No Half Measures

13 Jul 2019

A friend of ours got a sous vide machine, and the first thing we tried was sous vide eggs - they were okay. Next of course is the classic: steak. The first couple of times we did pretty well, but we kept it tame: a one-inch thick sirloin, and then some petit sirloins.

This time I wanted to go for it.

My boss’ friend is a butcher, so he hooked us up with some New York strip loin, which he cut into generous two-inch steaks. I think we got six of them total for about $64. Granted, each one can easily feed three people! After doing some research and going off the time/temp recommendations for a tender cut like NY strip steaks, I decided on 131°F for 4 hours, which should get it a bit above medium-rare. I seasoned it only with salt, pepper, garlic powder and a little olive oil before vacuum sealing it.

After that, the Anova guide to searing told me (and this is important):

Get your pan SUPER hot. You want it to be so hot that when you flick a drop of water on it, that water jumps around, sizzles, and disappears.

I read this, and then whipped out my handy cast iron skillet and put it on high. Now, since we normally use it for making dutch babies (like a giant puffed pancake), it has a slight coating of butter. It started smoking a bit, but I knew about the butter and wasn’t worried. I had also read the oil vs. no oil debates for searing after sous vide, and I was on team butter. So that’s what I did. In went the steak.

Immediately our house was filled with smoke. The fire alarms were sounding. The dog was confused. All the guests were put to work setting up box fans and opening doors and windows. For the other two steaks we went with the safer option of searing with a blowtorch, out on the patio. Which is also where we enjoyed dinner and crème brûlée after.

The best part of this story I only know secondhand. Evidently one of the guests was standing out front after opening the door, and a police car drove by. They got a few houses down and then slammed on the breaks and threw it in reverse to go back and see what was happening, why all the doors were open and it was smoky. My friend reassured them that everything was fine.