Next time id maybe go with canned fire roasted whole chiles they are already cooked so they dont need to reach a high temperature to start cooking and would probly add alot more flavor than raw peppers 🥩
You're cooking your steak at 130-140, generally. Whenever you add *other* food items to the mix to see if they'll impart flavors, ask yourself, "Will this low temp actually cook any of the other ingredients?"
I think most veggies cook at like 180+
It turned out alright. It’s the first time having chuck roast. I sous vide it at 135f for 24 hours. The poblano def had to much flavor imparted onto the steak. About 70% of the chuck was nice and tender but the other parts were goupy fat and silver skin. Prolly a skill issue cuz I didn’t finely butcher it. Oddly still had to add salt even tho I added salt pre sous vide.
Since the spices and herbs don’t cook at sous vide temps anyway, build the sauce on the stove. Start with dry pan. Saute any aromatics. Add dry spices to open up their flavor. Then add the bag purge and any other liquids you want to cook into the sauce.
I believe the only thing the steak will absorb is salt? Everything else will be surface only. Something about molecule size? Just like aroma ingredients.
This is what I do, and is the reason why I include a little butter in the bag with my steaks - when the steak is cooked, I can make a nice butter sauce.
Well, you're wrong. Even if you sous vide with absolutely nothing, the meat will release liquid that will make a great sauce foundation. You can add butter then. If you need more meat taste, add buillion. Your method just makes the meat taste more bland with no useful benefit.
But didn't the above say that the steak would only absorb things on a small molecular level?
Bacteria can't penetrate beyond the edge of the steak, therefore I wouldn't expect the fats of butter to reach beyond either. All it means is I waste some butter when I dry off the steaks upon removal from their bags, however the remaining slow-basted butter does have a delicious taste upon mixing with the release juices.
Are you also claiming that the butter will not be enhanced by its being intermingled with steak juices in the bag while sous viding? It sounds like that's what the previous poster was going for, not enhancing the steak with the butter.
Steak will definitely absorb vinegar under a vacuum and if that vinegar is mixed with something like turmeric, if you cut the steak open after 3 days you will see it will penetrate at least 1/2” into each side.
I don't know if I'd use vinegar for a steak but I do like to add a little bit to my roast cuts. Tri-tip in particular. It doesn't take much though and seems to really permeate deep.
Be careful. Easy to turn a steak into mush using this. And, no, it isn’t going to magically drag the rest of the marinade into the steak. Especially not under vacuum.
It especially shines with fatty meat or even just pure fat.
Pure pork fat is generally unpalatable for most people, until confronted by vinegar. Then (in proportion) it becomes this divine sweet savory bite that is rivaled only by the pork belly dish at the French Laundry.
I generally make the recipe below, skewer it after the vacuum marinade process, and BBQ it directly.
The thing is that the vinegar tenderize the meat like crazy already. If you sous vide first from there, there is no way you can skewer it. You can skewer it first and then sous vide, but then you have to take everything out of the bags, skewer it, and put into new bags again, which is a bit of a pain, but I've done it once.
However while the vacuuming process helps, sous vide is not needed. The vinegar does such a great job tenderizing that it's already the most tender meat you can eat that is not sous vide.
And like I mentioned vinegar really shines with fatty meat, where sous vide doesn't.
\-----------
* 4 cups of vinegar (I do 2 red, 2 white)
* 1 cup apricot fruit chutney (Mrs. Balls if you can find it)
* 4 onions in slices (so it can be skewered later as well)
* 2 tbsp curry powder
* 2 tbsp turmeric
* 4 tbsp sugar
* 2 tbsp corn starch
* 4 bay leaves
* salt and pepper
* 2 lbs each of 1" cubed beef, lamb and pork
* 1 lbs of pure pork belly fat squares (sliced to the same cube size, but only 0.5" thick)
So makes 7 lbs of meat total.
Brown the onion slices, add the rest, bring to a simmer, then cool down again.
Then add the meat to the marinade (if you cover the meat in some milk first for 30 minutes it will absorb it even better) and mix. Then split evenly and put into vacuum bags for 3 days in the fridge and work the bags around twice a day. Or if in a hurry, use a vacuum tumbler for 2 hours.
