I did these last night:
I did them to 57° and I regret not going hotter. The texture was a bit mushy. Flavor was good and the sauce from the pouches flavored the accompanying rice wonderfully. Still the texture was distracting. Any tips for next time, or is sous vide lobster maybe not my thing?
Eat lobster, fresh pulled from the ocean, in New England. This is a case of where the only ingredient - lobster - has to be fresh.
One hour seems really long for any fish
cooked too long was the issue. 15-30 minutes is usually the guideline. Any longer and shellfish gets all mushy and nasty. I think Keller does 139F for 15 minutes in a butter bath. Kenji at serious eats is 130 at 30 minutes.
Okay, thanks. I’ll give it a try
So much of the flavor of lobster comes from the shells, so I like to cook them shell on. Get your courtbouillon going, then color up the shells with a torch or broiler then crash the courtbouillon temp to final and use the anovo to keep it there. Agree on the shorter times others mentioned.
I also question the use of the butter as the cooking medium. Many of the flavors in one’s protein of choice are fat soluble and end up in the butter, not remaining in the product itself. I believe Anova specifically tells folks not to add any fat to sous vide steaks for example, for that specific reason, but appears to ignore it in the context of lobster. Yes, we all like buttery lobster and are more inclined to “dip” into any juice from the pouch in this application (as opposed to dipping a steak into bloody butter juice from the bag), but I question the inconsistent instructions.
the butter is used mostly as a poaching liquid. Just like for sous vide you’d add olive oil for poaching fish. Fat for steaks are different since you don’t poach steaks
ah daniel son, but sous vide is the poaching liquid, vac-pack only thin barrier.
i may seem pedantic but I get Ron’s point in that context.
Sorry I don’t understand what you’re saying?
I’ll say it differently: your flavor gets robbed by the fat in the poaching liquid.
Yes, Paul, that’s the issue about which I was expressing concern.
He’s saying they’re inconsistent in their instructions. You say they aren’t because you don’t poach steaks, but I say sous vide is a form of poaching, just with the vac pack. So they are inconsistent. Consistently.
I’d argue that there is such a significant difference having the liquid outside the pack and having it inside the pack that the former can no longer be considered poaching.
Agree with jay.
In the context that Ron brings up, that is, avoiding the addition of liquids to avoid flavor dilution, to which Anova contradicts by adding poaching liquid to a lobster sous vide, I think the comparison is apt.
So in some cases, like the lobster mentioned, you don’t want to poach, you want to sous vide. With the advantage of the vacuum you should be focusing on additions to the pack that ADD flavor to the ingredient, or allow it to cook in its own juices, not the dilution that occurs when you poach the lobster in butter in the sous vide.
So, like Ron says. Don’t poach your lobster. Sous vide it, add some herbs if you want. Anova is telling you to poach when they say you shouldn’t. The side argument of poach vs sous vide is irrelevant. Sous vide is not poaching, but it definitely is a form. After all, the physics of the actual cooking (temperature change) that occurs between sous vide and poaching are exactly the same all things being equal because the vacuum in the pack does not allow the pressure inside the pack to exceed atmospheric, the same as poaching so the temperature regime is the same. You could achieve exactly the same result with a sous vide whole egg as you could with poaching for example.
I think I incorrectly attributed the advice to Anova, when really it was Serious Eats:
"I’ve seen recipes that recommend adding fat to the bag, though none that offer plausible reasons for doing so. I decided to test whether or not it adds anything to the process by cooking three steaks side by side: one with nothing added to the bag, one with olive oil, and one with butter. I also repeated the test with some thyme sprigs and garlic added to each bag.
Intuitively you may think that adding a flavorful fat like butter or olive oil will in turn help create a more flavorful steak, but in fact it turns out that you achieves the opposite goal: it dilutes flavor. Fat-soluble flavor compounds dissolve in the melted butter or oil and end up going down the drain later. Similarly, flavors extracted from aromatics end up diluted. For best results, place your seasoned steak in a bag with no added fats."
What I was trying to say is that this same phenomenon would likely occur with lobster cooked in butter in a sous vide pouch. Sorry for any confusion.