Best SV seafood

Did a search and saw that folks have done SV salmon, halibut, scallops, and lobster. I’m also thinking about doing tuna. Any suggestions for what works well/doesn’t work well? A few online reviews and have SV scallops aren’t any different from regular old seared scallops, and that fish texture can be weird. Your thoughts?

Brined shrimp are great. I use the MC timetable IIRC.

My greatest successes with fish have been adaptations of olive oil poached recipes. For instance, a very low temp salmon lightly poached in olive oil, so it’s almost just like a cure, has been a staple of mine for “fancy” parties. It takes a lot of oil, though, to cover the fish completely. A sous vide version requires only a few tablespoons and comes out exactly the same texture-wise. I am highly sensitive to texture changes due to sous vide, and will almost never use it for meat, which I find to be ruined texturally more often than not, but this prep is great.

one thing to consider when doing seafood SV is the pressure of your bag. don’t crush your delicate proteins. I bet at least some of Sarah’s frustration with SV meats is they’ve been seen too much vac.

I like albacore SV but at higher temps where you get more of a canned/confit texture.

It’s possible, I suppose, and an interesting postulation; but I have texture issues with SV meat even when I’ve made it myself, across many cuts and animals, and I’m pretty careful with the pressure. I’ll be curious to see if there’s any change when we get the chamber vac up and running.

which model did you get? can you adjust the pressure?

I want but I’d have to get a prohibitively expensive one to accommodate sizeable game shanks, etc

It’s a Sammic SV-410S. You can adjust the pressure. It’s pretty big - we designed a dedicated cabinet for it - though I don’t know how much of a deer you could fit in. :slight_smile: We got a great deal.

thank you! Did you research the VacMaster products too? interested to see how they compare.

We didn’t look at VacMaster, no. Jonathan did most of the research, and I think he had a pretty firm idea of the 1-2 brands he would consider. As with most of the appliances. :slight_smile:

I’ve had very good results with salmon and very bad results with tuna. Shrimp is good but I slightly prefer the pan.

Took your advice and oil poached some salmon with lemon zest and dill. 130 degrees. Incredible!

So glad it was a success!

I recently did tuna steaks… 1 1/4 inch thick at 105 degrees for 20 min followed by a 30 seconds per side sear in a ripping hot pan… very happy with the result.

Dry brined with salt and pepper for 30 min before cook… added a few tbsp. of EVOO and sesame oil for the cook… finished with good shoyu soy sauce

The real fun is to SV very fresh swordfish or salmon at 110F.

Isn’t swordfish usually a heavy worm/ parasite carrier? Fresh (not frozen) and low temp doesn’t sound ideal for that.

[wow.gif] Perfect for show-and-tell.

I think that’s only true of swordfish that wasn’t flash frozen. But if it was never flash frozen, yeah, you run the risk of live worms with swordfish and other tropical fish (well with all fish).

I don’t see a need to SV scallops. I prefer a sear on the cast iron.

My favorite is probably salmon. You can find a recipe on chefsteps dot com

For lobster tails, I like to blanche in boiling water, and delicately remove the barely-cooked tail from the shell (using shears). Then vacuum seal with butter and tarragon. Mmmmm

Agreed 100%. No need to SV scallops. They taste amazing with 1 minute per side sear in cast iron.