NY Strip – Thick Cut – Sous Vide

Sous vide is a technique I’ve talked about a few times, and I’ve probably only given you some hints at what it’s all about. This time, I’m going to try and break down the process a little more for you. There are plenty of higher-budget options for learning about this stuff on the internet, and that’s mostly where I learned, but this is me, this is what I’m doing today.

The absolute primary benefit of Sous Vide cooking is that you can take an item you want to cook – meat, vegetables, etc – and slowly raise it to the optimum temperature of doneness that you prefer. Once it gets to that temperature – it can stay at that temperature for a couple hours. What that means is that overcooking your meal is virtually impossible.

The best way to prove this out is by sous vide cooking a steak – this is the number one item that you can cook via this method that will prove to any skeptics out there, why a Sous Vide cooker is an important culinary tool to have in their arsenal. I’m not selling these things, I’m not being paid to promote them, I’m just passionate about achieving great results with my cooking projects, that are repeatable and simple. That is what Sous Vide cooking does.  – So let’s show you what I mean. STEAAK!

Look at those Flipping steaks – I purchased an entire strip loin at a fair price, and knocked them down into 1.75″ beasts. Let’s have another look at them, with one of them lounging out in my hand, so you can get an idea of what we’re dealing with.

To the novice chef – taking on a huge slab of meat like this might be a daunting task. How long should I cook that for? What if the outside is burned, and the inside is still cold and raw? Some people might actually like it that way, but I aim for uniform done-ness. I can absolutely cook one of these on a grill and know immediately when they’re done to my standards, but that requires some work! Sous Vide though? So simple – let’s get into it:

First things, first – I’m going to season the F out of this meat. One of my favorite youtube channels is ‘Sous Vide Everything’ which features entertaining videos that do just that – sous viding everything! One of the episodes (Link Here) shows the guy salting his meat before sous vide, after sous vide but before searing, and after searing – Almost unanimously – everyone felt the before sous vide steak tasted the best. So – why screw around.  Salt, Pepper and a little garlic powder:

I know that looks like a ton of salt, but these are huge steaks! You need to almost look at a steak like you’re trying to season the entire thing, inside and out – load it up with that salt – it can take it! I’m sure there are some purists out there that might say otherwise – specifically the ones that are out there eating the 15 year old cows that have been dry aged and cooked in some spanish grotto restaurant that’s reserved 5 years in advanced and only accessible by boats and only open to members of the illuminati, but I always go heavy handed on the salt when it comes to my steaks.  (watch the movie Steak Revolution, and you’ll get that reference) (Link to trailer here)

Now it’s time for the vacuum pack!

Delightful – once my water hits 128 (temp for rare side of medium rare) it goes swimming!

Because of their thickness, I let them hang out in that bath for 2 hours. Normal cuts from the supermarket I usually only cook for an hour – but these mammoths need some time to percolate!  After 2 hours here they come:

When I take them out of the vacuum pack – they do not look appealing at all. They resemble an uncooked steak that someone left out in the rain or something..  not that enticing.

They are 100% cooked and you can eat them like this, but we are accustomed to having a nice brown, crusty exterior on our meat caused by the Maillard Reaction. (link to science here) Basically – we need to sear these steaks in a screaming hot pan to generate that crust..  This is super easy, and done purely for textural and aesthetic purposes. So I throw I drop a pad of butter in a screaming hot pan (cast iron is the best, but I don’t have one of those) and down goes a steak:

I usually try to count 60 seconds in my head before even beginning to think about flipping the steak, but that’s usually my rule of thumb for the thinner steaks, so I took these to about 75 seconds. Now because of these steaks being so big and having that huge fat cap on the side, I actually browned these steaks on all 4 sides – leaving the fat side down for an extra 20 or so seconds.  Look at this first flip:

Of course I did the cheffy thing where you tilt the pan and keep spooning butter on top of the steak – that’s the funnest part of this process, everyone knows it – I didn’t have any fresh ‘steak’ herbs (thyme, rosemary, sage, marjoram, etc.. ) but I was ok with that – most of the videos you watch on this process will show little bundles of cute herbs..  I work for a living ok – I’m not eating steak every day, I’m not screwing around with real herbs every time I cook either – we just don’t have that shit laying around – sorry. maybe a clove of garlic would have been a good idea – I don’t know.

But look at this effing steak:

That steak cost me $5 to make even with the utilities to cook it all….  You would totally pay $30 for that thing in a restaurant and feel like you were getting a good deal, and you know it.

Oh and you know I wouldn’t leave you hanging with no cross section cuz!

Rare side of medium Rare kids. That’s a good ass steak.   Yes – I totally could have done the same thing on the grill, and any self-respecting man probably should have cooked a steak this size on the grill – but I work for a living..  I don’t get paid to do this. I don’t really get anything to do this at all other than a small sense of accomplishment and a warm fuzzy feeling that someone might have read this and been like ‘well shit, I better go get me one of those contraptions’ Do you SEE that STEAK!? Look at it – it’s not raw in the center it’s perfectly cooked and juicy – it’s amazing. I ate that whole steak too – you better believe I did.

Well good luck with your next steak project. I love steak. I love it cooked all sorts of ways – this was a good day. definitely in the top 10 of 2017.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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