A few recipes online but I was pretty hungover and anxious to put it in the water. Excellent, thanks a lot - I'll try that tomorrow - it's only a kg bone in so should i be looking at reducing the time (no idea what the max thickness is yet)?
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A few recipes online but I was pretty hungover and anxious to put it in the water. Excellent, thanks a lot - I'll try that tomorrow - it's only a kg bone in so should i be looking at reducing the time (no idea what the max thickness is yet)?
Sorry for the delay - took me a while to find my notebook from last year.
The best results I had were using a deboned, 700g skin-on shoulder cooked for 8 hours at 78°. Bag sealed with a little olive oil in there along with some rosemary and crushed garlic, plus seasoning.
The best results I had were using a deboned, 700g skin-on shoulder cooked for 8 hours at 78°. Bag sealed with a little olive oil in there along with some rosemary and crushed garlic, plus seasoning.
Bit of advice please, want to do a lamb curry but sous vide the lamb prior to chucking in the curry. Just trying to work out the best way to do this to get the meat marinaded and full of the spice flavour. Cook the joint as a whole with spices, or get it cut up then sealed with the spices?
Soldato
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What cut of lamb is it? I did a lamb neck curry a few months ago and left the neck whole then put the spices into the bag and cooked. The end result was absolutely amazing.
Haven't got any yet, but was planning to grab a shoulder.
Soldato
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Shoulder would work well (better than leg) but if you can get neck then that's what I'd go for.
Man of Honour
Neck or shoulder, cut into large cubes.
Spices and such toasted first then added along with salt. Seal the whole thing up and leave it for as long as you like. Then cook at high temp. Probably 75C for 4 hours ish (I'm guessing here but given the size of the cubes that should be enough time to breakdown the connective tissues).
In a pan fry off your onions, add tomato and cook down a bit. Then dump in the lamb and juices from the bag.
For extra awesomeness fish out the lamb chunks from the juices first and quickly flash fry on two sides to brown.
Spices and such toasted first then added along with salt. Seal the whole thing up and leave it for as long as you like. Then cook at high temp. Probably 75C for 4 hours ish (I'm guessing here but given the size of the cubes that should be enough time to breakdown the connective tissues).
In a pan fry off your onions, add tomato and cook down a bit. Then dump in the lamb and juices from the bag.
For extra awesomeness fish out the lamb chunks from the juices first and quickly flash fry on two sides to brown.
Man of Honour
Soldato
Going to do some topside in the sous vide today. 57 degrees for 2-3 hours seem reasonable? It's not a massive piece.
Man of Honour
I'd do it lower for longer.
49 for 1 hour, 54.5 for 4-6.
The 49 bit will help tenderise.
49 for 1 hour, 54.5 for 4-6.
The 49 bit will help tenderise.
Youll need double that amount of time, if not triple, to break down neck so that it will flake. Size of the cubes won't matter much as even a whole neck filler will get up to temp pretty quickly.
I love lamb neck but if you're trying to get that texture out of it, my experience with it has found that braising is the superior method of cooking. Especially if you're trying to get flavour into it from spices, etc.
Lamb neck low and slow (56° for a day, etc) is another story, however. But you won't get that flakey texture you're looking for from a curry.
Soldato
Sounds good, just popped it on. Not seen the 49 degree tip before.
Man of Honour
Agreed re braising.
Thinking about it more you're probably lying right about the time for the lamb being on the low side. However, I wasn't aiming for completely fall-apart meat and as it was cubed rather than a whole piece I don't think 16 hours is realistically going to be required. Maybe 8 though possibly less with a higher temp.
I'd put pressure cooking before sous vide when it comes to lamb neck if the end result is going to be flaked for a dish or needs to be super tender.
Whole or cubed won't matter a jot - with the temps and timings we're dealing with there's plenty of opportunity for a whole fillet to do its thing. I just think that sous vide is the wrong method for the result we're aiming for here.
I spent far too long trying to replicate a Jason Atherton recipe which involved sous vide lamb neck (78° for 8-hours) and eventually switched to braising it on the advice of his sous chef, who I happened to meet at a thing one weekend. The lamb neck on this particular dish was supposed to be so tender you could cut it with a spoon and it would just melt in your mouth, but have enough body to it that it stayed as one whole piece.
If memory serves me correctly, Alex mentioned they cooked the lamb for 18-hours at 76° and it was only through doing this that I achieved the texture I was looking for and that I'd had when I eat the original dish.
But having experimented to the point where I didn't want to eat lamb neck again for a very long time, I found that braising for 3-hours at 135° gave me the exact texture and flavour I'd been craving.
To be honest, most of the time I'll stock up on lamb neck fillets when they are reduced and use the pressure cooker. An hour or so in there and they are meltingly tender, but you don't get the same infusion of flavour that you will from a braise. Easy enough to sort that post-cooking though.
Man of Honour
Thickness of the meat will make a difference I think - not so much for long cooks but for shorter ones like this you're saving an hour or perhaps even 2 in an extreme case.
I agree with your point about other approaches yielding better/more reliable results. This is a situation where potentially you can cook a fair amount ahead of time to mean you have quite convenient lamb "on tap" when you want it but that's really the only advantage I can think of vs the other methods you've suggested.
edit: to be clear too, I was talking about shoulder above rather than neck. Obviously there are a lot of similarities to those cuts though.
I agree with your point about other approaches yielding better/more reliable results. This is a situation where potentially you can cook a fair amount ahead of time to mean you have quite convenient lamb "on tap" when you want it but that's really the only advantage I can think of vs the other methods you've suggested.
edit: to be clear too, I was talking about shoulder above rather than neck. Obviously there are a lot of similarities to those cuts though.
Caporegime
I was being lazy and cooked some chicken breast under the grill (in a cast iron skillet)...dry as a desert and I cooked it on the lowest heat as well.
It's amazing how much juice is lost.
It's amazing how much juice is lost.
Soldato
This came out really well - thanks for the temperature suggestion. It could have done with a little more time but that's my fault for being slow putting it on!
Man of Honour
No worries
In retrospect I think I should've suggested a little longer also.Btw, if you want to read a bit more about using 49C (and 39C) to tenderise or "warm age" beef this is an interesting starting point to help you know what terms to google for more info: https://stefangourmet.com/2012/02/27/sous-vide-to-the-next-level-tenderizing-beef-by-warm-ageing/