I’ve been reading articles on sous vide cooking and I’m quite interested to try this cooking method. What is a good brand of sous vide cooker? Preferably one which is available in stores locally. Any tips for beginners, specifically in cooking good steaks?
Am using sansaire which I bought for almost $200, but that was 2~3 yrs ago, saw a sous vide device selling at SNR for under 5k pesos forgot the brand but it's an Australian brand. For me, it's a very useful gadget.
i bought an anova sous vide cooker, over a year ago, when they released a 220v version. they have released a more compact (and cheaper) version since. unfortunately, i had to import it back then. but there are a couple of local options on lazada. my set-up is a 32-liter storage bin, the anova clipped to one side, and the food in ziplock bags clipped to other sides too, but angled so that water flowed on both sides of the bag. IIRC, i cooked steak at 54C for an hour, then pan-grilled it quickly, occasionally flame torching parts. lots of sous vide recipes on the anova app. yum!
First thing to experiment (rather, ~ to cook) with sous vide is with eggs. You can cook it at different precise temperature for onsen eggs , soft boiled eggs for ramen etc without guess work. You can even cook Michelin star like sous vide eggs at 60 C ~
For additional sous vide guides and tips, you might want to check out Lifehacker's Will It Sous Vide? column.
Mm...will this type of cooking tenderize tough meat? My fave is the slow cooker. Eaazy peezy one-pot cooking. The toughest cuts melts like butter.
^yes sous vide can tenderize tough meat without over drying and over cooking the meat from a crockpot like slow cooker.
I use an Anova that I mount to a small cooler. Getting the water up to the required temperature can be a very very slow process so I shorten this by pouring in hot water from an electric kettle. For a pretty good reference to cooking steak sous vide, check out the guide written by Kenji Lopez-Alt on https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/06/food-lab-complete-guide-to-sous-vide-steak.html. It's a fairly long read but gives context. There's also a similar guide for pork. Following the guides, I opt for 1.5 to 1.75 inch thick cuts of steak. Most of the stuff pre-cut in the supermarkets or chiller displays are 1" or thinner. My default is to go to Santi's and ask for chilled ribeye and just have them slice to the thickness desired. Good luck!
Lately I have been watching a lot of content from Sous Vide Everything on youtube. You can check them out. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpFuaxD-0PKLolFR3gWhrMw They have done comparisons from what is the best searing method(pan, grill, flamethrower, searzall), best tenderizing method(pineapple, jaccard etc), best seasoning(salt, pepper, garlic powder etc), best cut of meat, best duration & temp to sousvide, and also recommended equipment(anova, joule, sansaire etc). They also have recipes for other items, not just steaks. Here’s a beginners guide video from them
Apologies for post padding, but i think it would be better if i uploaded it separately. Here’s my set up-ish hahahhaha I don’t have a full picture of it, but it is a styrofoam ice box (used it with the lid). I just refill it with hot water once in a while to keep the temperature at 135deg Farenheit. Did it for 3 hours. Used a ziploc bag, sucked the air out using a straw then sealed it. Heres the finished product. Seared using a cast iron pan. Now that i know better, i will use my newly bought blowtorch next time.
^nexr time use the immersion method to vacuum seal your ziplock, so that you won't be sucking raw flavors, hehe
yes, immersed the bag on water first to vacuum some air out, and then sucked it out with a straw to remove the remaining air! forgot to mention it. haha! but yeah, raw flavors does not taste good ahahha!
Is the Anova precision cooker available locally? I’m also planning to buy a blowtorch. I guess I can get one from Ace Hardware or True Value.
@ramil , saw some selling in Facebook but quite expensive at more or less 15k, if you're just tinkering and trying out sous vide cooking , Checkout "Tylr" an Australian brand at SNR selling for less than 5k, cheaper than in their ph website. Just make sure whatever you get should be 220volts.
Thanks for the suggestion. Will check out the one in S&R. I’m also considering just ordering the Anova at $109 from their website.
You can check out the 'Sous Vide PH' facebook page or the OLX page of user 'Gamers Goods'. He sells Anova as well as other sous vide accessories locally.
For tenderizing meat, isn't a pressure cooker much faster and easier to use? Is texture much better with sous vide?
^you can't cook medium rare steaks/ roast beef that is consistently medium rare all around as well as being tender on a pressure cooker. Even so on salmon that is flaky and moist. Both are useful kitchen gadget serving different purposes. Sous vide is precision control temperature cooking , pressure cooker is high temperature high pressure cooking and slow cooker is low temperature cooking without precise temperature control.
^^also (though i dont have scientific explanation/backing/experimentation behind it) wouldn't the flavor of the meat just escape and just go to the water/broth if done with a pressure coooker? with sous vide, the flavor stays in the meat well sort of, in the vacuum of the plastic, its concentrated in there somewhere. well I get it if its purely just for tenderizing meats for bulalo, nilaga or sinigang. but i'd be happy to try sous vide nilaga or sinigang. imagine pan-seared sous-vide rib eye sinigang. hahaha
