those wonderful crusty, roasted aromas only take
place to a significant degree at temperatures well
above 300°F, a good 170 degrees hotter than normal
sous-vide cooking temperatures—which means that
you still need to pull out the sauté pan to finish it.
The key is to sear the meat as quickly as possible, to
prevent overcooking. Get your skillet or grill ready
and ripping hot, dry the meat thoroughly before
adding it to the pan (wet meat will cool the pan down
faster than dry meat), and leave it in the pan only
long enough to color.
There’s some debate over whether or not meat
should be preseared before bagging and cooking it
sous-vide. The idea is that the flavors created by a
presear will penetrate the meat as it cooks in the
bag, giving it a deeper, roastier flavor. I cooked a
few steaks side by side to see if this was true.
Visually, there’s not much distinction.
Flavorwise? In a blind tasting, tasters were split
across the board over which one they preferred, and
when asked to identify which steak was which, they
fared no better than with blind chance.
Conclusion: Don’t bother with the presear—you
develop plenty of flavor with just a single, post-
water-bath sear.
And what is the best method of searing? These are
three that I employ often.
Pan-Searing