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Imparting Flavor


Asked by Riki on Saturday, June 26
My boss just bought a sous vide machine for my galley. I have had success with the time tempurature and everything has come out wonderfully tender. However he asked me to prepare a recipe of rack of lamb using forty cloves of garlic rosemary and olive oil. I marinated the lamb for 3 hours before sous vide and he said the lamb did not take on any of the flavors. Any tips on why this might have happened?

2 Answers to This Question

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I'm not sure, normally using fresh garlic in sous vide has the opposite effect and can overpower dishes. <br /> <br />Did you leave all 40 of the garlic cloves in during the sous vide process or just during marination? If it was just during marination then I'm not sure that would be long enough to really get throughout all the meat and stay, especially through a long sous vide cooking process. <br /> <br />In that case you could try leaving more garlic cloves in with the meat during the sous vide cooking.
Answered by Jason Logsdon on Sunday, June 27
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Hmmmmm. I've had small cooking bags overpowered by a clove of fresh garlic only once -- because I am a quick learner. Once you've had a cut of meat overpowered by a single leaf of fresh rosemary you get a new appreciation of the ability of sous vide to concentrate flavor. The Sous Vide Supreme web site was helpful, even though I use a DIY sous vide cooker. The secret is to always cook fresh garlic or herbs before they go in the bag! But, sadly, this doesn't answer your question! You had the opposite problem -- underpowered herbs and aromatics. OK, quantity trumps impotency. Add the garlic and herbs during the sear where you can use your smell and taste senses to control the flavors. If you can't do this, you can't cook to please even yourself. Use your senses and take control!
Answered by Leigh Jones on Tuesday, June 18
You can also find a lot of sous vide information, as well as over 100 recipes, in our book Beginning Sous Vide which you can get at Amazon.com or as a pdf download.

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