HAAA-le-LU-jah! (sing it!)

so i tried my szechuan chicken for lunch today and IT WAS PERFECT! Perfect, people, perfect, i tell you! wheee! yay! woot woot!

the chicken was tender and juicy but cooked all the way through, and the veggies also came out perfectly. i could just pee, i'm so happy. this particular batch of veggies i threw in the bag raw with about a tablespoon of water, and chucked in the freezer. this tells us one vital thing: fresh veggies do just fine without any prep at all, basically. they steam themselves in the microwave. today also marks the last time i ever pay extra for microwave-in-the-bag veggies. i don't want to chop them or anything, but no more paying extra for "steamfresh" or that kind of malarky.

ooooh, feels empowering, doesn't it? :)

so - basic formula to replicate any bistro poultry cutlet-type entree is:

4 oz. chicken or turkey breast
1 or 2 tbl of some type of sauce
4-6 oz. veggies
3 oz. starch (rice, quinoa) or starchy veggie (corn, beans) - optional (takes the calories from the 250-280 range to the 330-370 range, depending on type)

sous vide the protein, cook and bag the starch (optinoal), bag the veggies and put everything in the freezer. we know that 146 degrees F for 90 minutes works - will experiment with that to see if we can take it down a little. will also work on finding the most freezable, low-sodium sauces. you could also easily add seasonings or herbs to the veggies. one word of caution from the sous vide threads at eGullet.com: use garlic sparingly, because the flavor gets intensified to the point where it's not pleasant. actually, a second word of caution: alcohol. if you use beer or wine in your sauce or seasoning, you'll need to cook off the alcohol before bagging it because it also does strange things during the sous vide process.

this formula appears to hit the macronutrient ratios on the head, too. (can i get another woot woot?)

done. CHECK. now, it's on to making it easier and less time-consuming, and figuring out the most efficient protocol for prep (e.g. is it easier/faster to do one sous vide and one crockpot meal together, two crockpot, two sous vide, or what? should i cover everything in saran wrap to making cleaning faster?) and the bigger question, will i need to invest in a better sealer?

stay tuned!

bags-a-boiling (simmering, really)

i finally got down and dirty with sous vide last night. the szechuan sauce i'd put in the freezer the night before wasn't frozen (DH said the amount of salt in the sauce raised the freezing point. uh, duh. i henceforth dub him mr. science.)

i cut and bagged the chicken with the sauce, and it's abundantly clear why it needs to be solid. it's not so much that the liquid gets sucked out when you vacuum the bag; it's that tiny little amounts of liquid leak up and you end up with a less-than-stellar seal, which also takes two times longer for the machine to finish, and as a result, you have to stop often to let the sealer cool down. this rates fairly high on the PITA-meter. i'm either going to have to restrict myself to sauces that easily freeze, or invest in a heavier-duty sealer. since one of the main points of the exercise is to conserve funds, we'll start with the sauce thing. i read on some website that you can put a paper towel in the bag to keep liquids from affecting the seal, but the idea of cooking, freezing, and nuking with a soggy piece of paper towel just ain't doing it for me. yuck.

all of which reveals a new bistro MD mystery: the sauce bag. they often package sauces separately, like the orange sauce for the shrimp, or the cranberry sauce that comes with the pork cutlet. it's clearly not pre-frozen, and definitely vacuum-packed. i can only assume that the commercial-grade vacuum sealer system they use is light-years ahead of my dinky $50 one from target. now that i've thought about it, it's not much of a mystery, is it?

back to the task at hand: i also couldn't decide if i should sous vide the veggies or not, since i used an asian mix of fresh, pre-prepped veggies from the good people at Dorothy Lane Market. i cleverly decided to cook ONE bag and just freeze the rest, so we can compare the results. even smarter - i marked the bag i cooked so i know which one it is. :)

ironically enough, bagging was the trickiest part of the whole operation. i used a BIG copper roasting pan almost full of water, and i put it on my smallest, lamest front burner with a candy thermometer. set the temp 2/3 of the way beween low and medium, and watched as, well, very little happened. i'm not sure what kind of magic i expected, since i've put water on the stove before, so i have a pretty good idea of how that part works. after 20 minutes i turned the heat up to medium. when the meat and veggie bags were ready, the temperature was about 130 degrees. once they were in and temp was climbing back up again, i let it get to about 145 and turned the heat back down to midways between low and medium. the water temp stabilized at almost exactly 146. i checked on it every 20 minutes or so, but it didn't move more than a degree.

