Funny. I only use it for the cheap cuts -- skirt, flank, chuck roast, etc. You can get those as tender as a prime ribeye if you cook them sous vide for long enough. The expensive cuts tend to taste good and be tender enough using normal methods.

I also sous vide our turkey on Thanksgiving. (Broke down the turkey beforehand and the white meat and dark meat for different time periods.

Chris

I am not good at grilling to get a nice steak to the right temp. I find the sous vide a great tool for perfect steaks that I finish off on the BGE. I like the cheaper done sous vide but missed the aromas of braising beef on a winter's day. I bet the turkey was fantastic as I like how chicken comes out.

We use ours extensively. Steaks, always 2 hours at 56C finished by a quick sear on the grill (1m per side), with a dollop of duck fat, some salt, and dried tarragon; fantastic, regardless of the cut.

Chicken, pork chops, even several fish... salmon in particular is great; we usually hot-smoke salmon to a medium-rare finish, but salmon does go through 2 distinct "done" temperature phases, and sous vide allows you to nail that every time.

Veggies.... we parcook potatoes a lot for mashing later, at IIRC 73C (have to look up the starch gelatinization temp; you want to be a bit under it so as not to rupture the starch granules and end up with sticky, gloppy mashed potatoes).

Eggs... made some fantastic creme brulee and creme anglais in the sous vide, as well as egg nog; the toughest part was sealing the bags (as we have the typical home bag sealer, which is tough on sealing liquids). Also do 13 minute onsen eggs, at IIRC 75C, which leads to perfect yolks and whites.

Long roasts with pork have had mixed results; the problem with them is that you can get lactic acid bacterial growth if you go much over 24 hours at the temperatures you want on pork, and though the taste and texture is great, it smells a bit "off" (due to various byproducts of the lactic acid bacteria). Beef roasts of 24-48 hours have been awesome, though I rarely make them.

Organ meats... heart and kidney and liver all cook very well via sous vide.

I am fond of very cheap cuts of meat (I always think they taste better, if cooked properly) so I look forward to making a crazy recipe like this :D

Joule here.

Use it for all meats and fish, at least 5 times a week. Perfect every time

Busy Sous Vide weekend
 

I did a pork loin yesterday, which was very nice. And then snap peas, with butter, garlic, shallots, cashews and bacon bits. Cooked perfectly at 184 degrees.

I picked up a super sale of boneless choice beef rib roasts for less than $5 each (2-2.5 pounds), and am doing a few on a 30 hour cook!

Interesting. I've been hesitant to do longer cooks with mine precisely due to the evaporation issue so I may pick this up.

On the other hand, I also occasionally have issues with meat floating towards the inlet (which I work around using binder clips against the side of the pot). I'm not sure how well the lid and such will work with that.

I guess I'm just interested why everyone is so concerned with the evaporation. You know you can just add more water, right? I understand the water won't be the same temperature, but the nice thing about sous vide cooking is that it's very imprecise with regard to time. The items that are more time sensitive -- eggs, etc., don't have evaporation issues. If you're cooking a roast and end up dropping the temp of the water bath by 6 degrees by adding more water that hasn't been heated, it will affect the final outcome about 0.0000001%. Cook it for 12 seconds longer and you're good. :p For the record, for large items I just cook in a large Rubbermaid tub with no top on and add more water as necessary.

Chris

I use my Anova primarily for cooking steaks. Ribeye is my favorite cut of steak but I have found I don't actually like those much coming out of the sous vide cooker... I tend to cook leaner cuts (sirloin, NY strip, tenderloin) and they come out great. Nice medium-rare edge-to-edge (except for the tenderloin which I cook rare) after a quick sear on a piping hot cast iron skillet.

I love to grill, but it's difficult when people are over - everyone's got to be ready to eat when the food's ready. With a sous vide cooker, the timing is much less of an issue. When everyone's ready to eat, pull them out of the bags and finish them. I love that part of it.

Agreed that Ribeye isn't the best cut to cook sous vide, unless it's Wagyu or something where the intramuscular fat is more spread out. Otherwise, you don't get high enough heat to render out the eye of fat.

Chris