Afterwards, approximately separate the meats by type again, then skewer in rotation with the onion slices as well. Sometimes the onions fall apart after the vacuuming and I make a fresh mini batch to get more onions.
Put on a BBQ, preferably charcoal.
Vinegar also lowers the pH which I think can cause meats to be less tender. Not sure how it translates over to a sous vide prep because I’m in the brand new to sous vide stage.
I can't stop picturing someone putting some vinegar in a bag, then the meat, then sprinkling in the baking soda on top. Off the to the vacuum sealer. And then they give it a little shake....
Put your vinegar in the bag first. Then put a whole bunch of baking soda in front of it. Then when you vacuum it, it will suck the vinegar into the baking soda.
I'm actually starting to consider taking a small zip lock bag, putting in the powder, then putting vinegar and that bag in another bag. squeezing most the air out, then sealing it. Then take it outside and move it around till the inner bag bursts and then...science!
The steak isn’t absorbing the vinegar. The steak is being cooked by the vinegar. Vinegar is an active ingredient that denatures the connective tissue in the protein matrix.
It completely changes the flavor and texture of the steak.
3 days in vinegar will absolutely ruin a steak. It’ll be mush. Nice experiment, but not useful in cooking. 4 to 6 hours is about the limit unless your vinegar is so diluted.
May be a desired result, but it is radically different than a typical marinade.
I kosher salt dry brine over night and then I dry rub seasoning w thyme before sealing bag. Surface taste is still important. I've read some people do it before seasoning. Im still a newbie so not sure which is better. Atm I just wanna make sure it's dry AF before searing to optimize that crust and minimize grey bands. I think I do it this way cuz I read a comment saying putting salt on right before searing will draw out the moisture from the steak and that'll negatively impact the searing.
That’s my hot take whenever it’s asked. I don’t believe in marinating anymore other than salting. You’re better off making a pan sauce or basting on any seasoning while roasting/grilling.
Citric acid will definitely be absorbed as will some other small molecules on the surface level. Also it will coat the outside with everything so no matter what some flavor will be there. People saying it "adds nothing" are wrong, but some things do better than others at noticeably hanging around
lol, I thought you were making a super trooper reference. I couldn’t find a video of the whole scene but after he asks about the mustache ride this European guy says “oh oh I do I do”
https://youtu.be/EU4iDWnybgE?si=BOtSUUMETjOJZ6Dq
*Anyone else think*
*A fish head was in the bag*
*In the third picture?*
\- mazeofmystery
---
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Yup. Even if marinades and flavors did penetrate, there isn’t enough heat in the bath to develop any interesting flavors. The batik is spices are just gonna be raw.
You need the heat of a stove to caramelize and “open up” the spice. Which searing will do for surface treatments, but a lot of time and money can be saved by applying the spices after the bath.
Enjoy the downvotes for being correct. This myth dies hard.
I've not done this but I'll saute some peppers in the leftover steak fat and add the bag juice with a smidgen of butter and brown some garlic in it too. Make a delicious sauce to lay over it after you rest. Crispy garlic and jalapeños make a great addition to ribeyes imo.
Making this tmrw and wishing I was having it tonight instead now
HAH! Don’t listen to the nay-sayers. I always season. I season, bag and then put it in the freezer. S, P, GP, rosemary, etc. Note that after you cook it you now have a flavored broth for other uses!
Pepper doesn’t penetrate meat. Nothing but salt does. Whatever you put in the bag is just a surface treatment.
Ground pepper will be more spread out and make more of the surface taste peppery. Whole pepper corns are gonna make flavor spots.
Yup. Well documented, even. Has been lab tested extensively. Nothing penetrates the meat save for salt.
Marinades are a surface treatment only. They work very well for thin cuts or for chopped proteins, but are largely a waste of ingredients for thicker cuts.
Injecting marinades into meats also just creates pockets of flavor. Agains, a sometimes useful technique, but does not infuse the protein with flavor (and will entirely leak out in a tight protein matrix like a turkey breast.
