Sous Vide cooking has been popular in restaurants for years but has been more difficult for home cook due to the cost of the unit until recently though the introduction of smaller, less costly versions such as the highly rated Anova Sous Vide Precision Cooker. 

Without getting in to the science behind it, sous vide is basically the process of sealing meats and vegetables in cryovac then cooking in a water bath that maintains a consistent temperature (set to the level of doneness you'd like to achieve) over an extended period of time in order to ensure an extremely tender, perfectly cooked end product.

Thanks to the fine folks at Anova for providing me a model for testing purposes, I was recently able to try this method at home.  Given the fact that I have never used a sous vide before, I did some looking around at various recipes to determine the proper cooking time for a flank steak but unfortunately the varied from 2-3 hours up to 30.  In the end, I decided on 12 hours in a bath that has been set at 130 degrees for medium-rare since I also wanted to sear the meat at the end.

While I can’t honestly say if the end product would have been the same had I soaked the meat for a couple hours versus a day, the end result was amazingly melt-in-your-mouth tender and was cooked to perfection.  I also saw recipes in which the meat was seasoned prior to sealing and soaking or had herbs and/or butter added, but I found cooking it in its natural steak then adding a flavorful rosemary dry rub and searing hot and fast added just the right amount of additional flavor.

In the end, I walked away a huge fan of sous vide cooking at home and look forward to trying different cuts of meat, some vegetables, and playing with cooking times in the near future!  As for the unit itself, the price of the Anova Sous Vide Precision Cooker was, in my mind, just right at $179.00 for home cooks looking to add some new techniques to their cooking arsenal and operationally it couldn’t have been simpler for a novice to operate.

SOUS VIDE AND GRILLED ROSEMARY FLANK STEAK

Ingredients

 1 flank steak, approximately 20oz.

¼ tbsp. garlic powder

¼ tsp. onion powder

½ tsp. dried rosemary

¼ tsp. ground black pepper

½ tsp. Kosher salt

Quality extra virgin olive oil

2 green onion tops, sliced on the bias

Course sea salt

Instructions

Fill a large container with water and attached the Anova Sous Vide Precision Cooker according to directions and set to 130 degrees for medium-rare.  Cryovac the flank steak and place in the water bath for 12 hours.         

After 12 hours, prepare your grill for high-heat cooking (450+ degrees).  Create dry rub seasoning by combining garlic powder, onion powder, dried rosemary, pepper and salt in a coffee grinder or mortar and pestle and grind in to a fine powder.  Remove the steak from the cryovac, pat dry, and season liberally with the rosemary dry rub on both sides.

Grill the steak for 2-3 minutes on both sides to create a nice crust.  Remove from the grill, rest for 5 minutes, then slice thin.  Drizzle with a quality extra virgin olive oil, top with sliced green onion, and sprinkle course sea salt.  Serve immediately.

Note: Sous vide unit provided by Anova Culinary for recipe testing purposes.  No additional compensation was received.