‘Tis the season for gift giving and for the home chef on your list (which may be you, yourself), you might be looking at one of the multitudes of kitchen gadgets being hawked everywhere you look. Air fryers, Instant Pots, and countertop grills might be dancing in your head, or constantly in front of your eyeballs if you’ve searched for one of those gadgets online. Be assured, they will appear on every website you visit for the next month. Just a friendly reminder, as they say.
In a moment of weakness during last year’s COVID lockdown, I bought an Instant (Infernal) Pot after I decided to investigate what the fuss was all about, and I was bouncing-off-the-walls bored. I do use it now, but for not much more than to cook hardboiled eggs and rice. A pork butt came out nicely, but I’ve done that exactly once in the past year. I didn’t find making soups any easier than on the stovetop. Searing meat for a stew in the Infernal Pot is tricky and not nearly as efficient as searing in a Dutch oven. Also, by using the traditional method, starting the stew on the stovetop and finishing in the oven, the vegetables maintain their texture because I can easily add them after the meat has been stewing for an hour or so. The blasted machine is more difficult to clean than my trusty Le Creuset Dutch oven and the highly advertised reduced cooking times for the Instant Pot don’t usually take into consideration the 10 minutes or so it takes for the bloody thing to come up to temperature before actual cooking takes place. I’m sure there are those who are thrilled with the thing and have found many more uses for it, but I think I’ve made my point; as far as I’m concerned, I could have done without.
Part of my reluctance to embrace the Instant Pot is I’m more of a traditionalist. Give me a sharp set of knives, a good kitchen range, a full set of quality pots and pans and assorted heat-resistant spoons, spatulas, and whisks, and I’m good to go. However, I can’t be close minded as a new gadget may actually be worth taking up counter space in my kitchen. I remember early on in my professional cooking career hearing about this new device called a food processor (yes, there was a time before food processors and microwave ovens). While working in a restaurant kitchen, we all scoffed at the concept from based on initial reports. After all, what could it do that we couldn’t with knives? Well, we were certainly wrong about that. It’s turned out to be an invaluable piece of equipment for professional and serious home chefs alike.
With all that being said, I’d promised myself many times over not to write about sous vide cooking. I’d thought it would be too kitchen-gadget nerdy for most home chefs, which still may be true. However, there’s this little writer guy in my head that keeps needling me with ideas to write about, sometimes when I least expect it. That little guy told me not to underestimate the public’s capacity for nerdy cooking techniques or hacks as they’re now called. He kept yowling, “C’mon, man, don’t hide your good cooking experiences — share them!” I never know when that little mongrel will jump into my consciousness, hectoring me until I relent and sit down at the computer. He can be merciless and I’m weak, so here we are.
It all started when friends asked how I cooked my turkey for Thanksgiving, and I described sous vide cooking the turkey breast. They seemed genuinely interested, so my explanations were all that little guy in my head needed for an opening and I was doomed.
Let’s start with what the heck sous vide cooking is. Sous vide is French for “under vacuum” and the quick explanation is it’s a method employing a special machine, called an immersion circulator, which keeps water at a precise temperature while circulating it around food in a vacuum-sealed bag. Having the food vacuum sealed ensures that it will cook evenly without insulating air bubbles in the bag.
Beyond the immersion circulator, sous vide cooking requires a heavy-duty freezer bag or a vacuum food sealer, and a large enough heavy-duty plastic container or stockpot to allow hot water to freely circulate around the food. For meats which are best seared, that underrated and sometimes underutilized fundamental piece of kitchen equipment, a heavy-duty cast-iron pan is indispensable.
As far as the cooking process is concerned, the immersion circulator is first clamped to the edge of stockpot or container filled with water. The temperature is set on the machine for the desired internal temperature of the food being cooked. For instance, after vacuum sealing sirloin steaks, the machine can be set for 135 degrees F or a couple of degrees lower for medium rare. The vacuum-sealed steaks are clipped to the opposite side of the stockpot and cooked for at least an hour and a half, or as long as four hours. That wide variation is allowed because it’s virtually impossible to overcook the steaks as they’re never exposed to temperatures above the desired internal temperature. Too long, I’m told, will break down the meat too much, resulting in a mushy texture, but that would take longer than I’ve ever cooked anything. Meanwhile, the water is being gently circulated around the meat, which ensures slow, even cooking. After cooking, the steaks are removed from their bags, blotted with paper towels, and seared in a brutally hot cast-iron pan, creating that umami-rich crust vital for a well-cooked steak.
