Sous Vide tips for JackDMy favorite sous-vide dish so far is ribs, Flanken or English cut, with a Korean Galbi marinade. While you can probably substitute sous-vide techniques for braising, sous-vide is all about cooking at very precise temperatures where the target is usually the breaking down of collagen/connective tissue into gelatin. While this also happens with smoking/BBQ and braising, sous-vide cooking can be thought of as a hybrid of both-- you retain meat flavor, like BBQ, but are able to keep the marinade/juices, as with braising.
Tip #1. For me it starts with the vacuuming. Ideally, you'd like to use a differential cryovacuumtubeampli... oops, sorry, a chamber vacuum sealer and these have been steadily coming down in price (see ARY Vacmaster
VP 210 or
VP 112). I use a cheap FoodSaver vacuum sealer so my technique to not suck out the marinade while vacuuming is to freeze the marinade with the meat first.
Tip #2. Aside from vacuum-sealing, sous-vide is all about answering two more questions: first, what temperature? And second, how long? For ribs, I'd tried different cooking temperatures, but I'm happy with 150F. I'd had a conversation with a chef who likes it at 143, but I haven't gone that low yet. For the second question, it's best if you confirm this yourself, but for me, unequivocally, 72 hours for ribs. Three fuggin' days. Chances are, the first time around you won't wait and bail at 48
But believe me, that extra 24 hours are worth it. (And unlike me, Jack, you won't have the problem where you can hear the immersion circulator from your listening chair.)
Tip #3. After you're done with the sous-vide, the meat will just have a uniform color and won't look so attractive. Don't panic, this is like your favorite GRO without her makeup
Oftentimes, you'll want to continue and "finish" the dish using yet another technique.
Tip #4. One way to finish the dish is to grill. Here I'm using a tabletop "gogi" grill to crisp up the outside. This approach is a winner in terms of presentation points.
Tip #5. Or alternatively, use the David Chang/Momofuku technique of quick deep frying sous-vide'd ribs. Just be aware that most home fryers don't get much above 350F even if it says 375F in the dial.
Tip #6. I'd tried various times in the fryer in 30 second increments and the best I've found is just 1 minute in the deep fryer. Remember the ribs are already cooked after 72 hours in the immersion circulator.
Tip #7. Remember to do a sound check before you hit the record button
Or put another way, remember the combination of decisions you made along the way-- how you sealed, temperature, duration, finishhing -- and correlate it with the result if you do this a different way next time.
Tip #8. When NOT to sous-vide. Below we have my interpreation of
Hong Shao Rou on top of Soba/dashi with a side of sweet bean bun. If I sous-vide'd the pork belly in this case, it would've just overload itself with pork fat. For this application, I use "pressure steaming," i.e. elevate the pork inside a pressure cooker so the fat renders out, before cooking in a wok.