Gutted about the photos.  They uploaded and displayed fine and were resized small enough.

Like you say TT it's not just my photos but all photos on that server. It probably won't get seen to until tomorrow at the soonest.

Cheers,

Paul

EDIT: Photos are back 

Thanks TT, I can't see my photos now, it looks like the imagehost server is not working. Maybe I broke it!

My vacuum sealer is this one:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Andrew-James-Quality-Vacuum-Machine/dp/B001HBE5Y8/ref=sr_1_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1339359979&sr=1-1

and I use the bags from the same company.

Cheers,

Paul

Looking good TT. Jerk chicken can be good as well and can sometimes be really hot.

Cheers,

Paul

Yesterday I had quite a marathon in the kitchen. I cooked some lamb tikka sous vide and made the Chewy Tikka 3 hour base (for the second time) then I made a curry.

First photo lamb in marinade in plastic bag. Note the jar of Mr Huda tikka paste. I wasn't sure how this would turn out so used the instant stuff rather than a blade type marinade.



Second photo shows the basic sous vide setup: A cheap rice cooker controlled by the Sous Vide Magic temp controller. Ignore the white elephant Panasonic bread maker!



The third photo shows the bag vacuum sealed. I put the bag into the freezer to make sure the marinade was frozen to stop it getting sucked into the vacuum sealer. I was a bit impatient and you can see how some marinade has worked it's way up the bag before it finally sealed. That was close!



The next photo show the chewy base on the go in my 17 litre stockpot:



The next photo shows a close up of the lamb in the water bath (rice cooker). You can see the temperature probe in the water.



Next is the base sauce ready to blend. You can see my huge blender and small dog:



I ended up with about 6.5 litres of base sauce:



The next photo shows the lamb taken out of the water bath before going into a conventional oven:



And the next photo shows the lamb after 15 mins in a hot oven:



I finally got to cook my curry:



The lamb tikka turned out quite well. Unfortunately all Tesco had was packs of pre-chopped lamb like I normally avoid. It was certainly tender and the tikka effect worked well but as is often the case with sous vide the meat was a little dry.

The base sauce tasted good. I made the mix powder according to chewy's spec and used the rajah madras gold curry powder that thomas.? kindly sent me and the garam masala that ifindforu sent me.

The curry was pretty good but I used 1 tablespoon of spice mix and will cut back next time.
It's good to be cooking curries again, I took a break of about 5 weeks.

Cheers,

Paul

Yeah I could see this coming. It would be great if Admin would allow the compilations to be hosted here at cr0.

I only managed to download the BE stuff, sniff! Thanks for your efforts Stone Cut.

Paul

Hi Fried,

I think butter ghee can last about a year in a cool dark place. I keep mine in the fridge.
Have a taste before you cook with it in case it has gone rancid.

I would imagine you can freeze it to make it last longer.

Cheers,

Paul

Hi Chris,

The main reasons for the vacuum in sous vide are (1) Any air pockets or bubbles will cause the bag to float (2) Any air pockets or bubbles means the heat transfer from the water bath to the contents may be compromised.

I'm not sure of the side effects on a marinade. Unless you have a chamber vacuum sealer (over

Hi George, you are correct about bacteria:

http://www.cookingissues.com/primers/sous-vide/purdy-pictures-the-charts/

If you accidentally cooked something at 50 instead of 55 degrees you could be in the danger zone.

On that link you can see a chart for temperature vs safety. You can also see from the pictures of cooked meat and eggs how a few degrees difference can make.

I don't think you are correct about easily building a temp controller. A simple thermostat will cause the temp to oscillate above and below your set temperature. An intelligent PID like the one I use is smart enough to slow down the heating when you approach the set point.
You could build one if you are competent in electronics as several people have.

Cheers,

Paul

Thanks for the paella recipe Naga, I'll give it a try sometime.

Cheers,

Paul

Hi George,

If you want to try something like steak sous-vide without buying all the kit most people use an insulated food container and fill it with warm water. For a cooking time of 2 hours or so this works ok although you might need to top up with a little hot water from time to time. Other people have achieved it with a pot of water on the stove but you would need to watch it and keep adjusting the heat and stirring. Obviously you would need a thermometer.

Regarding the overpriced equipment if you are serious regarding safety and results you need to control the temperature to about plus or minus 1 degree celsius. You see a big difference between cooking a steak at 55 versus 60 degrees.

So far I'm wondering if I've wasted 200 quid like I did with my 200 quid blender that doesn't blend very well or my 100 quid bread maker that |'ve only used twice. One of the problems with sous-vide is it is designed to not overcook food. It only really works if you like your beef and lamb a bit pink and even pork and chicken can show a few pink bits which may put people off the food.

Cheers,

Paul