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Sous Vide: Meat Cookery


PedroG

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Sometimes we get meat that does not show the amount of marbling we would like to see. Does anyone have experience with artificial marbling? Just inject vegetable oil into the meat? Or must it be a solid fat that liquefies somewhere between 40-50°C? What size of injection needle?

The idea is not new, see http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/3....1013.7595.html.

Pedro

Peter F. Gruber aka Pedro

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Sometimes we get meat that does not show the amount of marbling we would like to see. Does anyone have experience with artificial marbling? Just inject vegetable oil into the meat? Or must it be a solid fat that liquefies somewhere between 40-50°C? What size of injection needle?

The idea is not new, see http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/3....1013.7595.html.

Pedro

Don't think its new at all. Isn't this the principle behind the self-basting turkey?

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Injecting oil and larding (or barding with bacon (mmm bacon)) while techniques to add fat and flavour do not compensate for poor meat or poor cooking technique. They deposit fat onto the outside of the muscle fibres, not inside, and do nothing to change tough stringy meat. They have additional dangers of potentially introducing pathogens into the realtively sterile interior of the meat.

Marbling is an indication of good feeding and appropriate breed of beef. Its more than just the presence of fat.

Good technique, good hanging, LTLT sous vide cooking (eg long time say 12 hours) at low temperature (say 55C) will do far more to imorove your meat than injecing oil.

Edited by jackal10 (log)
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In fact I thought of oil injection as an alternative to larding. I have very good experiences with larded veal prime rib roasts cooked sous vide. Initial juicyness is the same as unlarded, but in continued chewing unlarded veal feels dryer than larded veal as it does not induce salivation as efficiently As my butcher usually has no pure-fat-lardons at hand, bacon strips have to do as well.

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Larded veal prime rib roast sous vide 54.4°C 6 hours, seared in smoking hot EVOO.

Peter F. Gruber aka Pedro

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When I started this topic, I already had a test underway: I cut a veal prime rib roast in 3 equal steaks.

No.1 was bagged untreated.

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No.2 was oil-injected with grapeseed-oil parallel to the muscle fibers, it retained almost no oil, the oil ran out onto the carving board. So it was rubbed with marinade, wrapped in cling foil an bagged.

No.3 was oil-injected at right angles to the muscle fibers, and it retained about 6-7% w/w of oil.

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All steaks were cooked cous vide simultaneously at 51.5°C for 2:45' and seared in smoking hot grapeseed oil for 15 sec. per side.

All 3 steaks looked equally rare.

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Steak No.1 was tender and juicy, but on continued chewing felt less juicy.

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Steak No.2 (marinated) had a little bit more taste and was tender and juicy even on continued chewing.

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Steak No.3 (6-7% oil-injected) tasted like Steak No.1, but stayed tender and juicy on continued chewing.

Further experiments are needed. Thicker slabs or whole roasts might retain more oil. Retention of oil might be better with palm kernel oil which is solid at temperatures of refrigerated meat and melts at 25-30°C thus necessitating minimal heating to make it injectable, or even coco nut oil (melting at 18-23°C) might do.

Injection of vegetable oil might be an alternative to larding with the advantage of introducing less animal fat.

Peter F. Gruber aka Pedro

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