Adventures in sous-vide: let the experimental cooking begin!

After months of hesitation, the day finally dawned: oh yes, April 5th 2013 -  henceforth known as the day the sous-vide apparatus arrived! [Quite probably soon otherwise known as the day I stopped proudly posting photos of my tea, and started to lose a lot of weight].

A full day's work had to be done before I was allowed to dive in and rip it all out of the packaging, but I made up for that today! First move? Fitted it snugly into the sous-vide sized space that miraculously appeared in my little kitchen (friends kindly removed the last hurdle to purchasing this piece of kit, i.e. the guilt I'd've felt if I'd had to chuck out the perfectly good coffee machine that was keeping its spot warm). Look, it's all shiny!

So, setup and testing compete, onwards christian soldiers for a nice little walk up the Regent's Canal to my favourite Hackney shops - fish from Jon Norris and meat from the Ginger Pig. As usual, very restrained, hardly bought anything at all!



Alright I lied. But all I got was an octopus, a piece of salmon, a lemon sole, some pork belly, rump skirts, 2 pork chops and a couple of bits of bone marrow -- oh, and then the all important duck eggs! [No, just me, no dinner party for 12]. Truth be told, I actually spent £350 on this fabulous boil in the bag machine just so I can make slow-poached duck eggs every day! I'm not that bothered about all the other fine things it can do!  Still, now I've got it, might as well try cooking everything in it, non??

Ah. So photos of stuff cooking in the water bath are perhaps not the most exciting shots. Maybe I won't do any more of them. Sorry.

So with duck eggs poached for 45 mins at 64.5C, a piece of (now brined) salmon took pride of place in the bath - well, it did once I worked out that to drop the temperature to 52C, adding cold water would be quicker than just giving the temp gauge a hard stare.  Also, the salmon wasn't exactly vacuum packed: stupid olive oil shot out the bag into the stupid machine apparently telling it to just seal - no vacuum. Ah well, live n learn.

Next battle? Well, extracting egg from shell is not the easiest trick in the book -- fortunately I forgot to photograph the ones I completely mashed, and only seem to have a pic of the one that went nearly to plan. 

So, without further ado - the big reveal: slow poached duck egg and sous-vide salmon on buttered asparagus (that I forgot to griddle) and potato rosti.

And the verdict? Duck egg, oh so good! Salmon - alright. But quicker, crispier, easier and tastier cooked in a pan.  Will I do it again? Hmm. Not sure. Maybe but I'll sear it afterwards I think!

Still, not to worry - for tomorrow I shall mostly be watching my marinated rump skirts sit in the bath for about 10 hours.  I may photograph it every hour. Watch this space (or don't!)