Garlic Herb Butter Sous Vide Steak Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Should you sous vide with butter or without butter? ›

Our preference is to place butter into the bag itself, rather than on top of the product. Butter added to the bag will help with air displacement, prevent things from sticking together and help to retain shape, and can also be used afterwards for a pan sauce. Butter also works really well for vegetable dishes.

Herbs – I used fresh thyme sprigs to enhance the flavor of the steak during the sous vide and searing process. Other herbs you could use are rosemary, sage, or oregano. Garlic – A few garlic cloves will add beautiful flavors to the dish.

Season the steaks generously on both sides with salt and pepper. Smash 4 of the garlic cloves with the side of a knife to flatten. Place each steak in a vacuum bag, add 2 of the smashed garlic cloves and 1 of the rosemary sprigs to each bag, and vacuum seal closed.

The main issue is that the meat doesn't actually absorb any flavor from the butter. In fact, the butter can actually pull some fat-soluable compounds out of the meat, reducing the flavor slightly.

Chefsteps have suggested adding butter and olive oil to the bag with steaks in several of their recipes ^{2 3} and guides ⁴. Dave Arnold has previously suggested putting butter in the bag when cooking sous vide. Modernist Cuisine adds suet (fat) to their sous vide steak recipe.

Q: Can I add aromatics, like herbs or alliums, to the sous vide bag? Yes, you can. I like to add thyme or rosemary sprigs, along with sliced shallots or garlic cloves, to the bags with my steaks during cooking. Adding the same aromatics to the pan as you sear the steaks will bolster that flavor.

The color change is caused by a reaction between enzymes and sulfur-containing amino acids in the garlic (the same enzymes are responsible for garlic's flavor). When these enzymes are activated by mild acid, they produce blue and green pigments.

The colour is probably the result of a reaction between sulphur compounds and amino acids (building blocks of protein) that are naturally present in garlic. In certain cooking conditions, these compounds (assisted by enzymes) interact to produce new molecules that give a green tint to the garlic.

Why not sous vide garlic? ›

It's normally harmless, which is why you don't hear any concerns over garlic in the vast majority of recipes, but in warm and low-oxygen conditions like those present in sous vide, it starts to form the spores that cause botulism.

Your steak, etc., will be LESS flavorful if sous vide with butter than without. Of course, you'll need to sear the finished item to get that wonderful crispy crust anyway, so that's when you should add butter… during the searing procedure.

Season steaks generously with salt and pepper. Place in sous vide bags along with herbs, garlic, and shallots (if using) and distribute evenly. Seal bags and place in water bath for desired time according to charts.

“Since the cannabis and oil or butter are sealed and placed under water to infuse, there's no smell. There's also no need to babysit a stovetop or an open flame, and you can make multiple infusions at once.” Lo cooks her infused fats sous vide at 185°F for four hours.

“Room temp butter is able to hold onto air,” Szewczyk says. “You can mechanically shove air into it by creaming. Warm butter is not able to hold onto it, so you're going to get a denser dough.” When using warmer or melted butter, cookies will struggle to lift and lighten, resulting in a cakier texture, like brownies.

Butter substitute for baking

Most cake mixes call for oil, but butter will bring in amazing flavor. To substitute butter for oil in baking just melt the butter, measure it, let it cool, and add it as you would the oil. Compared to oil, butter will create a cake with a firmer, cakeier texture.

Basting it with butter both deepens the crust on the outside and helps the steak cook more quickly.

While the test was interesting, what caught my eye was the first part where they show how to make clarified butter using sous vide. In a nutshell, you put the butter in a vacuum sealed bag and cook for 30 mins at 185ºF.