How to Make Perfectly Cooked Steaks Using Sous Vide

[Music] when you're introducing yourself to sous-vide cooking it's good to start off with some basics but basic does not have to mean boring and to prove it Dan's here he's gonna show us a sous-vide prepared steak that might just be the best steak you've ever had in your entire life so I agree I think steak is actually the perfect thing to get into sous-vide with you want to cook a steak and have a perfectly medium-rare you know edge to edge not cheap they're not cheap and then you want a beautiful sear on the outside and soupy makes that Ruby really easy great so we're gonna start with two beautiful strip steaks so these are about a pound each you're looking for one to one and a half inches thick okay well the first step is I'm gonna season them really nicely with salt and pepper we did some testing to find out whether we need to do it now or afterwards uh-huh I thought it was really nice to get the salt on now in particular it gives it time to diffuse into the meat during the cooking process so there's no need to salt ahead of time we're gonna go right before we cook so I'm just gonna be really generous with my kosher salt and lox a nice black pepper and get this other side as well we're gonna go into a really just classic plastic bag okay here so this is a storage bag you have at home place these steaks in this storage bag here and you can use really any storage bag that you have at home like this smaller ones work for smaller things this is a nice big freezer bag if you have a vacuum sealer absolutely this is the time to do it one of your main goals here is to get as much air as possible out of the bag air is an insulator and so if you have pockets of air it can really throw off the cooking you can slow it down in certain areas so vacuum sealer if you have it this is the time to use it next up I'm gonna add a quarter cup of vegetable oil we're gonna toss it and make sure it's nicely coated what it's gonna allow us to do is get rid of more of the air that's in there sure we're taking up the place of air it's gonna fill in those gaps which is really really nice it also helps if you are using a vacuum sealer it'll keep the stinks looking nicer so if you ever tried to vacuum seal food and you notice the edge is kind of flattened out it starts to pinch the oil will help lubricate it and it'll help keep a nice firm edges so my goal right now is to just get as much air as I can out I'm not gonna get it all obviously at this point but I like to squeeze from the bottom and if you have oil coming out at the top that's a good sign it means it's kind of flow through the whole thing there which is great fold it over this way and I'm going to seal and press and those steaks are in a single layer - that's also important I put them kind of fat caps out but a nice single layer it's gonna cook very evenly this okay okay so that's not the final amount of air that we're gonna get out but it's a good start you know it's good when that bag is just stuck to the food exactly okay so now we're gonna head over here so you notice that we've got a Dutch oven but it's not on the stovetop and we're circulating water at a hundred and thirty degrees Fahrenheit this device is gonna do all of the work for us so it's gonna heat the water and it's gonna circulate it so that everywhere in the pot is the same temperature this is just a container for the hot tub exactly and you can use any container that you have at home so those big plastic containers those work great we're gonna get it into the pot now lower it in and if you notice the water starts to push any of the remaining air bubbles up and out sure that so we're using the displacement method here and that's gonna really help us get those last few little air bubbles out this water is 130 degrees which is hot but I can definitely put my hands in it we were working with a water bath that was at a higher temperature you can absolutely do this in a separate container keep lowering it down even after the stake is in I keep lowering the bag you can see the air comes up and uh and then once we get to the top I'm just gonna pop open one corner oh yeah you're going all the way in there all the way and let that air out and then do my final seal on it just like that and then what I like to do is clip it to the side these are just simple binder clips you use anything that can hold it in place great idea that's just a little bit of insurance if this were floating around freely in there and the seal opened up you could get water in the bag which is not ideal it's not gonna ruin things necessarily but it's not ideal and then I have a piece of plastic wrap here and I'm just gonna cover it up now for a short cook time it's not entirely necessary but what it does is obviously limits evaporation sure so it keeps the water level in there right it can also help the bath come up to temperature a little bit faster a little bit faster crap over top we're gonna cook this for at least an hour and a half but we can go up to three hours that water bath is the temperature that we want our steak to be 130 degrees so all we're really waiting to have happen is everything to reach equilibrium that will happen in about an hour and a half okay we've got this nice window we can go up to about three hours you start going over three hours you do run into some texture problems so one and a half to three hours and then it's many times here all right well cooking in plastic bags it's question that were asked often is it really safe to cook in plastic bags the answer is largely you bet while most food storage bags are actually made from polypropylene or polyethylene and those are considered food safe plastics now we're also asked about bpa an additive that sometimes made for suppleness of the plastic these bags do not contain BPA so don't worry about that in fact these bags are so safe and the sous-vide temperature is at a sub boil so it's a nice low temperature one could in theory don't do it cut up the bag and eat it it's non-toxic again do not cut up the bag and eat it but you're good but don't do it so it's been 2 hours with these things in the bag here so I know that they're definitely cooked perfectly all the way through so I'm gonna get them out of the bath so I'm just gonna use tongs and transfer them here it's this paper towel line clean and we did a nice job sealing our bag this is just the fat that we added and a little bit of juices from the steaks we didn't get any water for the bath going in very little juice came out of those things yes because they are not overcooked in