72 hours beef short ribs

This is one sous-vide recipe that you will have read or heard about, as the 72 hours cooking time really stands out. You don't normally hear of meat being cooked for so long, as traditional cooking techniques are not suited to stretch over 3 days while retaining flavours and textures. So I decided to finally start the journey of this never-ending and inevitably well planned cooking process. As for any recipe, there are different versions at different temperatures, and I decided to cook mine at 57C for the first 48 hours, raising the temperature to 75.5C for the last 24 hours.

I seasoned the meat with a sprinkle of pepper and generous salt, then vacuum packed it together with a herb sachet containing rosemary, sage, thyme and a clove of garlic sliced into two. I then put the bags into the water bath for a continuous 72 hours. I recommend that no matter what, but especially if you are in Singapore, when you cook sous-vide over such long periods using an immersion circulator, you observe the following:

• Cover the container either with its own lid or some cling film
• Make sure that the packs are well into the water.  They will eventually develop some air and tend to emerge, and you might have to put some weight over them to keep them into place
• Place a fan behind the circulator to ensure that it won't overheat. The last thing you want is your circulator to stop while unattended in the middle of the process, as you will have to throw away all the meat and start again.
• Ensure that the bags are double sealed, since the bones can be sharp and may potentially damage the envelope. If necessary, you might consider double vacuuming within a second envelope.

After 3 days of wait, I was eager to extract the bags from the water bath and unveil the beauty of these slabs of meat. Pictured above, what the ribs looked like after I extracted them from their own envelope and drained the juices (set aside to make the sauce).

Now, time to make the outside crispy, seal the flavours and create a tasty Maillard reaction all around this gourmet cut of meat. I blow-torched the short ribs from every side, making sure that the outer layer of fat crisped up, sweating out some of its oil.

While slicing, the meat fell off the bone and really didn't take much effort to cut through! The slices revealed the fairly thick inner marbling which was already well visible before the cooking (see first photo on top). The meat, despite being perfectly pink as a "medium" would look like if you cooked a steak, actually tasted like a "medium-rare" throughout.

This is without a doubt a result that you would never achieve without sous-vide: the meat was tender, incredibly juicy, and felt almost like raw meat. Marbled with melting fat, crispy outside, but most importantly packed with flavour throughout! In actual fact, it didn't need any sauce since the natural beef flavour was enhanced by the balanced aromas released by the herbs.
This is the kind of result which makes you happy to be cooking sous-vide, and I will be making it more regularly.

More on Beef Brisket Sous-Vide

There are 3 very different sous-vide recipes for the beef brisket, 3 different schools:

• 48 hours @ 57C
• 48 hours @ 64C (Thomas Keller's)
• 24 hours @ 80C

In a previous post, I described my second attempt with Thomas Keller's recipe. While the first attempt was quite good, the second time round the meat came out quite dry, possibly due to the lean cut of meat.

This third time, I decided to try a radically different recipe, the 80C for 24 hours. I am not sure why, but many blogs and articles on the Internet talk about the last two techniques, without explaining what exactly the difference is between the two. Well, the result is totally different. The 24 hours brisket was delicious, with an intensely flavoured juice out of the bag, and it broke to the touch. It was browned throughout, exactly like a traditionally braised beef brisket, except more flavoursome.
The 48 hours @ 64C brisket was pink in the inside, still a little tough, and tended to be dry unless the cut of meat is well marbled throughout.
So in conclusion, if you want a more fine dining sous-vide effect, then go for Thomas Keller's recipe (although I haven't yet been able to perfection this myself). If you are after a more traditional result, then the 80C for 24 hours will give you a great, reliable result.

I haven't yet tried the third option, 57C for 48 hours, but a fellow Singapore blogger posted a great, very detailed article on it: http://wishihadafoodpun.wordpress.com/2010/05/18/home-cooked-sous-vide-brisket-55c-48h/

48-hours beef brisket

I always wondered what a 48 hours beef brisket cooked in sous-vide would taste like, and I tried this twice. Ironically, the first attempt was more successful than the first. Let's see why.

I followed the recipe on Thomas Keller's cookbook, so I started from seasoning the meat with salt and pepper, then I seared it on all sides for about 7-8 minutes, until nicely browned.

