Packaged chicken
In the General Sous Vide Questions Forum
I generally purchase Foster Farms chicken from Costco. The parts (thighs) come in what appears to be vacuum packed portions consisting of 3-4 thighs. I think I could use these directly in cooking - has anyone else tried this?
Jim
Hi Jim,
Unfortunately after a couple failed attempts at doing this I've learned it doesn't work.
I'm sure someone else can explain it better, but it seems something is puncturing the bag. Not sure why the vaccum appears to hold, but if you dunk it in warm water it will start to leak.
I haven't done it specifically with the package you are talking about, but the couple tries I did do were on meat purchased from different sources.
that's been my experience as well.
for whatever reasons, the commercial vacuum packed" chicken invariably seems to leak, at least a little (and that's enough to be worrying from a health standpoint) in the bath.
Because I think the extra layer of plastic adds to the cooking time, AND because one cannot be sure the plastics they freeze in are actually heat safe for cooking, I remove them and re-vacuum seal them
it's tempting when one gets vacuum sealed meats to just use them like that, but it's failed too many times for me to trust it
I've had good luck with preseasoned frozen fish from whole foods. The bags look more like the type used with a vacuum chamber sealer. Very handy, just drop them in the bath. I like to remove the labels first.
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