A Sous-Vide Christmas

Another Christmas has come and gone and the deep-fried short ribs and “dismantled” prime rib were big hits.

The short ribs were cooked in a 135F/57.2C waterbath for 48 hours and then deep fried in 360F vegetable oil for a few minutes to crisp up the skin.

I probably could have fried them a bit longer to get an even crispier skin, but overall, they were great. Here’s how they looked on the platter.



The dismantled prime rib was a lot of fun to put together. My butchering skills definitely need some fine tuning, and I know I’ll do better next time. The calotte (cap meat) was separated from the ribeye and they were placed separately in the same water bath as the short ribs about 2 hours before service. Here’s what the cap meat look like when it came out of the bath.



I seared the calotte in a grill pan for a couple minutes a side. The ribeye roast was browned on all sides in oil. Then butter and thyme was added to the pan and then meat was basted in butter for a few minutes before resting and carving. Here’s what they looked like together on a plate.



The meat was soft and tender and even though it was medium rare, it had a buttery, melt-in-your-mouth texture, which is why sous vide cooking is so great. You can’t get that texture when you do a traditional roast. I also liked doing the calotte and the ribeye separately because you can finish them in different ways. We served it with my wife’s bacon garlic mashed potatoes, mushrooms sauteéd in butter, and green beans.

We had cookies and apple pie for dessert, although no pictures of those because we were so full that we couldn’t really move. Apologies also for the lack of prep pictures. It’s hard to think about stopping to taking pics when you’re focused on the task at hand. I’ll try and do better next time.

Merry Christmas! (if this applies to you! :-P)