I then let the meat to rest for a few minutes, cooled it in some zip-lock bags that I immersed in water to speed up the cooling process, and finally placed the meat into the refrigerator to cool it for a few hours.

In the meantime, I prepared some herb sachets by wrapping 3 slices of garlic, and some sprigs of thyme and rosemary. I cut a few millimeters of the corners of the bags to create openings that the liquid could circulate through.

I vacuumed packed the chilled briskets in individual packs, together with the herb sachets.

Finally, I placed them into a water bath at 64C degrees for 48 hours. It is a long process indeed...

As I mentioned earlier, I got different results out of the two times that I attempted this. Since the process was exactly identical, the conclusion is that the meat was quite different. I noticed that the briskets I used for second batch had substantially less marbling and were more uniformly red. I t was quite visible when the meat was raw, and it resulted into a pinker meat with less fat, and therefore drier when cooked.

At the end of the day, this is all common sense which applies to sous-vide as much as it does to other more traditional cooking techniques. It just means I will pay much more attention to the cuts of meat I will be given from now on!

To finish off the dish, I drained the juice from the vacuum bags while the meat was still warm, reduced them to a half and added a teaspoon of cream and one of horseradish to make the sauce. I sliced the briskets, slightly coated them in flour on the pink sides which I briefly pan-roasted. I finally served the slices on a bed of parsnips puree' and radicchio rosso on the side.

Rhubarb Sous-vide

When I saw this beautiful rhubarb being sold at FairPrice in Marine Parade, I thought it would be a great opportunity to try it sous-vide. I appreciate the fact that FairPrice is actually making an effort to introduce foreign products that otherwise can hardly be found in Singapore. They are currently promoting rhubarb, celeriac, parsnips, artichokes, endives and a few others.

I have never actually cooked rhubarb before, so this would be my first experience with it. I quickly did some research to find a recipe, and I found this one: 45 minutes at 61C.

As in the recipe, I mixed some natural vanilla pods, about 130g rhubarb and 25g of sugar in a bag and vacuumed it dry. I only cooked it for 30 minutes, since this other recipe suggests cooking it at the same temperature for just 20 minutes, so I decided to average them out.

The result was very tasty, especially with that natural and smooth vanilla flavour lingering in the background. Next time, I would try to cook it for 45 minutes, since I could tell that it would have tasted even better if softened a bit further.

12-Hours sous-vide pork belly

I finally decided to try a slow cooking dish with the new circulator. This was my first real attempt to cooking meat overnight, and I must say that I was incredibly happy with the result! The meat fell off the bone effortlessly, the skin was crispy and the sauce was rich and tasty. The marsala wine sauce added that Italian touch to the dish. I am starting to really appreciate sous-vide cooking, since once you get into it and it becomes more natural, it's really a "set and forget" affair.

I used pork belly on the bone, and I brined it for a couple of hours in a solution of 1l of water, 80gr salt and 30gr of sugar. It would have been better to brine it overnight, but I didn't have the time and I decided to take that shortcut this time. At least next time, when I will be doing it the proper way, I will know the difference. After brining the pork, I quickly washed and vacuum packed it together with a "herb sachet" containing black peppercorns and thyme.
Herb sachets are used to let the aromas of the herbs circulate within the vacuum pack without entering in direct contact with the meat, therefore avoiding concentration of flavour at specific spots.
I made my herb sachet by wrapping the herbs into a cling film, and then trimming the edges to let the liquid go through the sachet.
I sealed the pork in a vacuum bag together with about 80ml of chicken stock.

Finally, I slow-cooked the pork at 180F (82.2C) for 12 hours, then removed it from the water bath, chilled it and refrigerated. At the time of serving, I opened the pack and set aside the gelatin surrounding the meat (this forms during the slow cooking process followed by refrigeration). I removed the skin from each piece of belly and crisped it on a non-stick pan, skin side down (no added oil necessary) on high-heat. At the same time, on a normal stick metal pan, I browned each piece of pork on a thin film of canola oil. Once browned, I removed the pork and deglazed with a splash of Marsala wine (the Italian touch that does magic with pork!), and once the alcohol evaporated I added the gelatin and another 40ml of chicken stock. I reduced the sauce over 4-5 minutes, then served it with the pork bellies, topped with their own crispy skin.

