First FRESH chicken breasts...

[daveomak]

I cooked a tray of skinless, boneless chicken breasts yesterday... What's different from the other dozens of cooks I've done ... they hadn't been frozen.... FRESH !!!! I tell ya... 8 breasts crammed into a quart vac bag with no-salt seasoning mix... 2 of them... 16 breasts into my water oven.... 3 hours at 146 ish..... Submerged in the sink when done... One water change to cool them off.... NOW, our cold water in Omak is cold... about 48 deg... after about 2 hours, into the refer on aluminum sheet pans to finish cooling.... I would have used ice in the water but, I just cooled a 5# roast that I cooked for 44 hours.... I just finished 1 breast as a snack, to try it..... heated in the microwave...
HOLEY-MOLEY.... That was absolutely the best chicken breast I've ever eaten.... Moist and tender... Delicious.....
I'm thinking.... freezing really screws up chicken... and I'm thinking it probably screws up beef too...
Since these are super pasteurized, they should keep in my refer for 2-3 weeks at 36F... or so says Baldwin....

Since sous vide cooking in a water bath is very consistent, I’ve calculated the worst-case cooking times so you don’t have to. My worst-case cooking times are based on the temperature, thickness, and type of the food and will give at least a million to one reduction in Listeria, a ten million to one reduction in Salmonella, and a hundred thousand to one reduction in E. coli:
While keeping your food sealed in plastic pouches prevents recontamination after cooking, spores of Clostridium botulinum, C. perfringens, and B. cereus can all survive the mild heat treatment of pasteurization. Therefore, after rapid chilling, the food must either be frozen or held at

1. below 36.5°F (2.5°C) for up to 90 days,
2. below 38°F (3.3°C) for less than 31 days,
3. below 41°F (5°C) for less than 10 days, or
4. below 44.5°F (7°C) for less than 5 days

to prevent spores of non-proteolytic C. botulinum from outgrowing and producing deadly neurotoxin (Gould, 1999; Peck, 1997).
May I recommend you use Baldwins methods and tables for your sous vide cooking... In place of friends, blogs or forums...
http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html

.....

 

[Winterrider]

Good info, thanks Dave...

 

[ksblazer]

Bought a SV last month on a Thanksgiving week sale.

I've been thinking what I want to do first earlier today. I'm thinking chicken breasts will be it. Then I looked in the SV section here and found this thread. It has now pretty much helped me made up my mind.

Now I'm thinking what style I want try first. Maybe some sort of balsamic style would be good to try first.

 

[turick]

+100 on the Sous Vide chicken breast. It's a real game changer. The other thing I discovered that's changed my life with chicken breasts is brine. A 24 soak in saltwater, then 145 for 2-2.5 hours -- most flavorful, juicy chicken breasts I've ever had. No need to do anything else to them IMHO, although I will mix it up and make various batches with seasonings. Goes so great in beans and rice, salad, soups, etc!

Would love to get my hands on some fresh, never frozen breasts...