Pretty amazing tacos: the sous vide smoked pork shoulder from the earlier post was simmered in beef broth with cumin, garlic, dried oregano, paprika and a little corn starch for thickness. Once the liquid thickened it was placed on top of a little brown rice then topped with cilantro and pickled beets and onions.

Something I learned About Torching and Sous Vide Chicken

Something that isn't often described in recipes for sous vide cooking is a strange torch flavor you can get when post searing with a blowtorch. While some of the strange flavor remains you can get rid of quite a bit of the off flavor by simply turning the torch down until the flame is dark blue and sputters a little. Turning the torch all the way up keeps some of the fuel from combusting and just deposits it directly onto the food. While the chicken above was still a strange texture and flavor, it tasted a little less strange with a torch that has been turned down.

This chicken was brined prior to cooking sous vide. The texture was better than the post from earlier but was still very strange in a different way. It was firm and juicy but in the same way that cheap lunch meat is firm and juicy. It was brined overnight using a "equilibrium" brine technique. I attempted to mask the off flavor with curry but that was a miserable failure.

Favorite Restaurants: Argentina Bakery (Irving, TX)

Some of the best empanadas I have ever had (brisket is my favorite) and the alfajores (pictured below) are always great. There is such a wide selection of baked goods and I am enjoying working my way through each one. The staff is great, food is amazing and the atmosphere is great for studying.

http://www.argentinabakery.com

Sous Vide: Smoked Pork Shoulder Ver. 1

UPDATED RECIPE: Sous Vide: Smoked Pork Shoulder Ver. 2

I would call this my first really big success cooking with a sous vide or immersion circulator. Something I have definitely learned is that cooking with a circulator is not at all easier; not if you want great flavors. Searing adds amazing flavor and you get none of that with this technique. For this one, I marinated with a dry rub, smoked for a few hours then cooked with an immersion circulator to get a flavorful, juicy and tender pork shoulder.

Apply any dry rub you desire, Alton Brown has a pretty good base to start off with, I added curry powder.

allow the dry rub to set for a few hours. Cover in plastic and store in the fridge.

UPDATED RECIPE: Sous Vide: Smoked Pork Shoulder Ver. 2 A mistake I made in this version was not to put a pan of water under the meat as it cooked. As you can see, the surface is extremely dry keeping from additional smoke flavors to penetrate.

Smoke with hickory (I am not a fan of mesquite, too strong for my taste) for one to four hours. I kept the temp around 250 since all I wanted was some smoke flavor. Many people say the most smoke flavor stops penetrating after about one hour but I let it sit until the coals went out. As you can see, the exterior is extremely dry. I would have gotten better smoke penetration if I had a tray of beer or other liquid underneath the meat as it smoked. A moist exterior allows for better penetration of the water soluble smoke... or so I've read. I'm not a bbq smoke scientist.

Bag the meat up and put in a 60 to 62 degree celsius water bath (I like 61.5 degrees) and cook for one to two days (I prefer 48hrs)

cut across the grain and enjoy

Sous Vide: Egg Calculator

This is such an amazing way to cook an egg. The folks over at Chefsteps created a pretty handy egg calculator to get the yolk and white texture you want. Thin carrot slices were cut on a mandolin and sautéed with a little olive oil, salt, garlic and minced rosemary and topped with the egg. A few flakes of extra coarse sea salt provides a nice salty crunch and fresh cracked pepper adds a little heat.

http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/the-egg-calculator

Sous Vide: A Lesson Learned

Lesson Learned: do not cook meat sous vide with liquid in the bag.

In trying to cook beef and chicken in various ways and the ones that are consistently bad are ones cooked in marinating liquid or traditional Indian curry as shown above. The meat takes on a tough dry texture despite being cooked at sixty to sixty-two degrees and flavor is strange and unexpectedly gamey. The texture and flavor come out better if the steak is fairly dry going into the bag with a little fat.

Sous Vide: Salmon

Salmon Mi Cuit (recipe taken from chef steps http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/salmon-mi-cuit)

Water bath cooking does quite well with chilled salmon dishes. The texture is comparable to smoked salmon and execution is straight forward and allows for a pretty wide margin of error. The dish above has whipped horseradish cream and pickled beets, recipes can be found at the chefsteps link above.