Sous Vide Chicken Breast with Red Pepper Sauce 低温調理鶏胸肉のロースト赤パプリカソース添え

In my book, the best way to cook chicken breast is using the sous vide method. As I posted before, skin-on and bone-in split chicken breast appears to work best. Sometimes this type of chicken breast is hard to come by since most people seem to prefer skin-less and bone-less chicken breast. So when skin-on bone-in chicken breast is available, we like to stock-up. This time we got a “family” pack which contained 4 large chicken breasts. I sous vide all of them and froze three. I prepared one of the sous vide breasts into three dishes. I hand shredded the tenderloin and dressed it with sesame/mayo sauce. I made half of the main breast meat into curry-flavored chicken salad and I served the rest sliced with roasted red pepper sauce.  I served this dish at lunch with two salad sides; celery mushroom feta salad (right upper) and corn, red pepper, edamame and bacon salad (right lower).

When we made corn, red pepper, edamame and bacon salad, we had an excess of roasted red peppers since we got a bag of 6 red peppers. So, I made a roasted red pepper sauce. The sauce went well with sous vide chicken shown here with mayo and blanched broccoli added to the plate.

I am sure there are many ways to make roasted red pepper sauce, but the one shown below is my improvised sauce.

Ingredients:
Two roasted red peppers, stem end and skin removed, seeds and ribs removed, cut into small size (for pureeing)
1/2 sweet (Vidalia) onion, finely chopped
1 tbs caper
1 tbs lemon juice
3-4 tbs olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Add all the ingredients except the salt and pepper in a cylindrical container for an emersion blender.
Puree on high-speed until smooth. Taste and add salt and pepper

This sauce went very well with the sous vide chicken breast. The chicken cooked this way is very moist and tender but can taste a bit bland. The sauce really added a nice slightly tangy flavor. We still have a lot of sauce left so there will be more to come.

Four Salad Lunch 4種類サラダランチ

I made 4 different salads (not all on the same day) and had the 4 salads for lunch with a cold asparagus soup. We also had a small piece of “Not no-knead bread made with dried fruit”. We feel good about the fact that all salads, soup and bread were home-made. In the center of the four salads, I served snap peas which were blanched and then soaked in Japanese salt broth.

The picture below shows Israeli couscous with artichoke hearts and garbanzo beans with a nice lemony and dill dressing.

The pic below shows a celery, mushroom, and navy bean salad with feta cheese. The mushrooms make the salad. They gave an almost meaty texture and flavor.

The next is a curry flavored sous vide chicken salad. Since we had a nice ripe Champagne mango, I added small cubes of mango which went very well with this salad.

I made this udon noodle salad since I had left-over cooked udon noodles.  The dressing is sesame-flavored. I do make several versions of the sesame dressing (for example, using Japanese “nerigoma” ねりごま sesame paste or peanut butter) but this time I used Tahini with dry roasted white sesame seeds which I ground in a Japanese “suribachi” すり鉢 mortar. Other seasonings included soy sauce, sugar, and rice vinegar.

This was a surprisingly filling lunch. Beans, udon noodles, and couscous all contribute to this and, at the same time, we enjoyed so many different flavors and textures. We just have to make sure we finish all these salads before they go bad.

Surf-and-turf Valentine’s Day Dinner ロブスターとステーキ（サーフアンドターフ）

We rarely have a surf-and-turf dinner but since it was Valentine’s  day, we decided to have a steak and lobster dinner. The filet mignon came from Omaha steak and we got frozen lobster tail from Whole Food.  I cooked both in sous vide. I also made “Mac-and-cheese”. The temperatures I used in the past for lobster tail and steak were slightly different but this time I used 135F for both so that I could sous vide both in the same setting which worked.  The steaks were cooked for 4 hours and the lobster 45 minutes. I timed it so they both came out around 7pm.

I seasoned the lobster tails with salt and tarragon (I only had dried) and vacuum packed with several pats of cold butter. After it was cooked I removed the lobster from the vacuum pack, and drained the liquid inside and added a squeeze of lemon juice to make a lobster-butter dipping sauce. It was perfectly cooked.

I thawed the previously frozen steak and patted it dry. I then further dried it on sheets of paper towel, uncovered for a few hours in the refrigerator.  I seasoned it with salt and pepper before vacuum packing it for sous vide. After it was cooked I removed the steak from the vacuum bag, and quickly seared both sides in a frying pan with melted butter. I set the steak aside and added the juice accumulated in the vacuum bag to the pan and scraped off the brown bits left from searing the steak. I added 2-3 tbs of red wine and reduce the mixture in half. I finished the pan sauce with pats of butter and seasoned with salt and pepper. The steak was nice medium rare.

