I was at a sushi restaurant and heard several people state the steak was better than any local steakhouse. That peaked my attention and they were not wrong.
The restaurant uses the Sous vide cooking method and nailed a perfect medium rare for be. While I’m not a huge fan of pre-sliced this was great. I guess I’m just confused why this isn’t employed by actual steakhouses.
by Big_Wish_6633
37 Comments
You can’t really ‘cheat’ in cooking lol
It’s not cheating. It’s a superior way of cooking certain cuts.
People may consider it cheating because it’s a very low effort way of getting a very high quality result but it’s not.
That said it’s not always the best way either, it really depends on the quality and cut of your beef, and the result you are going for.
I really like using it for thicker cuts of expensive beef that I just want to be perfect side to side medium rare.
For thinner cuts I will always prefer reverse sear or basting.
No hate for sous vide, just trying to reduce the amount of microplastics I consume.
Because I can grill a steak in 10 minutes instead of wrapping it in plastic and throwing it in warm water for hours on end to implement no extra flavor in any way.
It makes since for a restaurant to sous vide as they just might be serving so many that this way is easy to make sure a steak never comes back because of temp.
At home sous vide should be used for reheating properly cooked meat. Yes I am biased, because warm water steak that is wrapped in plastic and then thrown under a broiler or at home a torch just sounds disgusting. You ever see a steak pulled out of the warm water and plastic, nothing about it looks appealing.
Takes too long and people learned about microplastics
Not sure what the criteria is for cheating at steak but nah it’s a great way to cook. The only reason I don’t do it is that I’m not comfortable cooking in plastic.
I’d imagine restaurants don’t do it much because it can be hard to guess how many customers will come in wanting steak, and if you sous vide the steaks, you would either run out or end up wasting some of them.
1: it is popular, extremely so.
2: I simply do not need it. Heat management and timing can do the same thing.
There are a couple of quality and logistical hurdles that many people don’t account for;
Everyone has their own idea of correct doneness, so having a perfect medium rare only gets you so far.
There is an added risk of anaerobic contamination when using Reduced Oxygen Packaging (ROP) that staff needs to be aware of and trained on.
If the technique is abused or poorly executed the product can be mushy (cooked too long), or dry even when set to the correct temperature.
You end up with a different window of opportunity (timeframe) to move product.
New equipment, although it’s much cheaper now, it’s still more stuff to own and stuff ALWAYS breaks. Chamber vac systems are not cheap.
The bags. A lot of us don’t like boiling everything in bags.
Lastly, this one is my personal opinion, but it makes everything taste slightly dead or flat. Cooking on fire brings a sense of life to the food that poaching does not. I’d rather a steak be a half temp off but from a grill than a boiled and seared piece.
Is enjoying your meal cheating??
The main challenge with sous vide is getting a good crust; it comes out of the bag very wet, in its own juices. Properly dried (I often add some extra salt before searing) you can still get a nice crust and yes- it comes out at the exact temp with no band. My preferred way to cook lean cuts by far. I also do a good brisket this way (but for 36-48h instead of 1h for tenderloin)
I used SV for years, one day I was feeling lazy and grilled a ribeye, never did SV again. I like charred bits and inconsistency in the final result.
It takes too damn long at home! Me hungry, me want steaky steaky muy pronto.
It’s expensive to get started and takes up kitchen space that not everyone has. And with all the concern over micro plastics and how heating them makes it worse, I’m not interested in cooking with plastic.
Time. Sous vide requires a longer start up.
I don’t know if it’s cheating I just don’t trust plastic for cooking
I believe a lot of restaurants do use this method. But you do have to pre cook everything so I suppose there is a chance of waste
I don’t believe “cheating” exists in cooking. Do what you like, that’s what matters. But I wouldn’t say it’s not popular, I think it’s extremely popular. Most people I know seem to be doing it.
I tried it once. It’s just not my jam. For me, nothing beats a steak cooked over hot coals. So I don’t bother with cooking them any other way.
Pretty sure it is really popular in restaurants.
You can achieve the exact same results with reverse sear. Less set up/less clean up.
For me it’s only worth it on extra thicc cuts, like a tomahawk. I pretty much refuse to cook a tomahawk any other way.
No, not cheating. I’ve done it and prefer reverse sear on the grill. I think it tastes better and I’m guessing others do too.
