This was a sous vide experiment that turned out to be something seriously delicious (and seriously Umami if you are brave enough to seek out a bottle of fish sauce and add a few splashes to this recipe).

I’m a stubborn cook and I like to work on something until it is the best version I have ever tasted of that particular dish. For many years I have had an aversion to molecular gastronomy and high end technology in the kitchen. I’ve been cooking rustic Italian food for a long time and my focus has been directed almost entirely to perfecting old world techniques such as wood fired pizza, wood fired grilling, traditional stews and braises, and making pasta by hand. Perhaps it was a good thing that my focus was so narrow for such a long time in that it allowed me to really dig deep into those techniques and traditions.

However, what I have realized is that the goal of a chef (or of anybody cooking any meal) is to make it as delicious as possible and that dogmatic beliefs about how to accomplish that will only ever suppress our potential progress.

My initial inspiration for developing sous vide cooking recipes was to provide recipes that would easily allow home cooks to be more precise with their cooking and therefore have a much better chance of achieving deliciousness. My stance on that hasn’t changed. What has changed however is that after preparing this simple chicken dish I realized that easily achievable internal temperatures (of whatever you are cooking) is only the tip of the iceberg with regard to what sous vide has to offer.

My lightbulb moment happened when I made a super simple pan sauce from the bag juices that was an absolute Umami Bomb.

I planned to enjoy this chicken with a Chimichurri Sauce, but then couldn’t even stand the idea of Chimichurri after how good the pan sauce was. I had even gone through the trouble of making the Chimichurri (recipe below). The great thing about Chimichurri is that it goes great with just about everything so I enjoyed it the following day with a salmon dish Jenny prepared.

A Few Notes and How-tos on this recipe

TOOLS:

I have the Anova Immersion Circulator. It works great

I am thinking about getting the Joule - it looks pretty slick and even connects to iPhone and Android

HELPFUL VIDEOS FROM THE WEB:

Here is how to seal your bag using the water evaporation technique.

Here is how to keep your bag submerged in the water bath

Here is Michael Voltaggio on how to keep the chicken super flat, which makes it easier to get the skin crispy. I didn’t do this, but would have had I planned ahead. The second video is also helpful in displaying how to finish the chicken in the pan. Links below.

Voltaggio Part 1

Voltaggio Part 2

Prepping the Chicken

And now for the neglected chimichurri…

Jimmy

note: there are amazon affiliate links in this post.