What I’ve found is my sirloin steaks are more tender, moister, and consistently medium-rare throughout. Because proteins contract and toughen when subjected to high heat, the lower heat of an immersion circulator allows the steak to cook slowly while only firming the proteins. Because the meat is vacuum sealed, it loses far less moisture, too. Also, there’s no guess work as far as doneness is concerned; the steak will cook to the exact temperature you’ve set. Another advantage is I’m able to season the meat before vacuum sealing, which allows the seasoning to more fully permeate the meat.
Finally, unlike so many other kitchen gadgets which require somewhat complicated cleaning, the immersion circulator is never exposed to the food and simply needs to be left to dry before being put away. The only disadvantage is cooking the steaks takes longer than coming home from work and slapping those hunks of meat on the grill or in a pan.
There are thousands of recipes to be found online using the sous vide cooking method, some of which work, while others don’t so much. I tried a recipe for sous vide German potato salad which I found to be inelegant, to put it nicely or stupid and a waste of time to put it bluntly. I’ve found it works wonderfully for a variety of meats including my turkey breast for Thanksgiving, but not so much for the legs and thighs which took forever to cook with little improvement over roasting, which only require an hour and a half or so in the oven for those of a large bird. The turkey needs to be broken down and the breast needs to be deboned, which is easy enough using this method. That little bit of work is worth it with the result being a consistently tender, moist, and flavorful turkey breast while the bones can be used to make a stock for the gravy. The only disadvantage of sous vide turkey is I don’t get that Rockwellian perfectly browned turkey to present at the table to carve, which I gave up doing about 50 years ago about the same time I last wore a three-piece suit.
What about those who want to scarf down the crisp skin of a roast turkey you ask? There’s plenty on the roasted legs and I made cracklings with the breast skin in the oven by cooking them between parchment lined sheet pans using this recipe.
I started using an immersion circulator about seven years ago when my nephew, Dane, convinced me of its virtues after working in a restaurant kitchen which used one. It took me awhile to truly embrace it mainly because it generally takes longer to cook most things. However, once I began heating the large pot of water to put the immersion circulator in on the stove top instead of waiting for the sous vide machine to do all the work, it cut back on the time considerably.
Another valuable, but not required, piece of equipment that made it easier to use the sous vide methods was buying a vacuum food sealer. At first, I used the water displacement method to vacuum seal the food by putting the food in a plastic freezer bag and slowly lowering the partially open bag into the circulating water until the air in the bag had been forced out by water pressure. The bag is then sealed and clipped to the side of the pot. The sealer makes all that easier and, as a bonus, I found I used it more than I thought because it does such a good job protecting meats to be frozen and large pieces of cheese I might not use quickly enough.
Is an immersion circulator worth buying? Even though I may only use it twice a month, I think it is for the serious home chef because of the superior results achieved. Is it as indispensable as a food processor? I don’t think so, but I’d definitely rank it above trendy Instant Pots and air fryers for serious home chefs.
Sous Vide Turkey Roulade
Thanksgiving may be over, but you may be serving turkey as part of your Christmas dinner or hosting a holiday or Super Bowl party where a turkey roulade may be just the thing to serve. The easiest way to begin is to buy a deboned turkey breast, however you can buy a whole 8 pound or so turkey breast and debone it yourself by following this simple YouTube video which keeps the boneless breast as one piece.
Once you have the turkey breast deboned, lay it out flat, remove the tenderloins for another use, and butterfly it by partially slicing the thicker parts of the breast and laying them flat so that the breast is relatively uniformly thick. Finally, lay the deboned turkey breast on a sheet of plastic wrap, cover it with another sheet and gently pound it out until it’s roughly square and about ¾ inches thick.
At this point, you can stuff it with your favorite bread stuffing, I made mine with cranberries and walnuts, or spread it with an herb paste of your choosing, roll it up and tie it to get it ready to vacuum seal for sous vide cooking.
Because sous vide cooking is slower and the meat will be at a safe temperature longer, the internal temperature of the turkey breast only needs to be 150 degrees F for optimum dining pleasure and safety. It takes a minimum of three hours of sous vide cooking at 150 degrees F to achieve that result.
After letting the roulade rest for about 10 minutes, remove the turkey roulade from the bag and blot it dry if you plan to brown the skin. The skin can either be removed or the roulade can browned under the broiler or in a large sauté pan. I chose to remove it.
Slice the breast into approximately ½ inch slices and serve with a gravy made either with the stock made from the roasted breast bones or from a quality store bought chicken base paste or liquid stock.