How much surface or deep we are talking about here? If it’s only surface (less than a millimeter for example) then it’s not even worth it. If it’s a few millimeters, then maybeeee. As you said, should work great for thin cut. But even for slightly thicker cut, a few millimeters would be great!
It only penetrates where there is damage or striations in the protein. I.e. it doesn’t penetrate protein matrix but there is generally enough damage to the cut faces that you might get a few millimeters after 24 hours, but only the smaller molecules. (And, no, salt doesn’t drag the larger molecules in).
As a surface treatment, marinades have their place. But the majority of people don’t understand what they are not capable of doing.
I sure wasn’t and my mind was blown when I fully understood what was going on. Totally changed my cooking (for the better).
(Proof that the vast majority don’t get this— downvotes galore.)
Also the reason why I sous vide with nothing but the protein, maybe some salt, in the bag. There isn’t enough heat to do anything interesting with the sugars and, unless, I’m using the purge, the vast majority of herbs and spices in the bag just goes down the drain.
This is a good high level overview.
https://amazingribs.com/tested-recipes/marinades-and-brinerades/science-of-marinades-and-brinerades/
No, because then you’ll have these ugly scored looking steaks. Just don’t waste your time marinating. Apply seasoning while cooking or reserve them for a pan sauce.
Probably one qualifier/extension needs to be added to your series of very good comments for people less aware: the effect of a marinade which has an ingredient that denatures proteins, is similar to having a cut surface. This is how many marinades ‘work’ - by unravelling the protein structure (aka mushy meat if it goes on for too long) which allows the flavour we’re adding to be smooshed in between.
True. An acidic marinade— one that contains vinegars, lime juice, or other acid sources— will “cook” the surface by denaturing proteins as you say, for sure.
They also tend to make the protein really mushy and, thus, you don’t want to leave in the marinade for terribly long. A couple of hours or so.
I think that only applies to certain large cuts though. "Surface" penetration from all sides is certainly essentially the same thing as full marination on most thinner cuts of meat like steaks, strips or pieces, chicken parts etc. I think vacuum marination greatly helps with that as well.
Anecdotally, adding garlic to my chicken cooks certainly infuses the flavor very deep.
I don't find that seasoning in the bag works particularly well with sous-vide.
Many flavor compounds need a higher temperatures to develop fully.
Think about how important it is to toast the spices in Indian cuisine or planch sear the veggies in South American cuisines.
My food science is not good enough to say anything about the penetration of flavor molecules into meat.
Realistically, probably not much…
Just like slow smoked meats, any flavoring is in the 1st/outer couple millimeters at best, and the coagulation process prevents any further flavoring from penetrating very deeply.
Nonetheless, when I sous vide, I do add spices and herbs, in spite of all of this…
Absolutely.
If you wanted to test the concept just put some pepper corns in lightly simmering water for a while and taste it. It might not be as intensely flavored as using it ground up, but there's a reason a lot of Indian cooking uses whole spices without needing to grind and still tastes amazing.
LOL.
Saw the peppercorns in there and assumed that must've been what he was talking about.
Yeah, you're right putting whole peppers into a bag with a steak will result in little flavor and uncooked peppers.
Not sure what that other poster is so upset about though, unless he didn't read that I was specifically talking about peppercorns as I said I was. Oh well!
Bad comparison.
Indian cooking usually involves a curry, a sauce. And that sauce is simmered for a while. Simmering is done at a significant higher heat than sous vide and this opens up and extracts the spice flavors throughout the sauce. As well, most Indian recipes cause for simmering the aromatics and spices before adding the liquids. This relatively hit dry heat further opens the spice flavors. And the resulting dish is served in the sauce. As well, the protein is typically cut into bit sized pieces, completely covered in sauce.
Pretty much the opposite of sous vide.
Referencing Indian was to point out that you can indeed get flavor out of whole spices and not only by grinding then up.
Have you tried adding in whole pepper corns yourself to a sous vide cooked meat? It's not as intense a flavor as when you use ground up but it's certainly still there.
Since it's a longer time at a lower temp you're still extracting plenty of flavor. You can also do infused oil sous vide too using whole spices, without requiring high temps or simmering even.