I have made and  posted several variations of “Mac and cheese”. This time I went with a classic with Béchamel sauce but I also added finely chopped fresh shiitake mushroom which added nice flavors. The cheeses I used as per my wife’s selection were fresh goat, sharp cheddar and smoke Gouda. The seasonings were salt and freshly grated black pepper and nutmeg. We really liked this version.

We had this with one of our favorites; Caymus Napa valley Cabernet  Sauvignon 2020. We really enjoyed this special dinner and wine.

Steak dinner with Insignia 2012 ステーキとインシグニア2012

We rarely eat steak. This time, on the strong recommendation from my wife’s sister, we got a “special”package from Omaha Steaks which included, among a lot of other things, filet mignon. (It was called “Butcher’s cut”. We are not sure where this cut ranks on their quality scale of steaks). In any case, an occasion called for a special dinner and wine. So we cooked the steak and opened 2012 Joseph Phelps Insignia. The package from Omaha Steaks also included scalloped potato (shown here lower right) which I served with the steak, caprese salad and sautéed green beans.

The steak was first cooked in sous vide. After thawing, I patted the meat dry, seasoned with salt and pepper and vacuum packed with pats of butter and sprigs of fresh rosemary. I sous vide at 130F for 3 hours (minimum of 1.5 hours) for medium rare. Just before, serving I seared both sides briefly and set aside. I made a quick pan sauce by deglazing the pan with port wine, a dash of balsamic vinegar. I added any meat juice accumulated in the sous vide bags and on the plate on which the steaks were resting. After the liquid reduced in half, I added pats of butter and seasoned it with salt and pepper. Since this was sous vide cooked, the inside of the steaks were uniformly pink (as shown in the following picture). The steak was flavorful but a bit chewy/sinewy especially for filet mignon but we enjoyed it and the scalloped potatoes were great.

 

I checked our wines and decided to go with the oldest Insignia vintage we had which was 2012. I opened the bottle one hour prior to the planned dinner and decanted it. 

The wine was excellent. It was not too aged with nice dark fruit, vanilla and chocolate and well structured but mellowed tannin. In general we are not a great fans of old wines but this was just nicely aged for us to enjoy.

The steak and wine went as well as expected i.e. wonderful. We think we commemorated this special occasion adequately.

As an aside: The “special” we got from Omaha Steaks was quite a “haul” and included a number of items in addition to the steaks and scalloped potatoes. They were: hamburgers, meat balls, hot dogs, chicken fried steak, pork chops, chicken breast and apple pie.  We do not even remember when was the last time we ate hamburger or hotdogs so this should be interesting as we taste these additional items. I may have to commission my wife to bake some hamburger and hotdog buns.

"Tonkatsu" pork cutlet with sous vide pork 低温調理のトンカツ

We like tonkatsu トンカツ and make it occasionally. Although in Japan, serving undercooked pork is not unusual especially when using SPF pork from specific named-producers (although it does not specifically say it is cysticercus free, I am sure the risk is extremely low). I am sure American pork is relatively safe as well but I, just to be safe, make sure I cook pork completely. In the Weber grill, I roast pork using indirect heat to the inner temperature of 145F as per USDA standard. (Actually, I start going down to the grill when it reads 142F, by the time I am ready to remove the pork from the grill, the temperature will reach 145F). I previously posted sous vide pork tenderloin at 140F for 3 hours which appears to be safe for both bacteria and cysticercus. Going back to tonkatsu, I usually insert an instant digital thermometer in the center of the meat until it registers 140F but it is not easy to get it right. Many times,  the pork is a bit overcooked (since I err on the side of overcooking). To eliminate this anxiety of under or over cooking, I decided to try making tonkatsu from sous vide cooked pork tenderloin. This is what it looks like. I only deep fried it for a total of 1 minute  since the meat itself was precooked. As you can see the center looks slightly pink. It tasted great with a nice fried bread crust. So why is the center is pink?

I sous vide cooked pork tenderloin seasoned with salt and pepper at 140F for 4 hours which is more than enough to completely cook the pork and render it safe. I soaked the vacuum packages after completion of cooking in ice water for 30 minutes to quick cool down before moving them to the meat drawer of the refrigerator for future use. Just before making it into tonkatsu, I sliced it and the cut surfaces were totally homogenous and gray (see below).

So, the only explanation I can come up with is the oxygen exposure. The pork was cooked in a vacuum but after it was breaded and deep fried, oxygen may have bound to myoglobin to make a slightly pink color. This was an  interesting experiment and  proof of concept. I am not sure I will do this as a regular way to cook tonkatsu, though.

Sous vide pasteurized eggs Part 2 自家製滅菌卵パート２

After I posted sous vide home pasteurized shell eggs, an anonymous reader let me know of the existence of an article by Dr. Schuman (see below, reference #1) which more clearly indicated the safe parameters for shell egg pasteurization with bacterial culture results. That is at 57C (134.6F) for 75 minutes (please see the chart below).

