Post Cooking
19 hours had passed, and the moment of truth had arrived. We did not dare open the SVS lid during the entire process, for fear it would throw off the cooking time and temperature too much. The result of cooking a leg of lamb for such a long time, under very constant and consistent heat and without flame looked … odd.
Usually when you cook, say, a leg of lamb, you broil it or maybe grill it. So, when it’s done, the outside has that nice charred look, maybe with some nicely stitched grill marks. When you cook meat a-la Sous Vide, it comes out as this gray-looking thing that isn’t at all appetizing to look at. You won’t want to plop that on anyone’s plate. This is why you really need to break out a pan or the grill, crank it up to max heat and sear the meat quickly on all sides. Yes, it’s a bit ridiculous that you have to dirty a pan to essentially cook the meat AGAIN, but trust me — you want to sear it.
Note in the picture to the left that I had to weigh down the meat with the rack. Even though the bag was vacuum sealed, it would still float up just enough that a tiny bit of it was poking out of the water. I didn’t know if it would float more as it cooked, so I took the safe route and put the rack on top.
Tasting
As you can see from the image at the top of this post, the insides were absolutely, uniformly cooked to the same pinkness. Seriously, look at that! Looks great, right? Well…. See, when I have lamb cooked medium-rare, I’m used to layers of doneness — y’know, brownish on the outside, getting pinker the closer to center you get. And I like having that non-uniformity. With sous vide lamb, it’s all the same — every bite is the same.
Now, uniformly cooked lamb isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I challenge you to find a more succulent leg of lamb than one cooked sous vide. All of the juices are retained in the bag while it cooks, so it’s all absorbed into the meat when it’s finished cooking. It’s the most tender piece of lamb you can imagine. And, for some people, that’s not necessarily a good thing.
This next part might sound a little too carnivorous for some people, so any vegetarians and vegans might want to turn away if you haven’t already. OK, good — those people are creepy anyway, am I right, meat lovers?
Because you’re cooking the meat for so long in the SVS, it does a lot of breaking down of the tendons and fat. What this results in is that incredibly moist and succulent meat after 12+ hours. What you are missing, though, is that familiar sinewy texture as your teeth rip into it. Not to mention, you can literally cut this meat with a fork alone! For some people that might be a missing feature, and I’m sure my wife Deb will comment here later on her opinion on that matter.
Did you ever see the remake of The Fly with Jeff Goldblum as Seth Brundle? There’s a scene where he’s testing his teleportation device, the telepods, and he sends a piece of steak through. He has Geena Davis‘s character take a bite of the steak, and she says it tastes like steak … but not steak. Yeah, this is pretty much how this meat seemed — like it went through a telepod.
First Conclusion
Our first test, I’d have to say, is inconclusive. Because of the misleading manual and how different this meat turned out than anything we’d ever had before, we were dead set on trying this with at least two other types of meat.
Based on this first test, I wasn’t sold on the SousVide Supreme. Having to prepare a meal a day or more in advance, in some cases, was over the top. Having to sear the meat afterward, though necessary, was odd and inconvenient. The resulting meat was incredible to look at, and the taste and texture were extraordinary, but it was a bit too Brundle-y for my taste.
Clacked by Keith McDuffee 
on Apr 30, 2010 @ 14:51 EST5EDT