New technique which my reading tells me requires new equipment. I have the money and I like tools and stuff, but my kitchen is full. I have no more counter space. I have no more cupboard space.
I’ve had a sous vide for well over a decade, I don’t really use it anymore because I learned how to cook stuff normally
I’m a big fan of pre-sliced steak. Not sure why people hate it.
I am confident in saying that if everyone on this sub was forced to cook a filet sous vide just one time, at least 70% would make the sous vide their standard method of cooking steaks going forward. Most people don’t know about it or have formed an opinion without actually trying it themselves.
Reverse sear your steaks instead of sous vide…Same result and NO plastic worries!
Because it’s gross to slow cook food in a plastic bag for hours
Piqued your interest not peaked your attention
Sous Vide is a great way for an inexperienced cook to replicate 90% of the skill of an experienced cook / chef.
Most decent steakhouses aren’t struggling to hit temps.
Most places don’t sous vide because A) it’s harder to get a really great crust and B) you can’t uncook a steak.
Unless you have a model which allows you to know in advance how many steaks you’re going to sell, you’re either going to run out every night or repurpose the cooked steak into a derivative dish like steak burritos.
A lot of places don’t want to deal with the headache of having a dish that takes 1-2 hours to make. It’s one thing if you have dish that takes a couple hours, but you can throw in the salamander for a couple minutes prior to serving like sheet lasagna. It’s another to commit to a 30 minute window.
You can get the same result with an oven and avoid the micro plastics.
Plastics
I’ll answer your actual question, which I don’t see anyone doing.
Sous Vide is very niche in that its used to raise somethings temperature to a specific level evenly via a tub of water. This means that to cook the food requires second and third steps after the Sous Vide process, and some foods don’t work well with the cooking method, its mostly used for meats, then you still have to sear them. For roasting, braising, etc etc its also not used because of the cooking methods. So, for the most part, its used for grilling, or for something you are going to sear (because when it comes out of the Sous Vide bath the outside is very unpalatable).
That being said, to cook it, you need at the very least a tub to hold the water, and a device to heat the water, and some way to vacuum seal the product, with the best option being an actual vacuum sealer. The water temperature needs to be heated and controlled at that heat constantly, so various Sous Vide heating devices have been made, as well as tubs to hold the food, since it has to be COMPLETELY submerged to work, held under the water with something heavy, whether a plate, or Sous Vide weights.
That means for a normal person cooking normal food, you need specialized cooking implements and tools, the space to store and use them, and eat the types of food that use that very narrow type of cooking method often enough to justify the cost and space to get it. In most cases, most people don’t have that need, when you can do a reverse sear on a steak and get a very good steak cook out of it without needing all the extra expense.
Some benefits to Sous Vide is the temperature will never go above the desired temp. You aren’t cooking the meat, you are raising its temperature to the temperature of the water, so because the temperature is EXACTLY at the temperature, once it reaches the ambient water temp, it just stays at that temp. It takes a lot of timing and guess work out of making sure you don’t over cook foods, and it means you can get your temperatures precisely where you want them with no guess work involved, you just set the temp and when the water gets to that temp whatever is in it goes with it. This doesn’t mean you can leave it in forever, because meat and other food will start protein break down and such at those temps, so extended periods in those temps can cause it to be mushy, stringy, etc, as it starts to break down, but it won’t be any warmer than what you set it for, and the tolerances are way better, no rushing to pull it out in the exact second it gets there. You can season it and also add butter, herbs, and other things to the package before sealing that will flavor the product before cooking that you don’t have to mess with all that before cooking it, its already done while its in the Sous Vide bath.
Doesn’t sous vide take hours? It seems like the sort of logistics that a restaurant would have to specialize in if they want to pull it off
It’s not popular with me because of hot plastic leaching into the food. But I understand the results can be stellar.
When it’s done right and seared afterwards it can be great but it’s funny you say this because a steak house I go to frequently just started using SV and it tasted much worse than it used to. Basically a very succulent Roast Beef. Good, but not the same.
Why is no one talking about the fact that especially with thicker cuts, you have to theoretically put the meat into the SV before the order came in. And then people order more than just medium Rare, what if you put the amount of stakes into the SV for medium Rare that you usually sell, but for some reason you mainly sell Bleu. Then you just can’t use all the stakes that you prepared and have more waste than when you cook it to order and maybe here and there have a customer that complains about the doneness of the meat.