I used 54.5C (130F) for 2 hours in my previous post. I meant to try this new parameter for pasteurizing shell eggs for some time but finally got around to it. As I expected, at 57C,  the egg white became slightly denatured and opaque. The consistency was slightly firmer than the previous method (see below).

57C(134.6F) for 75 minutes

Although the background (container) is different, you can see that the egg white is clearer using the 130F for 2 hours method (below).

54.5C (130F) for 120 minutes

Using the two eggs pasteurized at 57C for 75 minutes, I made a French omelet. Although it took a bit more effort to beat the eggs, these pasteurized eggs can be used like any other shell egg. Sunny-side up fried eggs, poached and soft boiled eggs should not have any problem, although I have not tried it.

My conclusion: At 57C for 75 minutes, pasteurization of shell eggs by immersion in heated water, is totally safe from salmonella.  Although the consistency and appearance of the egg white is altered. Making egg dishes using these eggs should be the same as if raw eggs were used. The only area about which I am not sure and will need to try is making whipped egg white from pasteurized egg whites (which would be especially useful for dishes such as French sorbet since cooking egg white would not be possible).

I also believe that pasteurization at 56C for 2 hours or longer will produce "reasonably" safe pasteurized eggs but this conclusion appears to lack rigorous bacterial culture results. The egg whites look and behave more like raw egg white.

***************************************************************************
*Just in case you are interested. These charts are from the reference #1. This is based on sensitive culture study until no salmonella was detectable. Dr. Schuman (reference #1) only tested 57C and 58C. So, we do not know at 55C, how long it will take before salmonella is not detectable.

1. Schuman JD, Sheldon BW, Vandepopuliere JM, and Ball HR Jr. Immersion heat treatments for inactivation of Salmonella enteritidis with intact eggs J Appl Microbiol. 1997 Oct;83(4):438-44.
2. Geveke DJ, Gurtler JB, Jones DR, Bigley AB. Inactivation of Salmonella in Shell Eggs by Hot Water Immersion and Its Effect on Quality. J Food Sci. 2016 Mar;81(3):M709-14. doi: 10.1111/1750-3841.13233. Epub 2016 Feb 15. PMID: 26878421.
3.  USDA Document "Pasteurization of Liquid Egg Products and Shell Eggs"
4. Serious eats: Here's How to Pasteurize Eggs at Home—But Should You?

   An expert guide to pasteurizing eggs at home.

Sous vide wine poached chicken breast with caper sauce 鶏胸肉のワインスービィケイパーソース

This is continuation of sous vide cooking. I prepared chicken breasts over the weekend by deboning some bone in split breasts but it turned out I couldn’t cook them because we had other items to cook. I thought about microwaving them in sake for our sandwiches but, instead, placed them in a Ziploc bag after seasoning with salt and pepper. Since I had some French white wine already open, I poured that in the bag so that the chicken could marinate and last longer uncooked.

The next weekend came and the chicken was still in the bag marinating in the wine. I decided to save this chicken from its misery and decided to cook it sous vide. Since this was already in wine and in the Ziploc bag I used submerge-displace-the-air technique instead of vacuum packing.



Since I did not put much seasoning on the chicken and, the wine marinade was in the bag after sous vide cooking, I decided to make a sauce from wine, shallot, capers and butter. I served this with my potato salad and coleslaw.



Chicken: Two skin-on breasts which were removed form bone-in split breast. Seasoned with salt and pepper and then marinade in white wine.

Sous vide: The temperature and duration are always difficult to determine. The last time I did sous vide chicken breast, I used 140F for 1 hour. The meat was fine but I felt it could have been cooked at a bit lower temperature. So this time I choose 137F for 1 and half hours (which should be adequate for sterilizing the meat - at least 40minutes at 137F). I used submerge-displace-the-air technique . I lowered the Ziploc bag with chicken and the marinade into the 137F water with the seal still open so that the air could escape and secured it on the edge of the pot using a small binder's clip.

Sauce: I sautéed two small shallot cut in thin strips in butter, added the wine marinade and reduced it to 1/3 of the original volume. Added caper and pats of butter to finish. I squeezed lemon juice and tasted. It had enough salt and pepper and I did not add any.

This time I did not bother with crisping up the skin. I removed the skin and sliced the meat rather thinly. I poured the sauce over. Wine poaching and slightly lower cooking temperature made the chicken really moist and nice. Additional sauce also made this better.

Sous vide salmon poached in olive oil サーモンのオリーブオイル スービィ

This is our continuing exploration of sous vide cooking. We love salmon which I usually brown in a frying pan and finish in the oven. (I usually cook the skin separately to make it very crispy). But when I saw this  olive oil poached sous vide salmon recipe, I had to try it.



The above is the final product. I prepared and vacuum sealed the salmon over the weekend and cooked this on Monday after coming back from work. For fish, sous vide cooking does not take that long and having vacuum sealed packages ready makes it very easy even when you do not have much time.



