Sous Vide Chuck Roast

02.01.10

Cooking Sous Vide results in tender, juicy pot roast, but home-made version is not as easy to control as professional Sous Vide equipment.

I had been thinking about trying Sous Vide after watching Top Chef and seeing them use the Sous Vide machine, but then when Sur La Table had the first home version one in their catalog for a mere $500, (a bargin compared to commercial versions), I really wanted to try this cooking method, but didn't want to spend $500.  So I searched the internet and there are many sources on the Sous Vide method of cooking. But even the home versions used time/temperature controllers ($100+) with a crock pot, but didn't want to spend that kind of money unless I really thought the results were going to be worth the investment.

I decided to try to do sous vide in my regular crock-pot with chicken (only thing I had defrosted in the fridge). Even on the warm setting, it was too hot and I ended up with poached chicken.  Not good.

Then while doing research for my annual Valentine's dinner, I saw 72 Hour Short Ribs on one of a restaurant's menu.  So I searched for a 72 hour short ribs recipe, and Thomas Keller's book came up on the SousVideGeek blog (where he blogs about the Sous Vide Supreme that he acquired). So, I decided I really needed to do this, but still couldn't afford the SousVide Supreme or other contraptions, which lead to the purchase of a new Cadillac-version crock-pot by Hamilton Beach.  So the experiment began.

I decided I'd use a chuck roast and have my parents over to dinner as guinea pigs before trying this out on my friends. If you haven't done the math yet, 72 hours is a very long time.  After reading the crock-pot manual I devised my game plan.  The pot roast had to be in the slow-cooker no later than Thursday by 5:00 pm to be ready by Sunday at 5:00 pm.  I vacuum packed the pot roast. Actually, I un-vacuum packed it from its freezer storage since I put the lablel in with the meat (a time saving trick, I  use to save writing on the back, but rethinking this method) and re-vacuum packed in a new bag with some salt/pepper and seasonings.  Hot water went into the crock-pot, topped with lid and insterted probe, set to 140 degrees.  Add newly vacuum packed pot roast and we were to to sous viding heaven.  At least I hoped.

Even though the crock-pot is made for long slow cooking, it's really not intended to sous vide.  After 13 hours on warm it shuts itself off.  Good safety feature.  Bad for sous vide.  So every night before I went to bed and and every morning when I got up (even though it hadn't been 13 hours), I turned the crock-pot off and reset it back to the 140 degree temp.  I have to say the Hamilton Beach Set'n'Forget slow cooker was wonderfully reliable, warm is higher than 140 degrees.  It was consistently 157 degrees.  Based on the recipe, the short ribs are supposed to cook at 140 degrees for the 72 hours.  So the worrying started.  What would happen, would I get to Sunday and have dried out pot roast, should I take them out sooner?  Then the worry snowballed into what if I put to much seasoning in?  Will it be so salty we can't eat it?  Do the seasonings concentrate in that long period?  Then someone (a dark-headed helper, I think) readjusted the probe and poked a hole in the bag.  Now I'm thinking it's totally ruined, but the hole was small and at the top and didn't let the water into bag.  It just wasn't vacuum sealed any longer. Panic was starting to set in. Well, a couple of glasses of wine later, I calmed down.  It's an experiment.  If it's awful, we'll order pizza or get a bucket of chicken. Explaining this to my parents would be much less embarrassing than explaining to my friends, although to my friends credit, I know they would be understanding.  I've cooked lots of things I haven't liked, but I can only recall one time I cooked something my friends didn't like (in an attempt to use less sugar for my husband who is a diabetic and my friend is a sugar fend--he adds extra frosting to Cinnabons).

D-day finally arrived and it was show time for the pot roast.  It was delicious.  Fork tender, plenty of juice to make gravy (not sure if this is normal or due to the hole in the bag).  My parents and husband loved it.  The real question is whether these results are any better than when I cook in my Mario Batali dutch oven. The whole morning/night resetting thing was not bad, having the crock-pot on the counter for three days straight was pain.

I'll have to give it another try and see what the results are.  Let me know if you try sous vide and what your results are and if you've figured out a way to do sous vide for under $100 bucks.  Do you think it's really worth waiting three days for a dish?