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March 27, 2008

Sous Vide Duck Breast

This was my first experiment with sous vide cooking. I've been trolling eBay for a cheap immersion circulator for a long time now, as I think having a nicely sized water bath would be a godsend for dinner parties. I could have something cooked and held at the right temperature, and then just cut open the bags and serve (or sear, or whatever else I might want to do). Anyway, as of now, I am encumbered in several ways in my attempts to pursue sous vide cookery:

I don't have any special equipment to regulate the temperature of a water bath; and
I don't have a vacuum sealer.

But it turns out that those aren't necessarily deal-breakers. They just require workarounds. It turns out that I do have a water bath: a pot. And I do have equipment to regulate the temperature of that water bath: a stove and thermometer. And while others have had some success with plastic wrap and zip-locs, I still haven't really found a good workaround for the lack of a vacuum sealer, except this: some food is sold vacuum sealed! So here's how I did this:

I bought a D'Artagnan Magret breast (the odd Brookville grocery store in Cleveland Park, DC, sells a bunch of D'Artagnan products, and they also have an excellent selection of cheese). Those come vacuum-sealed in thick plastic. I don't know whether it's a kind of plastic made to be heated without releasing toxic chemicals, but I gave it a shot anyway, since I was the only one eating this. And I'm not dead yet.

I also set up a pot with about four liters of hot water (the more the better since temperature will stay more constant). The hottest water I can get out of my faucet is 126 Fahrenheit, which happens to be close to the temperature at which I wanted the duck to be cooked. I put the pot on a burner and set the temperature at the lowest heat level my stove can do. Within a couple minutes, the temperature had come up to 128 F, where it stayed for the next ten minutes or so. So I turned the heat up ever so slightly. In a couple more minutes, the temperature had come up to 130, and stayed there for a couple minutes. Perfect! I waited another twenty minutes to make sure the temperature would stay there. Then I put the vacuum packed duck breast into the pot. I watched it for a couple minutes to make sure the bag wasn't going to leak, or burst, or melt. It looked fine. I could see the proteins (some of them) coagulating. It was so weird to see the duck through the package, looking half-cooked, but knowing it was the perfect temperature.

Since I didn't have any way of knowing what the internal temperature of the duck breast was, and I hadn't done this before so I didn't have a good handle on how long it would take to come up to temperature, but since it can be held at that temperature indefinitely I left it in the bath for about three hours. I'm pretty sure it would have been up to temperature within twenty minutes or so, but I think it would only get better with more time in this case (up to a point, anyway). The water was cold enough that I could reach into the pot and feel the duck breast. And it felt perfectly rare after twenty minutes or so, and didn't really feel any differently after three hours.

Anyway, when I was finally sure it was done, I took it out, clipped off the side of the bag and dumped out the breast. I measured the internal temperature. It was 130. Yay! So I scored the fat side, gave it a quick sear in a hot pan to crisp it up, and then sliced it up and plated it. I served it over sauteed snow pea shoots, with browned potato gnocchi, raisin-yogurt puree (I had some left over), and blood orange segments. Because that was the stuff I had around.

The duck was amazing. Easily the best my duck has ever come out, and probably the best duck breast I've ever had. There was nothing special about how I did it. It's just delicious at that temperature, with crispy skin and a nice layer of almost-liquid fat underneath. As expected, the duck was done exactly the same throughout--no gray band of overcooked meat around the edges. Everything was super tender, juicy, and flavorful. Excellent. And the pairings even went very well with it!

So yeah, sous vide is within reach for home cooks, even with no special equipment. This was great, and I'm definitely going to do this more often. In fact, Lauren my roommate is running a marathon this weekend, and so I offered to cook her anything she wants the following night. She requested duck breast. Guess how I'm doing it?