The salmon is fully cooked but very moist. This was cooked at 135F for 30 minutes.

I looked at several recipes and decided to take the best of two recipes to come up with this cooking method. Unless you have a chamber type vacuum sealer, it is difficult or nearly impossible to vacuum seal items that include liquid. So, if you want to "oil poach", either you have to use "water-replacing-air- method" or make the olive oil "solid" before vacuum sealing. I used the latter method by freezing the olive oil.

Olive oil: I first added 1/2 cup of light olive oil to the vacuum pouch and placed it (vertically) in the freezer. After a few hours, the olive oil was totally solid.

Salmon: One pound of salmon fillet, skin removed (I also removed the fatty belly portion for another dish.) I made two equal sized fillets and seasoned with salt and pepper, lemon zest (micro-grated) and chopped fresh dill (from our herb garden). I took out the vacuum pouch with solidified olive oil in the bottom and placed sprigs of fresh dill and the seasoned salmon inside with the frozen olive oil. I vacuum sealed (While it was being sealed one of the fillets rotated as you can see in the picture below.)  I placed the package in the refrigerator.



Sous Vide: The temperature of sous vide was the next decision  I had to make. One recipe called for 109F but, at this temperature no pasteurization would occur (It would be the equivalent of eating raw salmon or sashimi). Another recipe called for 116F for rare, 126F for medium rare and 140F for medium. I decided on 135F which is above the pasteurization temperature. I cooked it in my sous vide for 30 minutes (see below).



Both fillets were nicely contained within the olive oil accomplishing oil poaching. I took them out, blotted the moisture and excess oil from the surface and browned in a frying pan with butter on a medium flame, 30 seconds on each sides. The salmon was very soft and difficult to flip over.

We really liked the end result. The meat was opaque and fully cooked but very tender, moist and flavorful. It encapsulated all the goodness of the salmon and the lemon zest gave a nice lemony flavor. We really like the fact that I can prepared the pouch ahead of time and it is a cinch to just plunge it in the sous vide. I suppose I can prepare these vacuum sealed packages and freeze them. It may take only 5 additional minutes to thaw in the sous vide.

Sous vide pork loin 豚ヒレ肉のスービィ

We like pork tenderloin and cook it regularly. Our most common way of cooking is to bake it slowly in a 350F oven (often the toaster oven in convection mode) for about 30 minutes or longer to an internal temperature of 140F. (The recommended USDA temperature has been modified and is now 140F). I often use a dry rub of cumin, smoked paprika, cinnamon, nutmeg, black pepper and salt with minor variations. This low temperature baking appears to make it moist and tender. Since we got a sous vide machine, I wanted to cook pork tenderloin in sous vide.

After  sous vide cooking at 140F (60F) for 3 hours (135 to140F for 2-3 hours according to the recipe I read). We need to consider food safety but at 135F-140F (maintained for some time) pathogenic bacteria such as salmonella should not be a problem. Cysticercus* also should not be a problem. After taking it out of the vacuum pouch, I grilled it briefly on a hot charcoal fire. I did this just because it was such a nice day, the mosquitoes are not out yet and we decided to grill using the Yakitori grill. Otherwise, I could have just briefly seared the surface using a frying pan.

* Cysticercus can be effectively eliminated by freezing. At -20C (-4F), the usual temperature of a household freezer, pork will be safe from cysticercus after one week, reportedly. (Madeleine Kamman used to say "not 20 days but after 21 days").  For heating, at 135F-140F (57-60C) maintained for 30 minutes or more, cysticercus should be also all deactivated (Reportedly 45-50C for 15-20 minutes is sufficient)



Since we had other food, we just tasted two slices each. It was quite moist and tender but the big question was "Is it better than our usual slow-baking method?" I am not sure. I may have to try it at 135F to see if that makes a significant difference.

After I generously rubbed the tenderloin with my dry rub ( cumin, smoked paprika, cinnamon, nutmeg, black pepper and salt), I vacuum packed with thin pats of unsalted butter as you can see below.



I placed this in my sous vide machine at 140F and cooked it for 3 hours. After I removed it from the pouch, I seared/grilled it over hot charcoal fire. I poured au jus (with melted butter) over the slices.

This is certainly not bad but the time and effort it takes, we are not sure if this is worth it. We may stick to our low temperature oven method.
P.S We used this pork for sandwiches several days after we cooked it. My wife commented that she detected a slightly “off” flavor to the meat and didn’t want to finish the sandwich. I got out the plastic bag in which I stored the meat and asked her to give it a “sniff test”…my wife has an extremely keen sense of smell. She recoiled from the package and said the smell was terrible; almost like ammonia. I have to say it didn’t necessarily smell bad to me, but I have learned that she can detect smells long before I can. In general it was not a good endorsement. That was the end of that tenderloin. While the tenderloin was quite all right immediately after coming out of the sous vide, it appears that it may not last as long as when we use our usual slow cook method. With that method the meat is good for up to a week. I guess the vote is in; we won’t be using sous vide for pork tenderloin again. 