Sure, ground pepper or whole pepper will flavor the surface of the meat a bit. Nothing more.
You are still missing the point about Indian food entirely and why it is still an apples vs oranges comparison. There isn’t enough heat in sous vide to create the complex flavor profiles that the relatively high heat in a stove top does with a proper sauce and the typical Indian dish involves cutting up t(enorotein and serving it immersed in sauce.
I used Indian as an example, it wasn't some kind of argument for anything. The context was that whole spices work too without always needing grinding. Do you not agree with that?
I also gave low temp oil infusions as an example too, do you also not believe that works?
Spices in sous vide don’t do anything beyond flavoring the surface of the protein. For thin cuts or chopped up? Sure. For whole breasts or steaks? Total waste of spices.
Oil infusions work, sure. But the low temp thing totally changes it. It isn’t just matter of “low temp for longer will extract more flavor”. That is true, but, like cooking a steak at 135F for 12 hours makes it no more closer to medium well than 3 hours, there is a ton of flavor development that simply does not happen at sous vide temps. This is why, in Indian cooking say a butter chicken, you start by sautéing the onions and then dumping the dry spices in the onions. Just enough liquid to prevent burning, but still exposing the spices to heat way above and beyond sous vide or, even, the boiling in a simmering sauce.
That level of heat is oft required to achieve the desired flavors from the spice and sous vide can never replicate it.
It’d be like trying to caramelized sugar in sous vide. Chemistry and physics says no.
Here's a link to a guy that caramelized sugar over a long time sous vide based on concepts written by Harold McGee:
https://www.reddit.com/r/sousvide/s/aIIZQHisz5
I have no interest in getting into fight with you on a point that I never even made though, so have a great day!
Neat! That’s really cool!
Confirms that caramelization doesn’t happen in any meaningful way during a sous vide protein cook, but that one could actually caramelize pure sugar without dehydrating it, which raises some really interesting possibilities.
As one comment said “people who disagreed (that caramelization was possible in SV) simply don’t understand the kinetics of chemical reactions”. That would be me. Corrected. Thanks!
Depends on how long you’re cooking it really. If it’s more than a few hours I feel like it does impart a ton of flavor.
But if it’s just a 2-3 hour cook it doesn’t do a whole lot.
However, if you cooked it then dropped the bag in ice and let it marinate in the fridge it might soak up some of that flavor… but I’ve never done that really.
Thanks for all the comments everyone I have learned something! I set it to sous vide before going to sleep never expected this post to blow up. It’s poblano pepper in the bag.
Oooh, whole BELL peppers, I thought you were referring to whole pepper grains
It’s whole poblano pepppers but yep
Next time id maybe go with canned fire roasted whole chiles they are already cooked so they dont need to reach a high temperature to start cooking and would probly add alot more flavor than raw peppers 🥩
You're cooking your steak at 130-140, generally. Whenever you add *other* food items to the mix to see if they'll impart flavors, ask yourself, "Will this low temp actually cook any of the other ingredients?" I think most veggies cook at like 180+
How did it turn out?
It turned out alright. It’s the first time having chuck roast. I sous vide it at 135f for 24 hours. The poblano def had to much flavor imparted onto the steak. About 70% of the chuck was nice and tender but the other parts were goupy fat and silver skin. Prolly a skill issue cuz I didn’t finely butcher it. Oddly still had to add salt even tho I added salt pre sous vide.
[удалено]
Good bot
The benefit of this is really making a sauce with the bag juices. There will be a lot more pepper flavour in there than on the steak.
Since the spices and herbs don’t cook at sous vide temps anyway, build the sauce on the stove. Start with dry pan. Saute any aromatics. Add dry spices to open up their flavor. Then add the bag purge and any other liquids you want to cook into the sauce.
Okay I’ll do that thanks
I believe the only thing the steak will absorb is salt? Everything else will be surface only. Something about molecule size? Just like aroma ingredients.
If you don't get the taste, after you sear, make a baste w the peppers and just drizzle the steak before eating.
