I don't like the texture or the lack of flavor of sous vide. It ends up tasting like whatever you put in the bag. Reminds me of the Banquet cooking bag dinners of the 1970s.
Texture is tricky for sure. That is a function of cooking time. I had some flank steak virtually turn into pot roast even at medium temps. There's some good time guides out there that will help.
As for flavor, I hear you. The plastic bag becomes a closed environment so everything in the bag becomes part of the flavor of your meal, for better or worse. If you season the same way you do for traditional cooking, you'll probably be over seasoning. This is where instructions and many sous vide youtube vids come up short. Say you grill a 12oz ribeye. You may season with a tsp of salt and 1/2 tsp pepper per side. Once it hits the grill, you lose some of the salt and pepper to gravity. Some of the pepper burns away and most of the salt becomes part of the delicious seared crust, never making its way to the inner parts of the steak. In the bag, however, anything soluble will make its way inside the steak. So, if you throw three cloves of garlic and a sprig of rosemary in there, its gonna taste like three cloves of garlic and a sprig of rosemary (actually three cloves of garlic and a christmas tree).
Personally, I like the challenges sous vide cooking poses, much like the challenges of grilling and BBQ. I've definitely screwed some stuff up in the sous vide, but I've screwed up hundreds of dollars of meet on a weber too. I've also made some meals that my guests still talk about several years later. It's part of the artistry and science of this hobby.
Topic: how many of you are using a sous vide before any of your grilling? (Read 1363 times)