Sous vide chicken breast 鶏胸肉のスービィ

Chicken breast is popular especially since it is reported to be healthier for you than red meat. One problem with chicken breast meat is that it is very easy to over cook and become dried out. In addition it is not easy to cook chicken breast evenly without under or overcooking. We particularly like the ones from barbecued whole chicken in Weber grill and chicken paillard, since the breast meat is mostly moist and succulent.  But after reading about how sous vide chicken breast is moist with juices running down etc,  I wanted to try sous vide chicken breast. The below is chicken breast cooked in sous vide at 140F for 3 hours and then skin seared/browned. It is indeed moist and nice. I served it with white and green asparagus with kimisu sauce left over from our sake tasting. I also made a quick pan sauce.


The current USDA guide line for cooking chicken is 165F but if you maintain the temperature for a specified longer duration, you can safely cook chicken at much lower temperatures. The amount of fat in the meat is also another factor (meat with more fat requires more time or a higher temperature). This chart indicates that for chicken breast, at 165F-160F, salmonella is killed almost instantly (i.e. as soon as the meat reaches this temperature, it is safe to eat) and at 140F you have to maintain the temperature for more than 30 minutes but less than 40 minutes. So if you use sous vide and maintain the given temperature for the specified duration, you should be able to cook chicken (or other meats) safely at lower temperatures than indicated by the USDA guide line. (Again try at your own risk).

I prepared bone-in skin-on split chicken breasts by removing the bone and tenderloins (for other use), trimmed the excess skin and fat but left most of the skin covering the breast meat intact. After I blotted away any excess moisture using a paper towel, I generously seasoned with salt (I used Hawaiian red salt since I had it) and freshly cracked black pepper. I then vacuum sealed it (left) using my edge-type "Food Saver" vacuum sealer.

It sealed with a good vacuum. I preheated my Anova sous vide machine  at 140F which took only few minutes since I started with the hottest water out of our tap. I placed two vacuum sealed chicken breasts into the heated water and let it cook for 3 hours (as per the recipe, at least for 2 hours). I am estimating that the internal temperature of the center of the thickest part of the chicken would be at 140F after 30 minutes (or at the most, 1 hour. Actual "cooking" or coagulation/denaturing of proteins must take more time to occur at this temperature).

When the chicken breast came out, the meat was opaque and only a small amount of juice was seen in the pouch (left upper in the picture below).



I removed the chicken from the pouch. After blotting any moisture from the surface (upper right), I seared the skin side on high heat with a small amount of vegetable oil (lower left). After 1 minute, I flipped the pieces showing nice brown color (lower right) and set it aside on a plate. I then poured the juice accumulated in the pouches in the same frying pan and briefly reduced (since the pan was hot this took only 20-30 seconds). I finished the sauce with a few thin pats of cold non-salted butter. Since some salt and pepper came off the chicken into the sauce and the chicken was well seasoned, I did not add any more seasoning.


The cut surface was just very slightly pink and very moist (actually not as pink as shown in the picture). Again, we had other dishes and we just tasted a few slices with the pan juice I made. The result was better than my sakamushi 酒蒸し or sake-steamed chicken breast (especially when I use the  microwave to make it, In the microwave the chicken breast sometimes comes out stringy with over cooked areas). I was impressed by how quickly the skin browned. It must be because it had already cooked and was warm and I blotted any moisture before searing (evaporation of liquid cools the surface and make searing/browning slower). Although, this time, this was a test run of sous vide chicken breast, with this success, I will try this as a more complete chicken dish.

Sous vide filet mignon

We heard that sous vide is the best way to cook a perfect steak. I have also heard "you can hold the steak at the desired doneness for a long time in sous vide without worrying about over cooking”. So, with high expectations, we tried sous vide filet mignon.

It appears that there are two methods of doing this. One is to cook the steaks in the sous vide first and them sear them. Another is to sear the steaks first and then sous vide them. With this method, the steaks are briefly seared again after coming out of the sous vide in order to “refresh” the crust. The advantage of the second method is that the first searing occurs when the meat is cold and uncooked which helps the searing process and cooks only the surface. In the first method, after the meat is sous vide cooked, the meat is warm and to developed enough crust, wider layers of over cooked meat will develop under the curst. I am not sure if this two methods make a big difference. But I decided to try the second method. I got two USDA prime filet mignons.

We served the steak with my wife’s oven fried potato, haricot verts (first blanched and then sautéed in garlic and butter). We could have done a better presentation (particularly with that blob of catsup) but it is too late.

