Sous Vide – Projects

August 28, 2020

Chipotle Chicken Revisited

I had toyed with a recipe for this in the past, but have been on a SousVide kick lately and realized that this could be done as a bulk meap prep. Sous Vide foods are pre-cooked and freeze easily ready to defrost and eat. I decided on a Honey Lime Chipotle Chicken with Cilantro Lime rice and some Pico De Gallo and three Bean salad. Just like my recent discovery of air frying to reverse sear Sous Vide cooked BBQ. I gave the chicken 5 minutes at 400 degrees to get a texture on the outside post Sous Vide cooking. This can be done after defrosting the frozen meal prep for the hot off the grill flavor and texture.

Pico De Gallo

I love Pico De Gallo as it is a simple salad that can be converted into salsa with a stick blender. Here is what I use for mine. Tomatoes, Jalapenos, Limes, White Onions, and Cilantro with only a touch of salt and black pepper to finish it off.

I just cut everything up and mix it in a bowl. I then just put it in mason jars to keep. Normally I make Texas caviar too at the same time since it uses the same ingredients, but only had one can of black eyed peas so 3 bean salad was made instead.

Honey Lime Chipotle Chicken

1/2 can of San Marcos Chipotle peppers in adobo sauce including sauce
1/2 bunch of cilantro including stems
2 tablespoons honey
5 teaspoons of liquid smoke
1 teaspoon of cumin
2 teaspoon of dried oregano
2 teaspoons of dried cilantro
2 tablespoons minced garlic
The juice and zest of one lime
2 tablespoons cooking oil

I use the mini chop food processor to blitz all the ingredients into a paste and then put boneless skinless chicken thighs in the paste to coat. I vacuum sealed it into bags ready for Sous Vide. I then placed the bags in the Sous Vide at 165 degrees for 2 hours.

Cilantro Lime Rice

I did a simple Cilantro lime rice by taking 1/2 bunch of cilantro and the juice and zest of one lime and mixing it into a rice cooker of freshly cooked rice. This is as simple as a flavored rice side can get.

Finishing it off

HoneyLimeChipotleBurritoWrap — HoneyLimeChipotleBurrito

The chicken can be cut up and added to Burritos. My favorite local tortilla company La Ranchera not only makes great corn tortillas, but burrito wrappers that make about the perfect size burritos.

I have a feeling that I’m about to air fry some of La Ranchera’s corn tortillas into chips and make me some Honey Lime Chipotle Chicken natchos soon. I quit buying premade tortilla chips once I found out that the air fryer makes better ones from fresh corn tortillas with less oil that deep fried.

October 9, 2019

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

Well as normal. Monkey see Monkey do. I saw this YouTube Video, and decided it looked delicious. If you don’t want to put in the work you can always head over to Empire Turkish Grill and get their very delicious Lahana Sarma ( Stuffed Cabbage Rolls).

1 lb of ground chuck 80/20
1 cup of cooked brown rice
2 eggs
1 can of mushrooms
3 shredded carrots
1 Head of cabbage
1 onion chopped and Sauteed
Garlic to taste (sauteed with onion)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 can of fire roasted diced tomatoes
1 can of tomato sauce.
2 teaspoons of paprika

Core and steam the whole cabbage. I did this in my Instapot for about 5 minutes on high pressure. This makes the leaves easy to peel and roll. I did not want to cook it soft, but wanted the leaves pliable enough to roll. five minutes was perfect and allowed me to not over cook the rolls even after the SousVide portion of the cooking.

The filling ingredients, meat, rice, carrots, mushrooms, and sauteed onions and garlic, are mixed in a bowl until a firm consistency the eggs are used as a binder. Once the filling is ready it is scooped into a peeled cabbage leaf. You can remove the stem of the leaf to make rolling easier. See YouTube link above for more information. I used two loads of a 1 oz portion scoop to make the rolls consistent. A light sauce is made from a can of fire roasted tomatoes and tomato sauce and paprika, or in my case tomato soup as I was out of sauce. I also hit the sauce lightly with an immersion blender to make it a bit smoother.

Once the sauce was ready I loaded three to four rolls and about 1 cup of the sauce into a vacuum bag and prepared it for the SousVide. If you don’t have a SousVide you can place them in a dutch oven or deep casserole dish and bake as it is more traditional. However the SousVide makes a great tool for meal prep. About an hour in the SousVide and they were done ready to store for tasty meals.

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I really should have made more sauce. It is hard to vacuum seal bags with lots of sauce, but these really could have used more sauce. They were delicious and my official taste testers said I could put them on the rotation.

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My only issue is that this makes a ton of dishes.

January 28, 2019January 28, 2019

Sous Vide Butternut Squash

I will say it again. I like butternut squash, and cannot always eat soup. I prefer to make it into mash as a starch replacement. I also do not cook it with the typical sweet desert like covered in brown sugar. I think it is why I do it instead of “sweet potato” mash. It has a much better flavor cooked with savory spices. It can also be done with a spicy curry flavor depending on what it is being served with.

1 butternut squash
1/2 onion
Garlic to taste
fresh ginger to taste
cinnamon
Cumin
paprika
olive oil

Cube butternut squash, and onion. Rough chop garlic and ginger. Add to vacuum bags. I portioned it into 300g bags with 1/4 teaspoon of cumin, 1 teaspoon paprika, 1/2 of a cinnamon stick and 2 tablespoons of Olive oil. It was too much oil and one tablespoon would be enough. Toss in the bags to coat before sealing and then 3 hours at 185 degrees in the Sous Vide while other things are being done. It was really tender at the 2 hour mark but i got distracted.

Speed up view of the cooking