Not all of us can deal with the splattering oil and smoke.Searzall looks like lot of work moving that small wimpy torch around. And you have to move it around for minutes at a time. I'll stick with cast iron pan on a stove.
I have a roofing torch I could use. I should test it. The roofing torch puts out serious flame. I could set the steaks on my Weber grill and torch it with the roofing torch.
Not all of us can deal with the splattering oil and smoke.
Not all of us can deal with the splattering oil and smoke.
Update: been playing with the Anova(s) and Searzall lately. Still mostly in the experimenting stage at this point (and documenting). Bagging technique getting better. Wading through information available on the internet of course.
And refining the kitchen blowtorching technique I should probably record a video just for this thread. But yeah, pre-searing, and the close in, double pass method, definitely work, and work well. (And work quickly). No smoking hot pan, a LOT more control.
Definitely need a vacuum sealer for some of the cuts I want cooking longer now.
Dave Arnold espouses pre-searing. He names a few benefits like getting an enhanced post-sear but I also find that it helps keep the shape of the meat, especially under vacuum.Hmm, I hadn't considered pre-searing. My Instant Pot (electric pressure cooker) has a very basic sous vide setup (+/- 1C) that I have yet to try; it also has a saute feature, which works really well for browning stuff before I pressure cook it, which would probably also work well for a pre-sear until I invest in a Searzall.
When searing, the heat should be as high as possible so as not to overcook the interior of the meat, especially if you've gone to the trouble of cooking it sous vide. If you're searing on a pan and nothing is smoking or splattering, I daresay you're shortchanging yourself of the benefits of sous vide.I'm searing on cast iron or stainless steel and it only smoked initially as I learned the stove settings each of my different fats needed to be at to avoid smoking.
I dont believe that cooking oils should be smoke, it makes it taste worse and starts with the whole free radicals business. You figure if you smoke butter it turns black and smells horrible and smokes up real bad, but if you learn to just get it brown, no smoke and a nice flavor.
Oil spitting back seems to be almost nonexistent with sous-vide meat. Definitely is an issue if you cook from raw though, no matter how well you pat the meat dry.
I dont believe that cooking oils should be smoke, it makes it taste worse and starts with the whole free radicals business. You figure if you smoke butter it turns black and smells horrible and smokes up real bad, but if you learn to just get it brown, no smoke and a nice flavor.
Just make siu yook out of it. The small pieces you would require for fried rice kind of make it pointless to use pork belly anyhow.To get the full benefit and taste from a steak you do want a lot of heat. What is important is fat selection. You mention butter, but butter burns before it's smoke point is reached because butter isn't just fat but contains other things which need to be removed. Highly clarified butter, also known as ghee, has an extremely high smoke point, up to 485F from what I've found. Is smoke bad? I suspect everything is, however the phenomenon of wok hei is dependent on a lot of heat. I don't think you can duplicate it on the overwhelming majority of burners found in the home, but I easily achieve it out of doors on a very high BTU burner with ease. Likewise, your steaks benefit as Howard describes. "Just browning" as you describe does not give the best result.
Now only if it would warm up. I have a perfect piece of pork belly to roast that I'd like to use for fried rice, but that requires lots of heat again and with temps being 10F or so that isn't something I care to do at the moment.
When searing, the heat should be as high as possible so as not to overcook the interior of the meat, especially if you've gone to the trouble of cooking it sous vide. If you're searing on a pan and nothing is smoking or splattering, I daresay you're shortchanging yourself of the benefits of sous vide.
GE has just announced a trio of new induction cooktops in the company's Monogram, Profile, and Café lines that wirelessly connect to a new sous vide sensor so that the burner regulates the heat of the water in a pot while all the probe has to do is monitor its temperature.
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the probe itself, which attaches to the side of almost any adequately-sized pot, isn't some monstrous accessory that's a pain to store when you're not using it. And with wireless functionality that will eventually connect to an accompanying app, you don't actually have to be in your kitchen to keep an eye on or adjust the settings of a long hot water bath.
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. The sous vide probe will be pretty reasonable at $150 once it's available come May, but it only works in conjunction with GE's new touchscreen induction cooktops that range in price from $1,500 to $3,100 depending on their finish and features. So if you're planning on upgrading your kitchen that's already got a spot for a dedicated cooktop, these certainly seem worth considering.
so where is the analysis of variance the thread title promised?
Probably won't have any torch taste after that
hehehe
Plus it's just fun to play with a giant fiery torch