Searing food

I was going to call this post 'Browning your meat' but that sounded rude.

The great thing about sous vide is any meat you cook will be perfect from edge to edge, but it won't have any colour to it. This colour is caramelisation and builds a more intense taste through compounds created when you sear the meat.

But it's a tricky one. You've waited 'til the food's cooked all the way through, now you've got to colour the outside without raising the internal temperature as you know that's already perfect. 

The key is very high heat. That way you'll colour the outside without giving it time to get through to the centre so you'll avoid that 'rare in the middle, medium a bit further out and overdone towards the edges' conundrum.



There's 3 main ways of doing this.

1. Direct heat on a barbecue

2. Screaming hot frying pan

3. Blowtorch

So which one's best?

Barbecue

If you live in a flat as I do, lighting a barbecue will likely kill many many people. If however you've got a garden and the results work for you, let me know.

Frying pan

A great option. As long as you get it hot, and I mean smoking hot, it'll give you good colour without affecting the temperature inside. 30 seconds one side, 30 the other and you're good to go. On the downside, the temperatures you'll need might well lift the Teflon off your pan, and if your home was built by the same cretin that built mine, they'll have fitted a smoke alarm right above the cooker so you'll have to search for the cat when it inevitably goes off.

Blowtorch

See the smoke alarm comments above. Then multiply it several fold.

In terms of flavour, this is my favourite as it gets a much darker sear, giving an almost charred taste which is great for steak for instance. 

No downsides then? Yep.

a) Unless you're a plumber or a serial arsonist, you'll need to buy one. I've tried using a kitchen blowtorch, the kind you use for browning the top of a creme brulee but it takes a couple of minutes to do one side of a steak. Multiply that for the other side, then multiply that by the number of steaks you're cooking, then add on a bit more time for refilling it when it runs out and add on a further minute for running your hand under the tap when you forget the tip of it's reached 1500 degrees and your day's taken a distinctly downward turn.

b) They're terrifying. The noise suggests it'll consume your curtains, kitchen units and soul before exploding in a cataclysmic fireball that loses you any number of limbs.

c) You'll do it outside to avoid the risk of catastrophic failure, but the neighbours'll wonder who's starting their helicopter.

d) If you ever did metalwork at school, you'll be thinking back to that warning you had about oxy-acetyline torches - the one that told you that if the flame goes out it's because it's disappeared back up the pipe, into the tank and you've got seconds before it wipes out the entire class. And it will go out, and that's what you'll be thinking about. Then you'll put it back in the kitchen for next time and you'll spend the next 24 hours looking at it whenever you make a cup of tea wondering when it's going to go off. It's like going to bed with a wasp in the room, but with explosive materials. 

Summary - if you've got a garden, a separate garage, up to date home insurance and scant regard for personal safety, you'll get great flavour.

Overall?

As a general rule, the darker and fattier it is the greater difference a blowtorch makes to the flavour. I've found lamb cooks so quickly, frying's just dandy but beef likes a bit of rough handling and gives so much back if you give it some heat and this is where a blowtorch pays you back for its angry terror. Chicken? Not so much. Because it's lower in fat you can either serve breasts straight out of the bag for a healthier option or fry any of it. I find the oil used in frying really helps with chicken.

For me, of all the things cooked so far, I'd only break out the blowtorch for beef. It really does make that much of a difference. Just find a fireproof safe to keep it in.