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new toys in the kitchen


joebabyny

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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.

 

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And after fully trimming it the way a fine steakhouse would before portioning individual filet mignons.

 

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I then sealed the roast into a vac bag along with some koshar salt, olive oil, and thyme sprigs.

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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Near the end of the 2 hours, I poured the carrots out of the bag and into a pan to set the glaze.

 

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The whole beef tenderloin came out and while perfectly cooked, had no nice sear on the exterior.

 

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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.

 

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And the final money shot.

 

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And a short little clip of the searzall in action.

 

 

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newyearsday2015steak016.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

Been thinking about picking one up for a while, but I haven't had time to do much cooking of late.  Any particular reason you went with the Anova over the Sansaire?  Not questioning your purchase, since I have no experience with either, but I was curious if you compared them before purchasing...

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Been thinking about picking one up for a while, but I haven't had time to do much cooking of late.  Any particular reason you went with the Anova over the Sansaire?  Not questioning your purchase, since I have no experience with either, but I was curious if you compared them before purchasing...

 

After reading a piece Kenji did over at seriouseats and his comment he made at the end about most often going for the anova, that is the one I went with. Either sounds like it would work well though.

http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/12/sous-vide-circulator-review-sansaire-nomiku-anova.html

 

Also, Kenji did a review of the new anova and pretty much raved about it. The only reason I went with the older model is it had a slightly higher wattage and larger water tank capacity, which was important for me if I wanted to use this for any kind of events, otherwise I would have gone for the newer model.

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After reading a piece Kenji did over at seriouseats and his comment he made at the end about most often going for the anova, that is the one I went with. Either sounds like it would work well though.

http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/12/sous-vide-circulator-review-sansaire-nomiku-anova.html

 

Also, Kenji did a review of the new anova and pretty much raved about it. The only reason I went with the older model is it had a slightly higher wattage and larger water tank capacity, which was important for me if I wanted to use this for any kind of events, otherwise I would have gone for the newer model.

 

Best cooking site on the net right there. Trying a braised briscuit with apricots recipe from them this weekend.

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  • 3 months later...

Amazon ran a special on these last month for $160 so we bit on it. Arrived yesterday and we immediately gave it a whirl with some salmon filets. The fish came out so amazing, every bite was the perfect temp. Really looking forward to cooking a big tri tip with this thing.

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Amazon ran a special on these last month for $160 so we bit on it. Arrived yesterday and we immediately gave it a whirl with some salmon filets. The fish came out so amazing, every bite was the perfect temp. Really looking forward to cooking a big tri tip with this thing.

 

Haven't tried it yet but I hear eggs are great to use with this technique too.

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