any way right now yeah I can tell they look great damn yeah so this doesn't look very good right now right oh no I'm not gonna win any beauty Awards that's for sure and so what we need to really think of this as is when we do a lot of reverse searing we put something in a low oven and then we sear it sure same ideas going on here this is just the initial cook so what we're actually gonna do is let this rest here for five to ten minutes and we're not letting them rest in order to kind of equalize and carryover cook any of that we don't need to we're allowing them to do right now is to steam a little bit you can see some moisture coming off and then soak it up on the paper towels here we want them to be as dry as possible when we go to sear and a 5 to 10 minute rest is gonna help with that so these are rested for 10 minutes here and we've got tons of juices collecting in the bottom paper towel I'm gonna use the top here to Pat them really really dry again moisture is the enemy of browning and that can be an issue with sous-vide cooking you really want to get rid of as much moisture as possible and those really just were juices that were on the surface exactly all right I've got a 12-inch skillet here with three tablespoons of vegetable oil it is quite a bit what we found is that using a little bit more oil helps to fill in all the little crevices in the steak and get better browning it also helps keep the temperature of the oil up a little bit higher okay so when you add something it's got a little moisture on it it can drop the temperature in the oil so having a little more in there's a nice buffer got a few little wisps of smoke here which is perfect so now I'm gonna go in with my steaks oh that's a great sound okay so we're gonna let these go for about a minute aside I'm gonna pick the steaks up every now and then and just let that oil run underneath that's a good technique Tamara what you're cooking sometimes you can get a little pockets and moisture trapped under there in a gray spot we don't want that so that's been about a minute let's flip these guys over a little bit a little bit better better yes all right those look gorgeous so yeah just another 60 seconds and then we'll get them out look spectacular right turned around perfect yes well we're not gonna see exactly what's inside there quite yet we're gonna make a little pan sauce to go with them not that you need it but why not why not right cooking steak so I'm gonna pour off all the oil and we're gonna add back just a tablespoon of it all right nice fond development laughs hands we're gonna take advantage of that so I'm just gonna scoop out one tablespoon put this over medium heat now make my sauce so we can do a lot more gentle adding one minced shallot that pan is still plenty hot plenty hot yep and a 1/2 teaspoon of cracked fennel seeds so we're making this really beautiful sauce that's got mustard and fennel and tarragon we're gonna cook this just until it's a little bit softened which is one to two minutes all right so that is fragrant and softened we want to get all that fond up so we're gonna a 1/2 cup of chicken broth a little deglazing action there a quarter cup of white wine and 1/2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard oil and mustard good combination so I'm gonna stir this in and scrape up as much fun as I can there we're gonna do is cook this until measures about half a cup gets really nice and reduced which takes about 6 minutes okay that is beautiful that's down to about a half a cup well reduce yes well reduce nice and concentrated when it turn off the heat okay we're gonna finish our sauce with a couple tablespoons of unsalted butter I'm gonna add one at a time here and whisk it in until it's nice and emulsified it's important to use chilled butter here because it's going to help to emulsify the sauce he used butter that was just too soft while it could act create a Perkin sauce awesome and then finally one and a half teaspoons of fresh mint tarragon so I'm just gonna taste and adjust for salt pepper mmm that's great tiny bit of salt and a nice big pinch of pepper nice okay that looks beautiful all right are you ready to see what we got I'm gonna do nice half-inch thick slices your knife is not putting in any effort look at all those beautiful juices it is super tender super evenly cooked just look at that cook is that unbelievable that is beautiful it is just completely the same temperature edge to edge it's just gorgeous browning and that's possible with other methods but it's a lot harder than what we just did this is bulletproof absolutely all right nice herb you love a sauce please do I'm gonna give it to you on the side there so you can appreciate the steak exactly all right let's see if it's any good yeah you want to judge it just by looks alone yeah that's so tender buttery tender butter just beautifully tender and if you're gonna buy a steak I'm gonna spend the money on it you want it like this mm-hmm wants to be perfect I'm gonna take a little bit of that pan sauce here mmm that's nice it complements it doesn't overpower this was incredibly easy to cook but it might be the most tender strip steak I've ever had I agree with you it's so tender it's almost filet yeah what's also nice about sous-vide is I mean this is a great thing to serve for company huh and you're not worrying about it all right it's in the bag and you know what's cooking right and then you're doing this final stir that takes all of two minutes exactly and you're serving that is spot-on perfection instinct love it yep thank you Dan you're welcome well if you'd like to make these perfect pan seared steaks at home here's an immersion circulator to heat water to 130 degrees meanwhile season and toss steaks with oil and plastic bags seal and cook covered for one-and-a-half and up to three hours steaks on paper towels sear and then make a quick pan sauce we put together a version with mustard wine and also French tarragon so from our Test Kitchen to your kitchen dinner is literally in the back with sous vide perfect seared steaks thanks for watching America's Test Kitchen what you think we'll leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or you can just say hello you can find links to today's recipes and reviews in the video description and don't forget to subscribe to our Channel see you later I'll see you later

Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 97,236

Rating: 4.8833866 out of 5

Keywords: sous vide, steak, how to use sous vide, joule sous vide

Id: xFlen7nFuSk

Length: 11min 27sec (687 seconds)

Published: Sun May 10 2020