Post by tailgatejoe on Jan 2, 2015 23:45:15 GMT -5
Broke out some new toys for New Years Day dinner.......
I bought myself an immersion circulator. Yeah, when you are so self absorbed and desperately trying to be one of the lost boys in never never land you are kinda forced to buy your own gifts come the holidays, lol. Anywho, an immersion circulator is a device that will create a water bath of a precise temperature for as long as needed. You vacuum wrap whatever you are cooking, and drop it into the tank or pot and let it cook for a set amount of time. There are a few benefits to this. For vegetables like carrots, pectin breaks down at exactly 183 degrees. So cooking carrots under vacuum at that exact temp for an hour will lead to an incredibly concentrated flavor that is more carrot than the carrot is otherwise. For meat, you can cook a steak to an exact medium rare from edge to edge precisely with not overdone meat or grey meat gradiant as the cirulator gradually bring the whole piece of meat to the perfect temp throughout. For the holiday meal I was responsible for a whole filet tenderloin and glazed baby carrots.
Here is the whole beef tenderloin (filet mignon) completely untrimmed.
And after fully trimming it the way a fine steakhouse would before portioning individual filet mignons.
I then sealed the roast into a vac bag along with some koshar salt, olive oil, and thyme sprigs.
That went into the fridge to rest a few hours. Then some carrots, butter, sugar, and salt were bagged and into the circulator at 183 degrees for 1:30 hours.
Once they were done, they went into the fridge and the water bath was brought down to 131 degrees and the roast went in to 2 hours.
Near the end of the 2 hours, I poured the carrots out of the bag and into a pan to set the glaze.
The whole beef tenderloin came out and while perfectly cooked, had no nice sear on the exterior.
This was easily remedied with another new toy of mine, the searzall. This gadget is the first commercialy vaible product from Chef David Chang and his partner from a test kitchen they have set up to come up with new culinary products and techniques. It is an attatchment for a standard plumbers torch to turn it into a handheld broiler/salamander.
And the final money shot.
I bought myself an immersion circulator. Yeah, when you are so self absorbed and desperately trying to be one of the lost boys in never never land you are kinda forced to buy your own gifts come the holidays, lol. Anywho, an immersion circulator is a device that will create a water bath of a precise temperature for as long as needed. You vacuum wrap whatever you are cooking, and drop it into the tank or pot and let it cook for a set amount of time. There are a few benefits to this. For vegetables like carrots, pectin breaks down at exactly 183 degrees. So cooking carrots under vacuum at that exact temp for an hour will lead to an incredibly concentrated flavor that is more carrot than the carrot is otherwise. For meat, you can cook a steak to an exact medium rare from edge to edge precisely with not overdone meat or grey meat gradiant as the cirulator gradually bring the whole piece of meat to the perfect temp throughout. For the holiday meal I was responsible for a whole filet tenderloin and glazed baby carrots.
Here is the whole beef tenderloin (filet mignon) completely untrimmed.
And after fully trimming it the way a fine steakhouse would before portioning individual filet mignons.
I then sealed the roast into a vac bag along with some koshar salt, olive oil, and thyme sprigs.
That went into the fridge to rest a few hours. Then some carrots, butter, sugar, and salt were bagged and into the circulator at 183 degrees for 1:30 hours.
Once they were done, they went into the fridge and the water bath was brought down to 131 degrees and the roast went in to 2 hours.
Near the end of the 2 hours, I poured the carrots out of the bag and into a pan to set the glaze.
The whole beef tenderloin came out and while perfectly cooked, had no nice sear on the exterior.
This was easily remedied with another new toy of mine, the searzall. This gadget is the first commercialy vaible product from Chef David Chang and his partner from a test kitchen they have set up to come up with new culinary products and techniques. It is an attatchment for a standard plumbers torch to turn it into a handheld broiler/salamander.
And the final money shot.