Sous Vide Steak and Paprika Sweet Potatoes
In my quest to experiment with two new meals per month this year, I’m continuing the sous vide experience into August. I decided this month to make a dinner with steak and paprika sweet potatoes.
My friend, Andy, told me a while back that cooking steak was one of the primary reasons he bought a sous vide immersion cooker. I wanted one primarily for ribs, but I’ve found a number of great uses for it since then, including brisket, flank steak, butter-infused potatoes, and several cocktails.
I knew from reading The Food Lab’s Complete Guide to Sous Vide Steak at SeriousEats.com that I needed a thick cut of steak, preferably 1.5-2″ in order to cook properly. I thought I was going to have to make a run to the butcher (I have a new one now since my previous butcher closed after Memorial Day) but the meat counter at our local grocery store has nice cuts of meat. Planning for this to last us two nights, I chose a Rib-eye for myself and two New York Strips for Jen and our son to share.
I recently watched a video about grilling a Tomahawk Ribeye that I found entertaining, and since he only used salt, pepper, and garlic on the steak, I decided to do the same. I used a mix of 60% pepper, 40% salt, and then added some garlic powder to it in the spice grinder.
After letting them sit for about 30 minutes, you could see the moisture being pulled out of the meat by the rub. I decided to go ahead and bag them up, so I tossed some diced shallots, chopped garlic, and some thyme sprigs on top of them and vacuum sealed them.
I dropped the steaks into the cooker for 2.25 hours at 135 degrees, which was right between the cooking tables for medium rare and medium.
Earlier in the day, I had chopped up sweet potato and bagged it with a stick of melted butter, some maple syrup, roasted garlic, and smoked paprika. I cooked that for 75 minutes at 185 degrees and set it aside to cool before storing it in the fridge until the steaks were finished cooking.
Now with my steaks done, I heated up a cast iron skillet and added some vegetable oil and butter. I also had the potatoes heating in a skillet. I gave the steaks roughly 60 seconds of searing top and bottom, then repeated this for each side. The sear was perfect. While the steaks rested for a few minutes, I finished browning the potatoes and Jen threw some steamed broccoli into the microwave.
All in all, everything came out perfect. This may be one of my favorite meals now, giving another meal earlier in the week a run for its money. I need to write that one up soon too. It was chicken breasts with mushroom sauce and it was amazing!