Lobster Sous-Vide

Finally, one week after its arrival, I get to put my hands on the long awaited thermocirculator. Since I had friends visiting, I decided to play safe and try something simple. I created a quick and easy recipe pulling elements from various books.


I followed Thomas Keller's directions for the cooking of the lobster tail, except instead of putting the whole thermocirculator into a bath of beurre monte'(that would be a bit too expensive for a one-off!), I made a small portion of beurre monte'and put it into the bag with the lobster tail. I also added some dill from my garden for extra flavour, and cooked the tail for 15 minutes at 59.5C. This resulted in a firm but creamy texture. I then refrigerated the tails as I decided to serve them cold.


For the fennel, I based the timing on Thomas Keller's: 75 minutes at 85C. The only inconvenience was that the circulator pump stopped at about 45-50 minutes, and basically the cooking process became unreliable from then onwards. I then learnt that at such high temperature, the Sous-vide professional can't cope and eventually fails. After several experiments, I came to the conclusion that the only way to make it work reliably (without placing it in an air conditioned environment, which is a bit silly), is to place a decently powerful fan blowing into the device. Well, next time I'll know. The fennel was a bit undercooked as compared to what I did the previous day, but still nice. I then quickly browned it on each side on a frying pan before serving. The other struggle was due to the fact that I don't have a vacuum packer and I have been sealing the bags in water. This technique works perfectly with meats and seafood or anything heavy, but when you deal with vegetables, you definitely end up with air bubbles that blow within the pack once you place it into the hot bath, bringing your carefully sealed vegetables floating on the surface. this is really something you don't want, since the temperature will not be evenly distributed. I am planning to cook more vegetables sous-vide, so I will buy a vacuum packer.


The onions were cooked together with the fennel, and they were also slightly undercooked. They seem to require about the same timing as the fennel for proper cooking.
I made the lobster sauce with 1/2 cup of buttermilk, 2 tablespoons of sour cream, salt and about 15 fresh green peppercorns. I whisked it until emulsified and let it rest in the fridge. I only served the foam on top of each lobster tail.


Lessons learnt from my first sous-vide experiment:

1. If you are planning to cook vegetables, you will need a vacuum packer, or else you will end up with floating parcels
2. 85C for 75 minutes is a high temperature which tends to overheat my circulator (on sous-vide professional machines). The usage of a fan pointing onto the device resolves the problem. According to Polyscience, my unit is defective and they are now replacing it free of charge!

Overall, I must say that on my first experience with this cooking technique I had a lot of fun. There are hurdles that you need to resolve and learn how to deal with, since this is different than conventional cooking, but this is also what makes it attractive. The thought that once you learn', it is perfectly repeatable, makes me think of the day that I will be able to sit and relax while the meat is braising!

Tradition and Innovation

Staying on the theme of innovation, but onto a food specific topic. Last weekend I bought two new cooking toys:

• A Le Creuset cocotte
• A Polyscience Sous-Vide Professional

Looking at the two standing in the kitchen, the contrast between them became obvious. A cocotte, no actually, THE Creuset cocotte, the symbol of traditional cooking. Beautifully simple, stylish, in heavy, solid cast iron. What can you cook with it? Traditional French classics, of course: Coq au vin, beef Bourguignon, etc...


On the other end of the spectrum, the leading edge technology of modern gastronomy: a Polyscience Sous-vide immersion thermal circulator. It looks like a network storage solution more than a kitchen accessory. Digitally beautiful, it would disorient your grandmother, and perhaps even your mother. What can you cook with it? You can indeed revisit classics such as coq au vin or beef Bourguignon, but its strength is certainly fine dining and the ability to produce meats and vegetables with unprecedented textures and flavours. Is this going to take over everyone's kitchen within the next 20 years? Perhaps.

The natural question is - what will be the next generation cooking tool, after sous-vide circulators? What will make such a tool look like a thing of the past? Maybe this blog won't live long enough to answer that.