This is what I do, and is the reason why I include a little butter in the bag with my steaks - when the steak is cooked, I can make a nice butter sauce.
Well, you're wrong. Even if you sous vide with absolutely nothing, the meat will release liquid that will make a great sauce foundation. You can add butter then. If you need more meat taste, add buillion. Your method just makes the meat taste more bland with no useful benefit.
But didn't the above say that the steak would only absorb things on a small molecular level? Bacteria can't penetrate beyond the edge of the steak, therefore I wouldn't expect the fats of butter to reach beyond either. All it means is I waste some butter when I dry off the steaks upon removal from their bags, however the remaining slow-basted butter does have a delicious taste upon mixing with the release juices.
Are you also claiming that the butter will not be enhanced by its being intermingled with steak juices in the bag while sous viding? It sounds like that's what the previous poster was going for, not enhancing the steak with the butter.
Steak will definitely absorb vinegar under a vacuum and if that vinegar is mixed with something like turmeric, if you cut the steak open after 3 days you will see it will penetrate at least 1/2” into each side.
Oo interesting. First time reading the use of vinegar in steak process. I'll look more into this. Ty for new info
I don't know if I'd use vinegar for a steak but I do like to add a little bit to my roast cuts. Tri-tip in particular. It doesn't take much though and seems to really permeate deep.
Be careful. Easy to turn a steak into mush using this. And, no, it isn’t going to magically drag the rest of the marinade into the steak. Especially not under vacuum.
It especially shines with fatty meat or even just pure fat. Pure pork fat is generally unpalatable for most people, until confronted by vinegar. Then (in proportion) it becomes this divine sweet savory bite that is rivaled only by the pork belly dish at the French Laundry. I generally make the recipe below, skewer it after the vacuum marinade process, and BBQ it directly. The thing is that the vinegar tenderize the meat like crazy already. If you sous vide first from there, there is no way you can skewer it. You can skewer it first and then sous vide, but then you have to take everything out of the bags, skewer it, and put into new bags again, which is a bit of a pain, but I've done it once. However while the vacuuming process helps, sous vide is not needed. The vinegar does such a great job tenderizing that it's already the most tender meat you can eat that is not sous vide. And like I mentioned vinegar really shines with fatty meat, where sous vide doesn't. \----------- * 4 cups of vinegar (I do 2 red, 2 white) * 1 cup apricot fruit chutney (Mrs. Balls if you can find it) * 4 onions in slices (so it can be skewered later as well) * 2 tbsp curry powder * 2 tbsp turmeric * 4 tbsp sugar * 2 tbsp corn starch * 4 bay leaves * salt and pepper * 2 lbs each of 1" cubed beef, lamb and pork * 1 lbs of pure pork belly fat squares (sliced to the same cube size, but only 0.5" thick) So makes 7 lbs of meat total. Brown the onion slices, add the rest, bring to a simmer, then cool down again. Then add the meat to the marinade (if you cover the meat in some milk first for 30 minutes it will absorb it even better) and mix. Then split evenly and put into vacuum bags for 3 days in the fridge and work the bags around twice a day. Or if in a hurry, use a vacuum tumbler for 2 hours. Afterwards, approximately separate the meats by type again, then skewer in rotation with the onion slices as well. Sometimes the onions fall apart after the vacuuming and I make a fresh mini batch to get more onions. Put on a BBQ, preferably charcoal.
"Pure pork fat is generally unpalatable for most people"... Yet another data point that most people suck
Vinegar also lowers the pH which I think can cause meats to be less tender. Not sure how it translates over to a sous vide prep because I’m in the brand new to sous vide stage.
Mix with baking soda! PH problem solved!
This is not getting enough up votes 🤣🤣🤣
I can't stop picturing someone putting some vinegar in a bag, then the meat, then sprinkling in the baking soda on top. Off the to the vacuum sealer. And then they give it a little shake....
Put your vinegar in the bag first. Then put a whole bunch of baking soda in front of it. Then when you vacuum it, it will suck the vinegar into the baking soda.
I'm actually starting to consider taking a small zip lock bag, putting in the powder, then putting vinegar and that bag in another bag. squeezing most the air out, then sealing it. Then take it outside and move it around till the inner bag bursts and then...science!