I did the first searing using a small amount of vegetable oil on high heat for 30 seconds each sides. The filets came out directly from the refrigerator. After blotting off any juice/moisture, I vacuum sealed it (#1) using the edge type vacuum sealer. Towards the end of the vacuum sealing, some moisture got sucked out and the vacuum was not as tight as when I vacuum sealed dry items. Nonetheless it made a reasonable vacuum seal. Apparently if you use a “chamber” vacuum sealer, you can vacuum seal wet items better but that type of equipment is beyond my reach. For medium-rare, I set my ANOVA sous vide machine to 56C (133F) based on this recipe (#2). The thickest filet mignon was about 1.5 inches, so it should take about 90 minutes to cook. I set it to 3 hours instead, since that would put us at the right time for dinner. Also I trusted what I read that the steaks could be held for up to 6-8 hours without over cooking or deterioration of flavor.


After the steaks were cooked in the sous vide, I finished them by searing a second time. This time I used butter and sprigs of fresh thyme on high heat for 10-15 seconds each side basting with melted butter (#3). I then seasoned them with Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper. As you can see the nearly entire cut surface is nicely rosy pink with a very thin crust (#4). No over cooked surface areas or undercook center.

We think sous vide steak is much better than any we have tried. I usually cook steak by keeping the steak out at room temperature for 15-20 minutes and then searing it in a hot frying pan and finishing in the oven. This method is not bad but, definitely, produces an overcooked surface area and undercooked center even after resting the steak for 10 minutes.

This filet mignon was very tender with a nice crust but no bloody juice came out. The thyme was from our herb garden but we did not taste much of thyme flavor in the steak. Besides being a perfect steak, I think, the sous vide method is perfect for cooking steaks for a company dinner. You just hold the steaks in the sous vide until serving and quickly refresh the crust and serve. It is much easier than a frying-pan-to-oven method.  The only shortcoming may be that it is not possible to accommodate different doneness unless you have more than one sous vide machine.

Sous vide butter poached lobster tail スービィロブスター

This was a celebration of a sort. Instead of going out for dinner, we decided to stay home, cook lobster and pop open a good champagne. Since we recently acquired a sous vide machine, we decided to butter poach lobster tails with tarragon in the sous vide.


Our spring herb garden started producing some herbs such as French tarragon so this was the perfect recipe. I served the lobster tails with the butter used for poaching on the side for dipping along with some lemon juice.
 
We are not champagne connoisseurs but we had one more bottle of a 2000 vintage Don Perignon which we have had for a few years and decided to open it.

It had a nice straw color with fine bubbles. It had the slight taste of toasted bread, pear and cantaloupe flavors. Again, this is like "throwing pearls before swine" (or “Giving a gold coin to cats” 猫に小判– Japanese proverb). The pigs or cats here may not able to appreciate all the subtleties of this champagne but we enjoyed sipping this fine libation, nonetheless.

Going back to the lobster, we decided to use frozen lobster tails instead of live whole lobsters, which we usually get for this type of occasion, especially since this was a new cooking method for us (although how can it go wrong if you are poaching anything in melted butter). This recipe came from the blog of sous vide supreme.

I got two frozen uncooked lobster tails. I thawed them and remove the shells or exoskeleton (right upper in the picture below) showing one with shell removed and one with shell still attached.

I placed the two tails in a vacuum bag, put in a pinch of salt, butter (6 tbs, unsalted, thinly sliced, and two sprigs of fresh French tarragon (from our herb garden). I vacuum sealed (right upper).
I then placed the bag in a 60C (140F) water  bath (lower left). The temperature went down by 0.2C but almost immediately it came back to 60C. I cooked it for 30 minutes (lower right).
 

After 5 minutes, the butter had all melted and the lobster tails were happily poaching in melted butter. After 30 minutes were up, I took the bag out.  This is how the lobster tails looked.


I removed the lobster tails form the bag, poured the poaching liquid (mostly butter) into a container and squeezed in the juice of one lemon. I served this with asparagus (blanched and sautéed in butter) and a tomato half also cooked with butter seasoned with salt and black pepper.

This was a major success. Even though these were frozen tails, they were sublime; very tender but not under or over cooked. The tarragon permeated the butter and the lobster tails. The tarragon butter melded with the sweetness of the juice from the lobster and was a perfect dipping sauce for the succulent lobster. My mouth is watering just writing about this and looking at the pictures again.

P.S. I used the left over dipping sauce butter to make fried rice the next day and it was incredible. It infused the rice with a sweet-tarragon-lobster taste that left me wanting more.

P.S. 2 We also tried sous vide lobster tail at 130F for 30 minutes. I thought this was nice, a bit less cooked and very slightly transparent. My wife preferred 140F for 30 minutes. So, in our household, sous vide lobster tail will be cooked at 140F.

