Sous vide/que chicken results

[dubob]

I have these boneless/skinless chicken breast in the freezer that are feeling a little left out of life. So, what the hey; might as well put one of them back in the game. So, I thought and thought and thought; how can I make this a special treat for one of them. Eureka; sous vide (SV) and finish on the grill.
Found a couple of recipes and investigated them and asked around on this and other sites for some tips and or pointers as to how to proceed. The help was forthcoming in abundance. Thanks to all y’all that pitched in for this cook. Much appreciated.
I sealed 2 breasts separately and selected an SV temp of 150F and left them alone for about 4 hours. I added some locally manufactured chicken rub from one of my go to premium meat butcher shops. After the 4-hour bath, I put one breast on the grill to finish and the other breast went on the sear box to finish. I kept an IT probe in each and didn’t let either one get above 150F during the finish grill.
The inside meat was very, very moist and tender. As good as those roasted chickens you buy at the market when you just don’t have the time or desire to cook something at home that day. The outside meat was tough and leathery. Thankfully it was only about 1/16 inch thick. I wasn’t impressed at all with finishing them on the grill/sear box. But they WERE skinless. I’m thinking that in the future, I should probably just do the SV on skinless chicken and do skin on chicken on the grill. Does that sound good to all y’all?
And it isn’t a cook unless there are pictures, so here’s a couple.
Here they are ready for their spa soak with rub applied.

Lounging in the hot tub.

Ready for the grill

On the sear box

After the sear

If you look close, you can see how moist they were

And what would any meal be with out a good salad loaded up with lettuce, onions, radishes, cucumbers, celery, tomatoes, bacon bits and then topped off with some very finely chopped red peppers and Ken's Steakhouse Sweet Vadalia Onion dressing?

[Sweaty Paul]

Looks good. Need to try this.

[Old Glory]

Looks great! Curious as to why so long a "spa treatment"? I have a Joule SV and the times they recommend on the app are way shorter than I see you guys doing. Depending on thickness cooking time is a recommended 1 hour to 1.5 hours.

[Polarbear777]

Lean chicken just needs to come to temp and then pasteurize.

[dubob]

The beauty of SV is that you can not OVERCOOK the meat. You set it for the doneness you want and it never goes beyond that. I started early because I had errands to run and wouldn't have enough time after I got home to do the cook. According to most of what I've read about SV cooking so far says that doubling or tripling the cook time will NOT change the result. And in this case that was true. Perfect moisture, texture, and tenderness.

[Polarbear777]

If you go too long and you don’t need to break down collagen, things can get mushy. Chicken breast, beef and pork tenderloins are best when just pasteurized at the final temp you want. Tough cuts you can go as long as required to tenderize (such as 135F for 48-72 hrs for brisket).

[Skip]

Congratulations dubob ! Your chicken looks great. I fought with SV chicken breasts for awhile until getting some sound advice from this wonderful site. My method (finally) is to dry brine with a salty rub for 4-6 hours, bag and SV @147* for 1.5 Hours (being sure they are pasteurized) and then searing in a hot CI pan for less than 2 minutes total with a little butter and olive oil. I usually garnish with a light sprinkle of Smoked Paprika. As I said before, I really struggled to Not get that leathery outer layer that you mentioned above. A while back fzxdoc posted her method on SV boneless Pork Chops which works very well also. I included a link if you are interested dubob .


December 14th, 2017, 02:30 PM
Sorry to be so slow in responding, Hugh . Somehow I missed the link to your post. The last pork chops I sous vided, I did at a much lower temperature.

Here's the method I used:

1. Brine for 1 hour in wet brine: 1 qt water, ¼ cup sugar, ¼ cup table salt. (good for 2 chops)
2. Rinse and add to sous vide bag
3. Sous vide at 135 for 2 hours or more.
4. Remove from bag, dry off, coat with oil, add a rub* if desired, and sear quickly.

I did this with butterflied boneless pork chops, about ¾ to 1 inch thick. Worked great! Much better than my previous sous vide attempts with pork chops at higher temperatures.

HTH,
Kathryn

*I like Chef Tim Love's Cocoa and Chile rub on pork chops: http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/c...bed-pork-chops
Last edited by fzxdoc; December 17th, 2017, 06:50 PM.

[dubob]

Thanks Skip. I'll print your post out and give it a go soon. We do chicken at least once a week or more. I did my last pork SV (pork steak) for 24 hours at 160F. It was VERY tender. I may experiment with a lower cook temp on the next cook at the same 24 hour bath. The longer time makes for an unbelievably tender pork steak. Probably not needed for pork chops as they are tender to begin with. Learning all this new stuff is very exciting for this ol' dawg. My bride keeps telling me I shoulda been a chef. 😁

[Potkettleblack]

I don’t like a hard sear on chicken after Sous Vide. Like 30 seconds a side for color or just sauceit out of the bag with no sear. As noted by OP, you get that leather, and then you get what I call "chicken wood." I like chicken wood on a hot wing, but not on a breast.

147xpasturize time, very fast sear or just chop and toss with a sauce. Done.

[Skip]

I agree Potkettleblack. It was hard for me to realize at first that the sear on chicken breasts or boneless pork chops was for color only. Beef can take that warp 10 sear. Thanks to people like you on this AR Site I've learned!