according to the chart, at 146 degrees, a piece of chicken that's apprx. 40 mm thick needs 1 hr and 20 minutes or so to be fully cooked. since i had the false start, and have repeatedly read that you can't overcook when you sous vide (although i don't know that i really believe that) i left it in the water for about an hour and a half, took everything out and dried it, and put the bags in the freezer. this morning they were good and frozen, even that pesky sauce. (hm? will ask mr. science how that could be.)

my verdict on time and hassle: actually maintaining the water temperature was surprisingly easy, with the bulk of the effort spent on getting the food measured and bagged with a proper seal, and waiting for the sealer to cool down. this was complicated by the fact that i ran out of pre-made bags and started using the rolls, which require more sealing. when i'm doing these a dozen at a time, i'm going to use the more expensive, pre-made bags. they're about $10 for a box of 32 (adding $0.32 to the cost of each meal - still MILES cheaper than bistro's $11 per meal.) i'm also going to do what i can to find sauces that freeze easily. we'll have to wait and see if my cheapo sealer can stand up to the volume. i might check on ebay to spirit up a better one.

so, szechuan chicken and vegetables for lunch today. i'll report back in the afternoon with the results.

my next effort will be with a stuffed chicken breast. that might also be a way to keep non-freezing sauces contained during sealing. (ah-HA!) i'm torn between that, and something beefy. what do you think?

adventures in sous vide

hey everyone!

i've been studying up on sous vide (thanks renita!) and found an extremely helpful white paper online which includes charts with cooking times and temps based on the thickness of the protein, an evaluation of equipment, and a discussion of safety and pasteurization. i'll check the website of the guy who wrote it and see if he's okay with my reposting it. (i can't remember his name right now - i found him on eGullet.com where there's an exhaustive discussion.)

last night i bought some chicken breasts, a pound of fresh asian veggie mix, and a szechuan sauce. per eGullet discussion i put some sauce in an ice cube tray to freeze, since the vacuum sealer will inevitably suck both air and liquid out when i seal the chicken. as of this morning, it hadn't frozen, so i'm hoping that means that it's thick enough to stay in the bag during the seal. tonight is my first attempt at sous vide at home - szechuan chicken with vegetables. according to the chart, i need to maintain 146 degrees F for about 52 minutes for a thickness of 25-30 mms. will be interesting to see how PITA (pain-in-the-ass) that will be. if it comes out well, and is something i'm going to be doing a lot of in the future, DH will build me a sous vide cooker-type thingy that will self-regulate precise water temperatures using a hotplate and some sort of heat sensor. GOD i love that man. he's absolutely tremendous. i won't ask for that though until we've established that this is the way to go, and i can do it, and the food tastes good on the other end post-freezer and microwave.

here's what i've been able to establish so far:

• sous vide is really just a gentle way to poach
• 140 degrees F meat is generally considered the minimum "safe" temperature to avoid anaerobic culture growth (like e. coli and botulism) but there's some arguments from the culinary world that that number depends on post-cooking treatment and how long until you actually serve it
• most chefs cook fish at a lower temperature (between 105 - 130 degrees F)
• freezing after sous vide seems generally safer than chilling for a few hours

i'm also guessing that microwaving something after freezing leaves you on pretty safe ground. all this food safety stuff explains why all the bistro packages are explicit about NOT defrosting prior to reheating, and not to keep it after it's thawed. mystery solved, huh? i'm also proud of myself for picking up on the whole idea of freezing your sauce PRIOR to sealing. not doing that would have 1) made a mess, in addition to messing up my calorie estimates and 2) compromised the airtight seal on the baggies. good to know!

UPDATE: on the jambalaya, which DH had for lunch yesterday. he reported that he prefers it to the bistro version (huzzah!) because it's more tomato-ey and richer, and the rice's consistency was fine, not mushy at all. yay! maybe tomorrow i'll try it myself. :)