Since I’ll be returning to work Wednesday night, I prepped some meat for workday dinners in my SousVide Supreme this morning.
(What? Don’t have a SousVide Supreme? Then make your own!)
I always want to maximize the cooking capacity of my sous vide cooker, so I knew that today I’d be simultaneously cooking a grass fed steak, a butterflied leg of lamb, and some salmon fillets because everything can be cooked together at 130°F.
First, I seasoned the grass fed steak with some kosher salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, and smoked paprika.
Sorry, no exact measurements – I just put a lot more salt and pepper than the other stuff.
Then, I vacuum sealed it with my Foodsaver and set it aside.
The other day at Costco, I picked up a Niman Ranch mustard and herb seasoned butterflied lamb leg.
All the ingredients are Paleo approved and gluten free (lamb, salt, Bavarian-style crushed brown mustard, rosemary, thyme, bay leaves, and sage). It’s also vacuum sealed and I was gonna pop it directly into the SousVide Supreme but there was a little piece of absorbant paper in the package so I decided to repackage it in my own bag sans paper.
I put both items in my rack…
…and lowered it into the 130 F bath.
Six hours later, I removed the tri-tip and plunged it into an ice bath.
After an hour of soaking, I dried off the packet and put it in the fridge for consumption Wednesday or Thursday.
The lamb is going to be bathing for at least 24 hours so I need to take it out tomorrow morning. Tonight for dinner, I dumped in five defrosted Costco Sockeye salmon fillets in the machine, along with the lamb. I fished the salmon out (bad pun alert!) 15 minutes later and replaced the lid on the machine so the lamb could keep cooking.
I think the trick to meal planning with the SousVide Supreme is just finding and grouping things that can cook at the same temperature. For example, if you like all your red meat cooked to 130 F (medium rare), just plan to make all of them at the same time and remove each individual item as they finish cooking. Whenever I make pork chops, I always throw in some chicken breasts as well since they cook at the same time and temperature (140 F for ~ 2 hours). But what’s great is I can leave the chicken breasts (or pork chops) in the machine for longer than 2 hours if I want to eat them later that day.
The beauty of the SousVide Supreme is that you can cook lots of things ahead and then you’ve got tons of ready to eat meat in your fridge (it’s good for ~4 days) or freezer (it’s good for 6 months+). You can eat them cold (e.g. chicken breast) or just reheat them in the bath for 30 minutes set to the final serving temp, dry them off, and sear.
I’ll let you know how everything turns out when I cook them off later in the week. I think this machine is going to stay on my counter for a long time and not end up in my appliance graveyard in the garage…