Japanese “onsen” hot spring eggs 温泉卵

After coming up with, what I thought were reasonably safe conditions for pasteurizing shell eggs at home using Sous vide, the next natural step was to make Japanese "Onsen" eggs 温泉卵. One thing I have to point out is that a Japanese "onsen" egg is not a Western-style soft boiled or poached egg. For Westerners, a  totally cooked but still tender white with a runny egg yolk are the combination that constitutes a perfect soft "boiled" or "poached" egg. Japanese onsen eggs are just the opposite—the white is still loose and a bit slippery but the yolk is congealed to the texture of thickened cream  or custard or "nettori" ねっとりtexture and moist.  To make this combination you exploit the fact that the yolk congeals at a slightly lower temperature than the white. Also another fact to consider is that the "jelling" process of egg proteins occur slowly and progressively and the duration of cooking also make a difference in the end results.



The above is my sous vide "onsen" eggs. I served it cold with cubes of ripe avocado, garnished with finely chopped scallion, and "real" wasabi.  I poured cold sauce which I made over it.  The green is water cress added for color.



The above is how the yolk looks after cutting into it using a spoon. It has a viscous and moist texture but is not runny. The white is not firmly congealed and is very tender still slightly slippery but does not have a "raw" texture. As far as I am concerned this is a perfect "Onsen" egg. You could make this without Sous vide but with it, you can control the temperature precisely to make perfect and safe "Onsen" egg every time.



I consulted the blog by a Japanese molecular scientist and gastronome who described making the "ultimate onsen egg " 究極の温泉卵 using a circulator/water bath with 12 combinations of temperature and duration (in Japanese). I followed his recommendation of 67C (152.6C) for 30 minutes. Again there is no mention of the initial temperature of the eggs in this post. I used eggs directly from the refrigerator (40F or 4.4C) and after 30 minutes were up, immediately submerged the cooked eggs in ice cold water for for 15 minutes, wiped them dry and stored them in the refrigerator.

With this high-temperature of 67C in sous vide, I estimated that the egg yolk will reach 54.4C sometime conformably before 30 minutes, extrapolating from the Dr. Cox's chart at 60C. The fact, also, that the egg yolk was homogeneously congealed  indicates to me the temperature of the egg yolk was way above 54.4C*, probably near or at 67C, without significant temperature gradients. Although I used Pasteurized shell eggs this time, I am reasonably comfortable that I can safely used regular shell eggs for this recipe.

*Requires 5 minutes at 54.4C to accomplish "lethal" kill of salmonella, reportedly.

Sauce: I had leftover dashi broth which I made from a "Dashi pack" (kelp and bonito). I added mirin, sake and light colored soy sauce 薄口醤油 and let it come to gentle boil for few minutes, let it cool to room temperature and then refrigerated. You could use diluted "Mentsuyu"noodle dipping sauce 麺つゆ from a bottle as well.

To serve, I could have just seasoned with soy sauce or salt and used it as a topping for salad, noodles or a rice dish. The way I served the eggs is a good one if you just want to enjoy onsen eggs. I was a bit worried my wife might reject the looser texture of the egg white but she said although soft it was cooked not raw. She really liked the dish especially the custard-like texture of the egg yolk.

Compared to soft boiled or poached eggs, onsen eggs are easier to keep and serve.  Once made, they can be kept in the refrigerator safely for, at least several days, and, since the white is not attached to the shell, the eggs slip out easily by just cracking the shell open (No more struggling to get the shell off soft boiled eggs).

Sous vide and home pasteurization of shell eggs スービイと自家製滅菌卵

Please also see the second version of home pasteurized eggs.

Salmonella contamination of hens eggs and chicken meat doesn’t appear to be a big problem in Japan. Raw and undercooked eggs and chicken meat are frequently consumed on such items as raw egg on rice (卵かけ御飯), moon-gazing soba noodle (月見そば) and "tataki" or " sashimi" of chicken tenderloins (とりわさ). In the US, salmonella food poisoning is a serous problem. Eating any product with raw egg in it is risky. Common sources of salmonella food poisoning are home-made mayonnaise, Caesar salad dressing, and raw cookie dough as well as sunny-side-up and soft boiled eggs with runny yolks, Some states (New Jersey being one) even outlawed restaurants from serving sunny-side-up eggs for a while. Certainly nobody in their right mind would consume raw or under cooked chicken meat.

If we want a dish with raw eggs or runny yolks, we use pasteurized shell eggs which we posted before. Low temperature pasteurization for shell eggs is a patented process by Dr. and Mr. Cox. Only one producer (Davidson's safe eggs) is using this patented method.

Recently I acquired a very reasonably priced home sous vide machine. There are at least three products in this category and after reading the review I settled for "Anova" sous vide machine (see below).



