5Qs w/ Amatuer Sous Vide Chef Robbie Allan of San Francisco
Robbie Allan is a mobile product manager at SurveyMonkey in San Francisco. When he’s not helping create a new lens into data he’s cooking with his sous vide circulator.
The latest Tweets from Robbie Allan (@robbiedigi). Mobile Product @SurveyMonkey. Mobile tech, public policy, sous vide…twitter.com
Question #1: When did you first learn of sous vide cooking?
Through Kenji Lopez-Alt’s articles on Serious Eats. loved the craziness of it.
Question #2: What sous vide equipment do you use?
- Anova Precision Cooker (bought it off kickstarter a few years ago)
- Bernzomatic TS8000 with Searzall attachment
- Lodge 10 1/2" square skillet (re-seasoned)
- Baking Steel (Modernist Cuisine Special Edition)
Heavy, conductive pans are super-important for sous vide because you want to get a thick and crunchy crust without disturbing your juicy and perfectly tempered interior.
Questions #3: What was the first thing you ever made sous vide?
Hangar steak from Ottomanelli & Sons butcher on Bleecker St in NYC. I cooked it a little hot (131 F) and so after searing ended up with steak a little more cooked than I’d like. I now aim for a lower internal temperature so things are perfect after after a bit of heat from the sear conducts through.
Question #4: What was your biggest sous vide mistake?
Taking my immersion circulator to a country with different power. I tried to take it to cook with friends in New Zealand, where they use 240v. I bought an adapter off the internet, but for the power that the unit draws (1kW) you need something a little more industrial than what I bought.
It ended up cutting out every 5 minutes, so we switched to trying to re-create the experience with a thermometer and an electric element. Would not recommend.
Question #5: What was your biggest sous vide success?
72-hour short rib for a dinner party in Chelsea. Everyone is pretty impressed when you can bring out such a delicate dish with seemingly no effort at all. Short rib cooked for three days long delivers incredible meaty flavor with this tender yet toothsome texture that’s really unlike anything you’ve had before.
Interested in starting to cook using the sous vide method? Here is a list of the equipment I use that you can order:
The total cost for the complete kit is approximately $500 from Amazon.You can save some money by using a stock pot instead of the container/rack. You can also sear your food in a hot cast iron skillet (I like to do both) and skip out on the torch and searzall. Finally, you can skip the vacuum sealer and use Ziplock bags with the water bath sealing method.
