Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I just cooked a steak in a rice cooker on the "keep" setting with the pot full of hot water and it was perfect at 1 hour, 3 hours, and even pretty good at 16 hours (it turned a little like rare corned beef).

Poor persons' Sous vide!

this is it after 3 hours, then fried on high heat for around 20 seconds each side...



My rice cooker was from late last century...

Mmmm steak! I just bought a rice cooker, but I like steak more. And Bacon.

Great job on the steak BW

-------------------
You can also do some sous vide just using a cooler but if you have the money sous vide cooking gizmos are coming down in price, at least here in the US. I got one of these for around $125 during cyber week https://www.amazon.com/Anova-Precision-Cooker-WIFI-Watts/dp/B01HHWSV1S and so far I've cooked chicken and also a 2lb beef brisket. I think these should work for parts of the cheese making process as long as this is within the temp range of the unit (they're not designed to cool though, only heat). My setup is in a 16 quart cooler with a cutout for it in the lid. I also filed down the hinge part so I can slide the lid off without disturbing the unit (might have worked with the cutout at the front or just drilling a hole without clamping the unit in place). The unit clamps to the back wall of the cooler. Here are a couple of pics to give you the idea





There are some other interesting picks like the Joule for a bit more and some units that are less expensive than what I got but the prices for most of these have been coming down fast in the last few years.

Make sure you look into food safety at the low temps these gizmo's can do.

Have you been watching cooking shows again Bully?

A friend of mine renamed his sandwich press as a UCD, a universal cooking device, he experimented with cooking all sorts of meals in it and wanted to write a book, steak and veggies, stuffed mushrooms, deserts, bacon and eggs, etc, etc..

It's getting to the price/stage where there's no excuse to postpone buying one now.

What level of control do you have with a device like that... ie do you get fractions of a degree? Does it stir the water ?(not that that actually seems to matter. Im guessing that there is enough movement with convection currents)

I was very impressed once with a guy I worked for who dropped the work kitchen toaster on it's side and made toasted cheese in it. Something from his poor student days. From the days before instant noodles.

And no, I've just been %$#@ing up the last few steaks I cooked

I also thought using the heat from my router might be a good way to prove bread at one stage.

That got messy

Slightly interestingly, I put my steak back into my unit for an extra 16 (<=== see that bit again) hours to see what would happen and basically it turned into rare corned beef. It was still food, still rare, but had a texture you wouldn't write home about)

I think I have a photo...

Now I know I have a photo, but I'm sending it from my phone to my email account.

It's good to keep people informed

Waiting...

Bored...

I get bored easily...

But the suspense is worth it.

So this is what it looked like after 16 hours...




It was passed it's prime by a long shot, but interesting nonetheless.

The cut I used was a very inexpensive one because I didnt want to waste anything decent, and wanted to see if I could improve something less decent.

I cant remember what it was, but it was probably a little too lean for a slow cook.

Also, after 16 hours, it had lost around 15% of it's weight in liquid left in the bag.

After the first taste which I think was three hours or so, it had lost almost no liquid.

We cant buy stuff from amazon here in Oz, which is why we need people like geektonurse to send me Twinkies.

My only regret in life (so far) was eating a Twinkie

I dont think I mentioned that I did the cooking in a "Glad" zip lock sandwich bag with the air sucked out of it.

On the previous topic, I've just either invented something, or remembered something I invented before.

It's a pretty good idea by my own estimation.

Anyone want to get rich and famous?

I can adjust it in 0.5 degree F increments but it's almost always right on temperature wise or flips up and down within 0.1 degree. I haven't tried setting it up to run with degrees C so I'm not certain how narrow the set point is and how much wiggle room I have there. It does circulate the water and you can direct the flow in whatever direction you choose.

Here are the specs - https://anovaculinary.com/anova-precision-cooker/specifications/



So far I've been using these too. Water displacement method works well, save your lungs, no sucking required

I do have a vacuum sealer and I'll probably use it for when I want to prep something and freeze it since the bags are maybe a bit better for in the freezer.

I note lots of people dont even seal the bag, they just peg it to the side with the top open and let the water in the device do the sealing.

If you do have a vacuum sealer you can seal your steak and throw it in the dishwasher on economy cycle (~50c/90mins) and get a similar result..

Sandwiching between two of my old laptops would probably work as well

The only thing I ever paid for on the net was a subscription to 17 years of America's Test Kitchen when I was laid up for a bit.

I binge watched hundreds of episodes in a few months.

The UCD and my rice cooker never even got a mention

I've made a few more dishes with my old rice cooker on keep and it's turned out to be a pretty consistent winner.

Lamb shanks in red wine, garlic, whatever mediterranean herbs you have in your growbed/local K-Mart parking lot, salt and pepper, and most importantly...

a small amount of gelatin.

oh and dried porcini mushrooms.

and red wine

Stuff it all into a ziplock bag, set your rice cooker on keep (fill it with hot tap water to get it to temperature), and wait for five hours.



I'll do this properly...

Run your hot water tap until it's hot. That should give you roughly the correct temperature to cook with.

Fill your old rice cooker, and set it to "keep" (ie that setting it switches to when your rice is cooked)

Add organo, rosemary, parsley, garlic, salt, and some black pepper to a large ziplock plastic bag

Get a small amount of hot water, and dissolve a small quantity of gelatin in it (the equivalent of maybe a quarter of a teaspoon (this gives a nice mouthfeel to the final product, and amplifies the slow cooked texture where the collagen breaks down into whatever it is that collagen breaks down into... probably gelatin (yep - I just googled it, and it's gelitin)))

Break up some dried porcini mushrooms into thumbnail sized bits and add the amount that might fit into a golfball.

Throw in two lamb shanks and enough red wine to just cover it all.

Carefully submerge your bag so there are no air pockets and use a clothes peg or a borrowed book to keep it in place so it's always underwater in your rice cooker. <= ON KEEP

Wait five hours, or better yet, plan in advance and do all this five hours ago so you can eat now.

So acording to the thermometers in my house, that's around 58c (or acording to the internet, 136F- or approximately 1.5 times the temperature of Mr Fahrenheit's' wife's armpit* (who knew?))

With 20 minutes to go, steam some veggies (avoid anything bitter because it really doesn't go with this), and a 50:50 ratio of potato, and red sweet potato. The potato and sweet potato are to mash as a base for your lamb shanks.

Mash them.

Remove the lamb shanks, and reduce the sauce and maybe add some cornflour to thicken (use "White Wings" brand in Australia because it doesn't clump like that 20 year old yellow box of whatever that is you have in your kitchen right now)

Then optionally heat a frying pan to 'insane', turn on your exhaust fan, turn off your smoke alarms, and brown the outside of your lamb shanks for a few seconds. It really only takes perhaps 20 seconds on each surface to give it an amazing crust with this cooking method. Or you can leave that bit out. But dont.

Plate your bed of mash, add a lamb shank and sauce. Swirl to look neat then add steamed veggies as a visually clean burst of colour (the rest is a little dull so it looks best without the sauce on the veggies)

Some places on earth dont like lamb because they drink water with their meals.

Dont drink water with lamb.

Dont ever drink water with lamb.

Lamb fat will set like thick butter in your mouth at table water temperature.

Beef fat sets that way only in your arteries.

Drink red wine with your lamb shanks or nothing at all.

Red wine sits in your arteries like something warm, and snuggly.

Drink a glass of red with your lamb shanks.

That last line is pretty important.

If You're not of wine drinking age then just avoid water. Try something like a lemon based drink. Anything that isn't water, or a bit like water. Something with some acid.








*narrative may not reflect actual history, but I have a vague feeling that it does.