AFireInAsa
Veteran X
So I stumbled upon this cheap-as-hell sous-vide technique that let's you cook a steak to perfection. If you don't know what sous-vide is, it's cooking your steak in a vacuum sealed bag put under water at the precise temperature you want your steak to finish at. It's better than cooking on a grill because it takes out a lot of the guess work and cooks it way more evenly throughout. It takes a little longer but it's simple-as-hell to do.
Now these are long reads if you aren't sold on the technique yet. If you are sold, skip to the section under the dotted line. These are still great reads if you have the time and can up your sous-vide game so I recommend reading them.
First, this is a general guide to sous-vide steak by J. Kenji López-Alt, a guy becoming more and more famous in the cooking world for his food labs which test tons of well-known cooking techniques for different recipes and decides which is the best way to go about things in a more scientific way.
The Food Lab's Complete Guide to Sous-Vide Steak | Serious Eats
Now here's his testing with the beer cooler method. Tl;dr it's nearly identical to using any of the expensive machines you can get out there (they are starting to get way cheaper though, you can get a good one for maybe $180 now).
Cook Your Meat in a Beer Cooler: The World's Best (and Cheapest) Sous-Vide Hack | Serious Eats
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Here's the simplest video on the matter I've seen. Some tips from chef Lopez-Alt though that this guy doesn't use, salt and pepper the steak liberally before you vacuum seal it, don't put butter in there with it (it actually hurts the flavor), and you don't need a blow torch to sear it at the end. You can do that on a stovetop or on the grill and get similar results. Read how to do it in the sous-vide guide above (first link). Also check out the table at that link for a more comprehensive list of temperatures and amount of times to cook.
https://youtu.be/5h_y3svpNiw?t=42
Some other tips I found: If you want your steak rare, it seems like the average tap water comes out around 130 degrees when you turn the heat up (check yourself to make sure) so you can go off of that instead of having to warm any more water up (120-128 is a very rare steak, 129-135 is a medium-rare). Also this is the meat thermometer I use. You can find a cheaper normal thermoeter for this technique, but this one is great for meats, accurate, and highly recommended. http://www.amazon.com/ThermoWorks-ThermoPop-Super-Fast-Thermometer-Rotating/dp/B00HZVJM56 Chef review: http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/11/thermopop-equipment-review-thermapen.html
Steaks cooked with sous-vide technique (not mine).
One of these steaks is cooked with an expensive sous-vide machine, the other is done in a beer cooler. Pretty indistinguishable.
Now these are long reads if you aren't sold on the technique yet. If you are sold, skip to the section under the dotted line. These are still great reads if you have the time and can up your sous-vide game so I recommend reading them.
First, this is a general guide to sous-vide steak by J. Kenji López-Alt, a guy becoming more and more famous in the cooking world for his food labs which test tons of well-known cooking techniques for different recipes and decides which is the best way to go about things in a more scientific way.
The Food Lab's Complete Guide to Sous-Vide Steak | Serious Eats
Now here's his testing with the beer cooler method. Tl;dr it's nearly identical to using any of the expensive machines you can get out there (they are starting to get way cheaper though, you can get a good one for maybe $180 now).
Cook Your Meat in a Beer Cooler: The World's Best (and Cheapest) Sous-Vide Hack | Serious Eats
-------------------------------------
Here's the simplest video on the matter I've seen. Some tips from chef Lopez-Alt though that this guy doesn't use, salt and pepper the steak liberally before you vacuum seal it, don't put butter in there with it (it actually hurts the flavor), and you don't need a blow torch to sear it at the end. You can do that on a stovetop or on the grill and get similar results. Read how to do it in the sous-vide guide above (first link). Also check out the table at that link for a more comprehensive list of temperatures and amount of times to cook.
https://youtu.be/5h_y3svpNiw?t=42
Some other tips I found: If you want your steak rare, it seems like the average tap water comes out around 130 degrees when you turn the heat up (check yourself to make sure) so you can go off of that instead of having to warm any more water up (120-128 is a very rare steak, 129-135 is a medium-rare). Also this is the meat thermometer I use. You can find a cheaper normal thermoeter for this technique, but this one is great for meats, accurate, and highly recommended. http://www.amazon.com/ThermoWorks-ThermoPop-Super-Fast-Thermometer-Rotating/dp/B00HZVJM56 Chef review: http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/11/thermopop-equipment-review-thermapen.html
Steaks cooked with sous-vide technique (not mine).
One of these steaks is cooked with an expensive sous-vide machine, the other is done in a beer cooler. Pretty indistinguishable.
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