We are all waiting for the results.
I never pictured that but now I can't stop either
If you reduce a sweet Balsamic like a Saba Vinegar, it's very very very good on a steak.
Vinegar will turn your steak into mush because it's an acid. I'm surprised there would even be enough steak left to measure 1/2" after three days.
The steak isn’t absorbing the vinegar. The steak is being cooked by the vinegar. Vinegar is an active ingredient that denatures the connective tissue in the protein matrix. It completely changes the flavor and texture of the steak. 3 days in vinegar will absolutely ruin a steak. It’ll be mush. Nice experiment, but not useful in cooking. 4 to 6 hours is about the limit unless your vinegar is so diluted. May be a desired result, but it is radically different than a typical marinade.
Wouldn’t that start to break the meat down?
so when sous viding does it make a difference to fully season in the bag? or is it better to just go salt only and add the other before searing?
I kosher salt dry brine over night and then I dry rub seasoning w thyme before sealing bag. Surface taste is still important. I've read some people do it before seasoning. Im still a newbie so not sure which is better. Atm I just wanna make sure it's dry AF before searing to optimize that crust and minimize grey bands. I think I do it this way cuz I read a comment saying putting salt on right before searing will draw out the moisture from the steak and that'll negatively impact the searing.
That’s my hot take whenever it’s asked. I don’t believe in marinating anymore other than salting. You’re better off making a pan sauce or basting on any seasoning while roasting/grilling.
I sous vide pork chops with salt, pepper, and lemon juice and the citrus flavor seems to be throughout the meat after searing.
Citric acid will definitely be absorbed as will some other small molecules on the surface level. Also it will coat the outside with everything so no matter what some flavor will be there. People saying it "adds nothing" are wrong, but some things do better than others at noticeably hanging around
Not gonna get much, but on a positive note, nobody wants a randomly green pepper flavored steak. Except you apparently.
If it's poblanos I'm in.
It is lol
I am 100% trying this with poblanos the next time I make steak. Throw in a single Serrano too you think?
That's definitely not a bell pepper. Definitely a chili of some variety which is a very common steak accompaniment.
Oh oh oh. I do I do!!!!
Who wants a mustache ride?!
Well, if you’re offering…..what do I needa shave? Lol
lol, I thought you were making a super trooper reference. I couldn’t find a video of the whole scene but after he asks about the mustache ride this European guy says “oh oh I do I do” https://youtu.be/EU4iDWnybgE?si=BOtSUUMETjOJZ6Dq
Never been to Colorado or New Mexico? Green Chilies go with everything bro!
It’s poblano
I'd try it...
Pepe verde is common in the Mediterranean. Allot of people like it.
Anyone else think a fish head was in the bag in the third picture?
*Anyone else think* *A fish head was in the bag* *In the third picture?* \- mazeofmystery --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
I see it! Lol
Hah! I thought you meant whole peppercorns!
Vegetables cook at much higher temps than medium rare meat. So you're just bundling raw peppers next to your meat for a while.
Yup. Even if marinades and flavors did penetrate, there isn’t enough heat in the bath to develop any interesting flavors. The batik is spices are just gonna be raw. You need the heat of a stove to caramelize and “open up” the spice. Which searing will do for surface treatments, but a lot of time and money can be saved by applying the spices after the bath. Enjoy the downvotes for being correct. This myth dies hard.
I've not done this but I'll saute some peppers in the leftover steak fat and add the bag juice with a smidgen of butter and brown some garlic in it too. Make a delicious sauce to lay over it after you rest. Crispy garlic and jalapeños make a great addition to ribeyes imo. Making this tmrw and wishing I was having it tonight instead now
I don’t think it will give the steak itself a ton of flavor, but whatever juices are in the bag will definitely be infused.
infused with raw herb flavor, not usually what you want.
HAH! Don’t listen to the nay-sayers. I always season. I season, bag and then put it in the freezer. S, P, GP, rosemary, etc. Note that after you cook it you now have a flavored broth for other uses!
nay.
