Under Pressure
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.