Those who have talked food with me will know that I love steak. I actually stay away from red meat most of the time due to health reason. When I give myself a cheat day, it as to be awesome. My tenderloin must come blue-rare. My porterhouse must come rare so I can gnaw the meat around the bone. Any kind of dry-aged cut will be treated with utmost respect.

Heck, I even named a strategy framework after STEAK.

I wrote this guide for a friend who borrowed my sous vide cooker and 6-quart plastic tub. The steak aficionado in me become overly-excited. An hour zipped by before I realized it. And thus I wrote my first ever post on cooking. Here it is for anybody who wants to being with sous vide cooking.

Time Required

• Preparing: 1 hour
• Water Bath: 1.5 hours
• Cooling and Drying: 0.5 hours
• Searing: 0.5 hours

Total time required 3.5 hours 

Assumptions

• You are cooking a beef steak that is roughly an inch thick
• I usually season beforehand but the Internet says it doesn’t matter if you do it before or after as long as it is seasoned properly

Preparing

1. Clip the Anova onto the side of the tub

2. Fill enough water into the tub so the Anova can heat up the water – somewhere between the max and min
   • You can always take away or add water after you drop in your steak
3. Plug in the Anova 
4. Set the temperature to 133 °F
   • Why 133? It is the temperature that should limit bacteria growth AND will leave your steak at medium rare

Source: advanced-food-safety

5. Hit the “play” button so the Anova goes “do do donk” and starts circulating the water
6. It will take somewhere between 20 mins to 60 mins to warm up the water, depending on how cold is the starting temperature

Water Bath

1. When the Anova reaches temperature, put your meat into the water bath
   • If you are using a vacuum sealed bag of food, dunk that sucker into the water
   • If you are using a ziploc bag, read this: sous-vide-water-displacement-method
2. Make sure the meat is fully submerged
   • If you are using a ziploc bag, it is okay to leave the zipper out of the water
3. Let it cook for 1.5 hours

Cooling and Drying

This is the secret technique. Most guides just instruct to pat dry with a paper towel. This takes it up a level.

1. Prepare some kind of elevated cooling and drying rack

2. Pat the meat dry with paper towel; don’t have to be too thorough
3. Put the entire rack into the refrigerator 
   • Place the rack where the most air flow 
   • A properly working refrigerator will also dehumidify the air as it cools, so this will ensure that the meat is dry
   • Cooling the meat will also prevent overcooking
4. Wait for at least 20 minutes 

Searing

Show no mercy. Show no fear. The goal here is to create the crust on the meat in the least amount of time possible.

1. For whatever cooking method is used, crank the temperature to maximum
   • Best result: Sear with anything that can output a ridiculously hot, broad flame, to evenly cook the meat (e.g. a flamethrower).
   • Alternatively: High smoke-point oil and a cast iron pan. Prepare for oil to splatter all over the place. If this is going to be done indoors, I usually use a pot with high sides. Stock pot or dutch oven. Anything that is shallow is GG.
2. Sear the meat like no tomorrow!
   • I usually do something like this: 1.5 mins, flip, 1.5 mins, flip, 1 min, flip, 1 min, done… If you’re unsure, use one steak as a tester to start.  If you screw up, serve that steak to yourself and hide it from your guests. 
3. Serve and enjoy!