Mac SousVide
Ok, I’m going crazy now, I’m thinking about cooking absolutely everything sous vide, my friend are not visiting anymore from fear of ending up vacuum packed and cooked in my bathtub at 54º for 72 hours with thermocouple probes stuck in their bodies.
I was pretty sure that you could sous vide any kind of food and that in some level it would give you good results, but I never thought about SV-ing hamburger. Until recently when I was reading a cooking blog and a guy -You know who you are jeremiah- in the comments talked about how he was making sliders with slow cooked mince. I sudennly saw the light. I had to make me a McSousvide.
Sous vide hamburger - 57C° [45 mins]-
Yes, you can! You can cook burgers sous vide. I wouldn’t have thought so, but you do. I bought about 300 gr of minced beef. I tried to find some with a good amount of fat – Usually I mince my burgers myself from a nice piece of chuck which has about 20% fat content, but I was lazy and I have to be honest I didn’t believed that it would work so I went for the run of the mill supermarket mince – the most fat content I found was 12%, I went for it.
At home I added freshly ground pepper to the meat. What? No salt what is this madness? Indeed no salt, I had to freeze the meat to make sure that when I vacuum seal it, it doesn’t go flat and I wouldn’t end up with beef pancake (Now that I think of it…). If I had salted it then it would have rendered a lot of juices. I formed the burger, plastic wrapped it (cling film) and stuck it in the freezer and set my timer for an hour and a half. I came back when the time was up and checked the beef. It was firm enough to get vacuum sealed. This time I seasoned it with Salt and stuck it in a pouch.
It went according to plan. the beef kept its shape which filled me with happiness. I wrote at the top of this post that the temperature used to cook the meet was 57°C and if you look at the next picture, you’ll see that I set my circulator to 60°C. So why the discrepancy? It’s just that I’m a bit particular when it comes to burgers and I like my meat medium, so that’s why I didn’t go all the way down to 57°C, but as you will read bellow I will do this again and this time use the temperature I’m recommending.
I dropped the pouch in the bath and walked away. I have to say that at this point I wasn’t sure of the outcome of the experiment. I’ve never tried this before and a burger in my mind belong on the grill, in the other hand if SV was to transform the texture of the meat anywhere close to what it does to most food, I had a winner on my hand.
These were the longest 45 minutes I experienced for a long time and I cook things sometimes for several days. At last it was ready and time for me to see what I had done.
I know what you’re thinking I went through the same. What the hell is that!? It looked ugly, I admit. it was like these very bad processed food. “Oh well I tried.” I thought. I still wanted to taste it anyway, so I seared it violently on very high heat and magically it started to look like a proper burger.
Looks pretty, right? That’s not the best though, the best was when I cut it open and saw the inside. Even though it was a bit overcooked, meaning cook to much for a lot of people who like their burger medium rare. I’ve never seen a burger cooked medium that was that juicy.
And that’s only the visual. Taste-wise it was…. I’m a bit tired of saying that it was fantastic or amazing. This time, let’s say otherworldly. The texture was great and it exceptionally moist.
You remember at the head of this post when I said that the beef I use – By lack of belief- was a run of the mill supermarket type? I think this is the testament to Sous Vide, the fact that I could transform a cheap piece of meat that I overcooked a bit to one if not the best burger I ever ate. Next step for me is to grind some chuck and do it again.
I have to thank jeremiah. for inspiring me in doing this.
Anglais
Francais
[...] as actual frying, with the nutrition and flavor being directly related to the oil used in frying. A “sous vide” burger doesn’t interest me whatsoever, so you’re welcome to keep it to yourself. And in my [...]
Oh, damn it looks great!
I will simply have to try it out soon, together with some good bread, salad, ketchup and (air)fries on the side; thank you for this site
burger looks burnt to me!
I agree, it is. As I said in the post, I’m a bit particular with my burgers and I didn’t really believed that it would work, that’s for the same reason I cooked it at 60C instead of the 57C recommended. Especially after seeing the processed-school-dinner look of the meat when it came out of the bag. So it’s true, I went a bit strong on the charring just to make sure that it would have flavors. But after tasting it my doubt disappeared and I realized that I should have had more faith in the process. I actually redid the burger, this time at the correct temperature. I will post the photos, as soon as I’m done fixing my blog.
But no worries it was still damn good