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Sous Vide: How To Correctly Use SALT | Steak & Shrimp Perfection

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SOUS VIDE STEAK & SHRIMP

How To Use Salt Correctly

| SALT Series |

The culinary level of excellence that sous vide cooking offers meets the very highest standards of the best chefs in the world. Chefs think in the terms of texture, flavor and presentation to be simple about it. Seeing the food plated, tasting the food, but in your mind. Calling on experience to help guide you along your decision making process. Sous vide can be described in one single word: “Amazing”.

What is Sous Vide & What Does It Mean?

Sous-vide

From Wikipedia,

Sous-vide cooking

Sous-vide (/suːˈviːd/; French for ‘under vacuum’), also known as low temperature long time (LTLT) cooking, is a method of cooking in which food is placed in a plastic pouch or a glass jar and cooked in a water bath for longer than usual cooking times (usually 1 to 7 hours, up to 48 or more in some cases) at an accurately regulated temperature. The temperature is much lower than usually used for cooking, typically around 55 to 60 °C (131 to 140 °F) for meat, higher for vegetables. The intent is to cook the item evenly, ensuring that the inside is properly cooked without overcooking the outside, and to retain moisture.

Sous Vide Cooking with Salt | Why Is It So Hard to Get Correct?

Sous Vide cooking can be care-free when done well. The seasoning is the “KEY” component to restaurant-quality sous vide cookery. Cooks either over do the seasoning, or they under do it. Using the sous vide cooking method can be very sensitive to what you throw at it, in the means of herbs, spices & salt. Salt being the main area or error. You’ll be a master after this very post and video. Salt enhances flavor in food. The balancing act of salt is not an easy task to do well. One might think so, but that simply is not true, not in the least. In culinary school, one of the things that we students could not get over was the amount of salt that went into the food to be considered “seasoned” correctly. The art of correctly seasoning food is not an easy task. You could have 3 different people add salt to a dish. Their guess to what is correctly balanced and not salty. Then have a complete stranger cook all three dishes the exact same way. The end result would produce one dish that would be considered better then the rest. The only reasoning being the amount of salt used.

Watch: How To Use Salt When Cooking Meat Sous Vide

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sous vide shrimp cooking instructions

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Sous Vide: How To Correctly Use SALT | Steak & Shrimp Perfection

Summary of how to sous vide meat using salt correctly

5 from 2 votes

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Course: Appetizer/Main Course

Cuisine: French | American

Keyword: Sous Vide Steak and Shrimp

Equipment

Nova Sous Vide Machine

Ingredients

Salt Cure Ingredients

1 T Kosher Salt
1 T Sea Salt
2 tsp Smoked Salt

Steak Cookery

5+ T High-Quality Butter
1 T Olive Oil
Fresh Thyme

Instructions

Salt Curing Instructions

Place steak on the counter to take the chill off the meat.
Salt Cure: Mix the salts together. Cover the steak completely on all sides with salt and set a timer for 20 minutes.
(This allows the salt to move into the top layer of the meat)
Shrimp: the same process, but only cure for 7 minutes then rinse off underwater.
After 20 minutes, rinse the steak off under cold water. Do a quick rinse. Don't overdo it. You want to retain some of the salt on the surface of the steak. Just not very much.

Finishing & Cooking

Place the steak into a large bag and remove the air from the bag. Use a food saver machine or watch the video and repeat the process used on the shrimp to remove the air.

Cooking The Steak

Steak | 2 to 3 hours | I like 2 hours and 20 minutes
Finishing: Sear the cooked steak on a grill or cast-iron skillet. Use a few tablespoons of butter and thyme/herb. Bast the steak with the butter using a large spoon.
TIP: Since the steak is cooked to the exact temperature of doneness. The steak does not require "resting" like all the other ways of cooking a steak.