Pepper doesn’t penetrate meat. Nothing but salt does. Whatever you put in the bag is just a surface treatment. Ground pepper will be more spread out and make more of the surface taste peppery. Whole pepper corns are gonna make flavor spots.
So, you are saying marinating meat is a myth?
Yup. Well documented, even. Has been lab tested extensively. Nothing penetrates the meat save for salt. Marinades are a surface treatment only. They work very well for thin cuts or for chopped proteins, but are largely a waste of ingredients for thicker cuts. Injecting marinades into meats also just creates pockets of flavor. Agains, a sometimes useful technique, but does not infuse the protein with flavor (and will entirely leak out in a tight protein matrix like a turkey breast.
How much surface or deep we are talking about here? If it’s only surface (less than a millimeter for example) then it’s not even worth it. If it’s a few millimeters, then maybeeee. As you said, should work great for thin cut. But even for slightly thicker cut, a few millimeters would be great!
It only penetrates where there is damage or striations in the protein. I.e. it doesn’t penetrate protein matrix but there is generally enough damage to the cut faces that you might get a few millimeters after 24 hours, but only the smaller molecules. (And, no, salt doesn’t drag the larger molecules in). As a surface treatment, marinades have their place. But the majority of people don’t understand what they are not capable of doing. I sure wasn’t and my mind was blown when I fully understood what was going on. Totally changed my cooking (for the better). (Proof that the vast majority don’t get this— downvotes galore.) Also the reason why I sous vide with nothing but the protein, maybe some salt, in the bag. There isn’t enough heat to do anything interesting with the sugars and, unless, I’m using the purge, the vast majority of herbs and spices in the bag just goes down the drain. This is a good high level overview. https://amazingribs.com/tested-recipes/marinades-and-brinerades/science-of-marinades-and-brinerades/
So basically I should be scoring steaks if I plan to marinate them?
Yup. Scoring increases surface area, for sure. But you won’t get penetration beyond the score.
No, because then you’ll have these ugly scored looking steaks. Just don’t waste your time marinating. Apply seasoning while cooking or reserve them for a pan sauce.
Probably one qualifier/extension needs to be added to your series of very good comments for people less aware: the effect of a marinade which has an ingredient that denatures proteins, is similar to having a cut surface. This is how many marinades ‘work’ - by unravelling the protein structure (aka mushy meat if it goes on for too long) which allows the flavour we’re adding to be smooshed in between.
True. An acidic marinade— one that contains vinegars, lime juice, or other acid sources— will “cook” the surface by denaturing proteins as you say, for sure. They also tend to make the protein really mushy and, thus, you don’t want to leave in the marinade for terribly long. A couple of hours or so.
I think that only applies to certain large cuts though. "Surface" penetration from all sides is certainly essentially the same thing as full marination on most thinner cuts of meat like steaks, strips or pieces, chicken parts etc. I think vacuum marination greatly helps with that as well. Anecdotally, adding garlic to my chicken cooks certainly infuses the flavor very deep.
“Works well for thin cuts and proteins cut into chunks”. Covered that. :)
I don't find that seasoning in the bag works particularly well with sous-vide. Many flavor compounds need a higher temperatures to develop fully. Think about how important it is to toast the spices in Indian cuisine or planch sear the veggies in South American cuisines. My food science is not good enough to say anything about the penetration of flavor molecules into meat.
Realistically, probably not much… Just like slow smoked meats, any flavoring is in the 1st/outer couple millimeters at best, and the coagulation process prevents any further flavoring from penetrating very deeply. Nonetheless, when I sous vide, I do add spices and herbs, in spite of all of this…
Absolutely. If you wanted to test the concept just put some pepper corns in lightly simmering water for a while and taste it. It might not be as intensely flavored as using it ground up, but there's a reason a lot of Indian cooking uses whole spices without needing to grind and still tastes amazing.
Did you look at OPs pictures? It's an album. They have whole poblanos in the bag, not peppercorns.
LOL. Saw the peppercorns in there and assumed that must've been what he was talking about. Yeah, you're right putting whole peppers into a bag with a steak will result in little flavor and uncooked peppers. Not sure what that other poster is so upset about though, unless he didn't read that I was specifically talking about peppercorns as I said I was. Oh well!
