Recent Modernist Blog Posts

Welcome to the final lesson of the free Sous Vide Quick Start Course!

We've gone through a lot of content over the last several days and I hope you're feeling excited and ready to continue along your sous vide journey. Sous vide has transformed my cooking and I know it can transform yours as well!

Welcome to lesson eight of the free Sous Vide Quick Start Course! Today we are going to be diving into sous vide steaks and some of the details surrounding them.

Steak is often the first thing people turn to when they get their sous vide machine, and sous vide does make it easy to cook perfect steaks every time!

Instead of a simple recipe for a sous vide ribeye or a sous vide strip steak, I wanted to share one of my go-to steak recipes that will highlight the power of tenderization through longer sous vide times.

It's for a chuck steak, cooked around 36 hours, that comes out tasting almost like a much more expensive prime rib. It's like nothing you can make with traditional methods!

Welcome to lesson seven of the free Sous Vide Quick Start Course! Today we are going to be diving into some common sous vide mistakes people make that I want you to avoid!

As we get close to wrapping up the course, I thought I'd address some of the most common sous vide mistakes I see people making. Hopefully it can save you from some mishaps in the kitchen as you get started with sous vide!

Sous vide does wonders with steak, chicken, and other meats, but it's not ALL about the meat. Over the last year or two, one of crazes sweeping the nation and pushing sous vide into the spotlight has been the Starbucks Sous Vide Egg Bites.

These egg bites are simple, tasty delights that people love to eat for breakfast or snack on during the day. As the name implies, they are made using sous vide...and are really easy to make yourself.

So watch out Starbucks, here's an easy egg cup bite you can make at home!

So far we have been looking at the basics of sous vide and now it's time to handle the "meat" of the subject! Now it's time to get a little technical.

I like to dive deeper into this subject because understanding times and temperatures is the most vital part of being a successful sous vider.

There is a huge mindset change when using sous vide compared to other methods of cooking.

p>Another one of my favorite things to cook is sous vide pork tenderloin, or really any type of tender pork! Similarly to chicken, pork can be cooked at a lower temperature than it often is traditionally, resulting in moist, tender meat!

I get more compliments about my pork tenderloin than any other cut of meat I cook.

With any cooking method, food safety is very important. No one wants to get themselves sick - or worse yet, make their friends and family sick.

So I think it's important to go over the main safety issues around sous vide, most of which also apply to traditional cooking.

A great thing about sous vide is that it's easy to ensure your food is completely safe to eat, something that can't always be said of many traditional techniques.

People are always curious about what should you sous vide first. There are several things I recommend trying as you get started, but chicken breast is always one of my favorites.

Sous vide chicken breast is the first thing that opened my eyes to exactly what sous vide can do to a normal meal. It was the most moist and tender chicken I had ever had, and it took so little effort to make it.

We all have experience eating chicken that is dry, bland, and overcooked. And most of us are guilty of overcooking it ourselves, especially when we are cooking for other people and are scared of undercooking it. I know I am!

Discovering sous vide was one of the best things that happened to me. I was just another good cook and it turned me into a great cook! I love wowing my friends, my wife, and my family with the food I can now confidently make, and I can't wait to show you how to do it as well!

People always ask me "You're a great cook, so why do you use sous vide?"

To me, there are two huge advantages to sous vide cooking:
creating amazing food and convenience!

This presentation came about from my frustration with the exchanges in my Exploring Sous Vide Facebook group. Someone would ask "What is your recommended time and temperature for chuck roast?" and there would be a wide variety of answers. Why? It's very confusing to newer sous viders!

The answer is 2 fold: it is affected by the type of end dish you are planning on creating, and many folks don't fully understand what sous vide is doing to the chuck roast. Let's take a deep dive into how time and temperature affects sous viding meat.

One of the big divides between professional chefs using sous vide and home cooks is the use of probes with sous vide. The majority of professionals always probe and the majority of home cooks don't. But more and more sous vide cookers are coming with probes, such as the PolyScience HydroPro, the VacMaster SV10, and the Anova Precision Oven, as well as tools such as the MeatStick. So I thought it's important to talk about why you may want to use one.

In general there are several main reasons for using a thermometer when cooking sous vide: HAACP regulations, core-based timing, preventing overcooking during the sear and speeding up the cooking process.

See how Jason answered Heather's question: I just filmed my sous vide brisket video and looked at many recipes before I cooked it. Most suggested between 140-155F (60-68.3C) for 48 hours then finish in a 275F convection oven for 2 hours for a nice crust. I did 150F (65.5C) for 48 hours and 275F convection for 2 hours. The brisket was quite dry and I was surprised. Do you have any recommendations for that? (Or is that just the way it is? This was my first brisket... lol!) Any thoughts?

In a recent Ask Jason Q&A session, Allan Poetak asked

When doing a long cook over 36 hours the meat seems to develop a foul odor. What is the best way to avoid this? Quickly blanching the meat in boiling water first?

In a recent Ask Jason Q&A session Cody said "Moose ribs are challenging" and Penny Ann asked "Jason, how do I cook beef back rib, rib fingers? I want to sous vide them today, any clue?" Both of these questions address the same issue: How Long Do You Sous Vide Odd Meats and Proteins?

Even though I have never sous vided moose and never heard of "beef back rib, rib fingers" before. It's OK to have no personal experience with those exact meats. Here's how I approach meats that are new to me so I have a successful end result.

Like most kitchen appliances, the sous vide immersion circulator does not require much routine maintenance. But if you use your circulator as often as I do, it's probably worth taking an hour every once in a while to give it some "TLC".

This article will provide all the information you need to get your immersion circulator back into tip top shape.