How to Sous Vide Steak | Serious Eats

one thing that is great about cooking steak sous vide is it gives you such amazingly consistent results you can nail your perfect doneness every time whatever that is for you the way sous-vide works is we have this immersion circulator which is a device that heats this water to a precise temperature of your choosing when you put the steak in this hot water bath and it just hangs out in there you can't overcook the steak you can't cook it past medium-rare because once the steak reaches whatever the temperature of the water bath is it just stays there eventually if the meat is in the water for too long but we're talking many many many hours for plus hours the texture will start to change because the meat is still undergoing some changes in the water but it's not cooking more in terms of doneness that's awesome for entertaining because basically you can get your steaks going and then just let them hang out in there you can talk to your guests you can chat with your friends you can have a drink you're not worrying about whether your steak is gonna overcook and you can use any cut of meat that you would eat as a steak I need tender quick cooking cuts so I'm talking strip steaks ribeye steaks porterhouse steaks shell steaks tenderloins skirt steaks hanger steaks more already you can do short rib even there's you know a lot of options generally you want to try to use a steak that's on the thicker side at least an inch preferably an inch and a half or even two inches thick with a thicker steak you get this perfect doneness from the center right out to the edge with a very little gradient very little shifting towards more and more cooked until you get to the very outside where it's seared it gives you just these amazingly consistent kind of perfect results almost soul asleep robotic perfect no I'm not kidding I'm kidding I'm not kidding once every steak there's really one main thing to think about and that's the temperature at which you're going to cook it and that really just depends on what you want if you love a very rare steak then you're probably cooking in the hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit to about 129 from 129 to about 134 135 you're in the medium-rare zone my hot water bath right now is at 130 so I'm aiming for kind of a low medium rare from about 135 to 144 Fahrenheit you're in the zone is medium and then going above that you're getting it to medium well and eventually well-done which at that point I don't even know why you would use Suvi because you might as well just cook the crap out of your steak in a pan like it doesn't make much difference I have a vacuum bag here and I'll use a vacuum sealer but you can also use just like a zipper lock bag and you would use the water displacement method but you put your meat in the bag lower into the water and use the pressure the water to push air out before sealing it I'll start by just seasoning my steak salt the other side oh these steaks smells so good step that age smell nice I'll just use the excess salt that's on the trader get the edges all right in goes a steak now I have some aromatics here this is optional but I'll throw in a couple time sprigs I'll put one for each steak and I'll chuck in a couple garlic cloves let's get there vacuum sealer here and I'm gonna vacuum seal these steaks ready [Music] and I got my hundred and thirty degree Fahrenheit water bath so that's a nice medium rare and and it goes in the water bath at least 45 minutes or about an hour to make sure that the heat fully penetrates to the center of the stakes and then I can go right away taking them out of the bag and finishing them in a hot pan or I can just let them hang on this hot water bath at a hundred thirty sparrin height for two hours if I want only thing to keep in mind if you are cooking at a temperature below a hundred and thirty degrees Fahrenheit there is a food safety concern because you're kind of in the danger zone don't leave your stake in the hot water bath for more than about two two-and-a-half hours not because it'll overcook because you can make yourself sick later yeah otherwise going to be hearing from it from some lawyers my steaks have been chilling in this hot water bath and it's it's it's more than enough time they're ready to come out and they're ready to be seared so step number one is to simply lift the bag out of the water I know these instructions are hard to follow and we will dry them on some paper towels because this is a method where the stakes are quite wet also prepare yourself they don't look good at all coming out of this bag they're a pretty gross looking I mean that's not attractive yes the stakes in terms of internal temperature at this point are perfect they're on the nose perfect medium-rare because I cook them at exactly that temperature but as you can see they come into the bag they're wet they're stewey and moisture is really the enemy of good browning if you just want to sear them really hard and really fast get as good of a crust as you can get on them as quickly as you can to maintain that perfect interior that you spend all that time and guaranteeing by cooking sous vide in the first place and I'm gonna do a little optional step I'm gonna add some butter some thyme and some garlic to the pan also to infuse with even more aromatics but that's totally optional you can just sear in a neutral oil like canola vegetable oil grapeseed oil peanut oil one other thing if you have a torch and even better if you have a Sears all you can get the steak in the pan searing from one side and torching it from above trying to maximize that crust as much as you can you know be careful flame bomb also this is not technically the best tank to have on this top you should get the broader ones so that it's more stable so just pretend them pretend of doing it right get some oil in the pan as soon as we see this oil smoking we're ready to get the meat in the pan very carefully watch your fingers steak goes in I'm gonna just drop that butter soft drop that butter in drop those guys in every 15 seconds or so flip it and now I'm going to I'll do the Sears all [Music] flip it again whoa it came apart right there's a natural seam on the beef in it and it came apart that's fine steer those edges so if you if you use a torch alone your beep is gonna taste like a gas station it's disgusting ooh we're gonna come over here the meat has been brought very slowly and gently up to precisely the perfect temperature you want there's no need to let it rest and reabsorb juices it's it's ready to go and it really is just a perfect medium-rare there's still a little bit of an edge you know you got to sear it but it's quite nice it's perfectly cooked it's super tender and it's got a decent sear on it it's not a great sear and yeah could I have seared it harder yeah but I would have gotten more and more of a doneness gradient at which point you start to ask why to cook it sous-vide so what you get with sous-vide is you get really the most consistent perfectly cooked piece of meat to whatever temperature you want without even having to think about it I mean it's just it could not be easier and it's you know it's delicious

Channel: Serious Eats

Views: 497,280

Rating: 4.3217077 out of 5

Keywords: Serious Eats, sous vide, steak recipe, daniel gritzer, kenji lopez-alt, sasha marx, stella parks, bravetart, sous vide recipe, best steak, grilling recipe, steakhouse, cooking recipes, cooking video, cooking technique, food, sous vide techniques, relaxing food

Id: 1_TRxJ802UY

Length: 8min 23sec (503 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 25 2019