re a relative of garlic afterall. The parsley was simply pointless.

Bottom line – in the case of flavor-enhancing sous vide technique, less is more. The smoked pepper and paprika both added a nice (surprise) smokey hint, but weren’t overbearing.

Additional site note: My avatar is not supposed to be Dakota Fanning. That is the placeholder for new users. Something broke and I haven’t been able to fix it. I swear.

Tonight I made sous vide top sirloin with butter, garlic and shallots. I’m going to post the technical details so I remember them.

Cooking Details:
Cut: Top Sirloin Steak (petite)
Weight: 0.45 pounds
Initial water temp: 141°
Temperature drop after submersion: -2°
Hold temp: 139.2° (±0.6°)
Cooking time: 45 minutes

Internal Temp at Removal: 138.5°

I removed the butcher’s twine netting holding the cut in a round, and flattened it with manual force. The steak was seasoned liberally with kosher salt and black pepper, plus a dusting of cayenne pepper. It was packed with 1/2 of a shallot, thinly sliced, 2 cloves of garlic, and about 2 teaspoons of butter, one tsp per side. There was also some parsley because I love how it retains its color.

After packaging:

In bath (after 2 hours in the fridge and a few on the counter to come back to room temp):

@ 20 minutes:

Out of bag:

Seared quickly and plated:

Inside:

It was extremely tender and tasty, and pretty much even in texture from tip to tip and edge to edge – other than the briefly seared edges. Other than those weird seams, it wasn’t too bad looking either, if I do say so myself.

I’ve been interesting in cooking sous vide (under vacuum) for a while, and finally went out and got some cheap equipment to experiment with. If it all works out, I may eventually look for deals on the real stuff.

My first experiment was garlic and olive oil infused shrimp. I mixed up a marinade with olive oil, salt, pepper, smoked paprika, cayenne, garlic and parsley. Then I vacuum packed shrimp in half-pound batches and let them marinade under vacuum for a few hours.

The vacuum caused the marinade to penetrate the shrimp more deeply and the flavors to infuse.

I then began the more difficult step of keeping a water bath as close to my desired temperature as possible (140 degrees Fahrenheit, in this case). By using a kettle of near-boiling water, ice cubes, and moving the pot off and on the heat as needed, I was eventually able to keep it at between 138 and 140 for the required 20 minutes.

After they were sufficiently cooked, I dumped them on a plate. One packet was opened to taste them. The other was cooled in several stages and then frozen. It’s fully cooked, and immune to freezer-burn due to the lack of air. When I want to eat the second packet, all I have to do is thaw it and reheat them however I want. They are a meal in a bag at this point.

Here’s the shrimp fresh out of the bag:

They were very flavorful, and had an amazing texture. They weren’t rubbery in the slightest, cooked all the way through, and packed with all the flavors I used, with absolutely no loss of moisture or flavor from cooking. It was a successful experiment.

Tonight I’m trying the technique with a top sirloin steak, butter, shallots, salt, pepper and cayenne. I’m guessing it will take about 45 minutes at 130 degrees, but I don’t know for sure yet.