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Ingredient

Yield

Yield

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Optional Equipment and Materials

1

Improve Flavor

  • The Maillard reaction begins as a simple reaction between amino acids and sugars found in all protein-rich foods but quickly becomes elaborate: molecules keep reacting in ever more complex ways to generate hundreds of new aromatic molecules that make food smell delicious. These aromas are responsible for the characteristic smells of roasting meat, baking bread, grilling fish, and so on.

  • Presearing meats, seafood, or other high-protein content foods quickly dehydrates and raises the surface temperature well above 265 °F / 130 °C, which triggers the Maillard reaction. The aromas that result will continue to develop during the low-temperature sous vide cooking step. Often this simple extra step yields a richer flavor than if you only seared the food after sous vide cooking, when there is less time for the flavor to develop.

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2

Minimize Overcooking

  • By doing the bulk of the searing prior to cooking, when the food is cold, you do the least possible overcooking of the flesh beneath the surface. This enhances the evenness of the cooking—a hallmark of the sous vide process.
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3

Simplify Service

  • Presearing also dramatically shortens the searing time required after cooking to refresh the crispness of the crust and develop the flavor and appearance of well-seared food. In some cases, it may not even be necessary to sear again after cooking, which greatly simplifies service.
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4

Skip Presearing Sometimes

  • We generally don’t recommend presearing lamb. The searing step destabilizes fatty-acids in the cell membranes of the muscle tissue in lamb, which can trigger a cascade of aroma-creating reactions that can lead to a mutton-like aroma during cooking, which is only great if you like mutton.
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Community

Salmon and albumin

My family really only like salmon cooked sous-vide in oil, we also don't really have much access to good seafood in Denver unless you pay an arm and a leg.

I've done quite a bit at 50C as well as much shorter cook time at 57.5C. Is brining the best way to get rid of the albumin, if so is a typical 6.4% brine what should be used? And for how long?

Johan Edstrom

So-called albumin protein is mostly a function of cooking temperature more than anything else. Worth trying 113 °F / 45 °C to see what you think of that temperature, you will certainly see less albumin percolating to the surface of the flesh.

Adding salt via a brine tends to help retain juices in the flesh—for complex reasons that I hope to explore in a future course—and so at any given temperature you'll see less juice percolate to the surface, which means you'll see less albumin.

Have you checked out the salmon 104 °F recipe on our course page?

Chris Young

I love Salmon, Sushi first!! :) I have always Cedar Planked my salmon and have love the results. Now that I have seen the 104F video, I am going to have to give it a try.

Allen Johnson

@Johan, 43C is my favourite temp too, as 40C is barely warm once it gets served. Have the same problem in UK too with fish, salmon is great, but good seafood here costs a bomb!

Grace

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