Sous Vide Chuck Roast

Dinner last night was chuck roast from the sous vide.

I cooked it at 134.5 for about 28 hours. It was pretty unbelievable for a chuck roast. If I hadn’t known differently, I would have thought it was prime rib. The texture, the taste! It was awesome. In fact, all the steak knives . . well, they weren’t dirty . . they’re all over the house because I used them to open boxes. So, I had to use a butter knife to cut the meat and it worked just fine.

Next time I think I’ll cook it at 137 for 24 hours. Those extra couple of degrees may be enough to render the fat. According to Google, beef fat renders at 130 – 140 but it didn’t at 134.5 so I want to figure out the lowest possible temp where the fat will render so I can still have the meat as rare as possible but have the fat rendered.

If I do say so myself, I make a darned good gravy! I could drink that stuff with a straw.

I came across a recipe for sous vide mashed potatoes where you put the peeled, slice potatoes in a bag with butter and milk and cook it at 197 or one hour. Only problem — I only have one sous vide, though I mentioned to Vince that I needed a second one but since he hasn’t tasted the results of cooking with it, he didn’t like that idea. So, I put the potatoes, butter and milk . . and salt, in the bag and cooked it on the stove using my candy thermometer to check the water and keep it at about 200. Think about mashed potatoes that weren’t boiled in water! It tasted like the perfect, fluffy baked potato.

I’m looking forward to leftovers. I think for dinner today I’ll have roast beef sandwiches with potato fritters made using the leftover mashed potatoes.