The submersible part contains a heating coil and agitating propeller under a metal cover with vertical slits and the  top has a good sized touch sensitive color LED screen for setting the temperature and time. It does quite well heating up the water, maintaining the temperature and providing good circulation. I double checked the temperature using a digital thermometer and found the temperatures registered in the water with the sous vide was within 0.7 F of the temperature registered on the thermometer so it was quite accurate. I am not sure, however, which one is more accurate. In addition the temperature was even thorough out the water bath.



The first thing I wanted to try was to pasteurize shell eggs at home. This has to be done at a  temperature low enough that the egg white and yolk don’t coagulate but high enough and long enough to reduce the salmonella to safe levels. I read about low-temperature pasteurization of shell eggs including the patent filing of Dr. and Mr. Cox and Food Lab's guide to slow-cooked. sous-vide-style eggs. Some suggestions regarding "home pasteurization of shell eggs" I found on the web appear to have no scientific basis and did not sound like they would accomplish adequate pasteurization at all.

I determined that  at 130F for more than 2 hours (2 hours 20minutes to be exact in the eggs I “pasteurized” but 3 hours will be on the extremely safe side) would be the most reasonable to accomplish the goal of pasteurization. But I do not have any microbiological proof to confirm this. So I have to add a word of caution that the results of this method are not guaranteed--use at your own risk.  If you are interested how I came up with this conclusion, please read below*.

I sous vided shell eggs directly out of the refrigerator for 2 hours and 20minutes at 130F. I thought that the long time at low-temperature would eliminate possible temperature gradient issues. I immediately soaked the sous vide eggs in ice cold water for 10-15 minutes, dried the surface and placed them in the refrigerator. My wife suggested that I mark the eggs before putting them with the others in the fridge. She helped me to write "P" for "pasteurized" on the eggs using a pencil (below). (She told me that when she was young this was a method her mother used to distinguish hardboiled eggs from raw ones—its no fun cracking the last egg in the house to make a cake only to discover it is hardboiled!)



When I cracked open the home pasteurized eggs after a few hours of refrigeration, the yolk and white were liquid and looked about the same as an unpasteurized egg.



The second egg (front) had a very slight cloudiness (Which I see occasionally even in the commercial pasteurized shell eggs) but was still liquid.



I scrambled these two eggs and made a stuffed omelet. It cooked exactly like any un-pasteurized egg but I did not have to worry about having undercooked egg in the omelet. Its texture and taste were fine as well.

* Sous vide low-temperature pasteurization of shell eggs.

Dr. and Mr. Cox patent application is a good example of lawyers writing a scientific/technical article. It is next to impossible to figure it out. This patent  contained not just pasteurization of shell eggs but other egg products, scrambling eggs in their shells (why do you need to do this is beyond me),  and a method of replacing naturally occurring gasses in shell eggs with mixture of  sterile air and gasses to prolonged the shelf life. This is a chart they included in the application.



I interpreted this chart this way; at 129.5F (54.4C), the egg white did not coagulate ("irreversibly damaged") at least up to 120 minutes but the yolk temperature reached 54.4C after 105 minutes and maintaining this temperature for 5 minutes would be "lethal" (for salmonella, I assume). At 140F (60C), eggs can be sterilized a bit shorter than 30 minutes  but before this happens "irreversible damage" of egg white will happen. Any other temperatures in between, pasteurization can occur before the egg white starts to "thicken before irreversible damage" but you need to stop heating before 120 minutes to accomplish pasteurization without "irreversibly damaging" the white. To my dismay, the document did not specify the initial temperature of the eggs in this experiment.The initial temperature could make a difference in the amount of time needed to eliminate a temperature gradient and have the yolk achieve a temperature high enough to be lethal to salmonella.

In any case, from this chart and Food Lab's guide to slow-cooked. sous-vide-style eggs, I concluded at 130F, you could keep the shell eggs for a long time (at least 2 hours to be safe) without coagulating the egg white or egg yolk and obtain the adequate pasteurization at the center of the egg yolk. I think that low temperature and long heating time should eliminate any variables stemming from the initial temperature of the eggs and temperature gradient.

Now that I think I can safely produce pasteurized eggs, I will still buy Davidson's Pasteurized eggs but, just in case, we now have a back up plan. More sous vide cooking is coming.

P.S. After receiving a comment from an anonymous reader, I am adding the new references below. Dr. Schuman's article has soild microbiological proof, albeit only 57C and 58C were tested in details. As per this paper, to be absolutely safe (non-detectable salmonella or total bacteriocidal level), 57C (134F) for 75 minutes is recommended. I am not sure if egg white will become cloudy at this temperature,  butI will try and let you know. The below is from the reference 2 below.

1. Schuman JD, Sheldon BW, Vandepopuliere JM, and Ball HR Jr. Immersion heattreatments for inactivation of Salmonella enteritidis with intact eggs J Appl Microbiol. 1997 Oct;83(4):438-44.
   
2.  USDA Document "Pasteurization of Liquid Egg Products and Shell Eggs"