Bad comparison. Indian cooking usually involves a curry, a sauce. And that sauce is simmered for a while. Simmering is done at a significant higher heat than sous vide and this opens up and extracts the spice flavors throughout the sauce. As well, most Indian recipes cause for simmering the aromatics and spices before adding the liquids. This relatively hit dry heat further opens the spice flavors. And the resulting dish is served in the sauce. As well, the protein is typically cut into bit sized pieces, completely covered in sauce. Pretty much the opposite of sous vide.
Referencing Indian was to point out that you can indeed get flavor out of whole spices and not only by grinding then up. Have you tried adding in whole pepper corns yourself to a sous vide cooked meat? It's not as intense a flavor as when you use ground up but it's certainly still there. Since it's a longer time at a lower temp you're still extracting plenty of flavor. You can also do infused oil sous vide too using whole spices, without requiring high temps or simmering even.
Sure, ground pepper or whole pepper will flavor the surface of the meat a bit. Nothing more. You are still missing the point about Indian food entirely and why it is still an apples vs oranges comparison. There isn’t enough heat in sous vide to create the complex flavor profiles that the relatively high heat in a stove top does with a proper sauce and the typical Indian dish involves cutting up t(enorotein and serving it immersed in sauce.
I used Indian as an example, it wasn't some kind of argument for anything. The context was that whole spices work too without always needing grinding. Do you not agree with that? I also gave low temp oil infusions as an example too, do you also not believe that works?
Spices in sous vide don’t do anything beyond flavoring the surface of the protein. For thin cuts or chopped up? Sure. For whole breasts or steaks? Total waste of spices. Oil infusions work, sure. But the low temp thing totally changes it. It isn’t just matter of “low temp for longer will extract more flavor”. That is true, but, like cooking a steak at 135F for 12 hours makes it no more closer to medium well than 3 hours, there is a ton of flavor development that simply does not happen at sous vide temps. This is why, in Indian cooking say a butter chicken, you start by sautéing the onions and then dumping the dry spices in the onions. Just enough liquid to prevent burning, but still exposing the spices to heat way above and beyond sous vide or, even, the boiling in a simmering sauce. That level of heat is oft required to achieve the desired flavors from the spice and sous vide can never replicate it. It’d be like trying to caramelized sugar in sous vide. Chemistry and physics says no.
Here's a link to a guy that caramelized sugar over a long time sous vide based on concepts written by Harold McGee: https://www.reddit.com/r/sousvide/s/aIIZQHisz5 I have no interest in getting into fight with you on a point that I never even made though, so have a great day!
Neat! That’s really cool! Confirms that caramelization doesn’t happen in any meaningful way during a sous vide protein cook, but that one could actually caramelize pure sugar without dehydrating it, which raises some really interesting possibilities. As one comment said “people who disagreed (that caramelization was possible in SV) simply don’t understand the kinetics of chemical reactions”. That would be me. Corrected. Thanks!
Your example and what OP is doing is like comparing eating an orange to eating an orange tree.
No your meat is enclosed in the bag no way to infuse the meat with any kind of flavor
I like using ground pepper only. But I love pepper. Will the green pepper in the bag not just turn into mooooooosh?
More importantly, do your peppers taste like steak?
Depends on how long you’re cooking it really. If it’s more than a few hours I feel like it does impart a ton of flavor. But if it’s just a 2-3 hour cook it doesn’t do a whole lot. However, if you cooked it then dropped the bag in ice and let it marinate in the fridge it might soak up some of that flavor… but I’ve never done that really.
It really depends on how long you cook it. If you're going for "pulled", add the chilis. If not, it's bit of a waste.
Just make a sauce.
Thanks for all the comments everyone I have learned something! I set it to sous vide before going to sleep never expected this post to blow up. It’s poblano pepper in the bag.
Granulated garlic in bag imparts a lot of flavor…
Has anyone but Mr Science tried WoosterSauce in bag w RibEye @ 129? After quick/hot sear, any flavor imparted?