Mayonnaise seared sous vide steak sounds a bit weird doesn’t it? I mean why mayonnaise? What is mayonnaise?
Mayonnaise is basically egg yolk whisked with oil and vinegar. So, rather than butter, I went with a smear of mayonnaise of my steak to get a nice crust after it was cooked by sous vide.
I know some people have used golden syrup or even honey to get a good crust on their steak because the sugar caramelises quickly in a hot frypan. Because I’m trying to avoid adding too much sugar to my food, I’m going to try the mayonnaise method.
To make things even more interesting, I thought I’d make Mum’s aioli.
Sorry, I don’t have too many photographs for this recipe.
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Recipe
- Rib steak bone in
- Iodised salt
- Black pepper
- Garlic powder
- 2 large egg yolks
- 4 garlic cloves
- Iodised salt
- 300 mL olive oil
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1 Lime juice
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Unwrap the steak from the environmentally unfriendly plastic packaging the night before you plan to cook the steak.
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Season the steak with iodised salt.
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Put the steak on a rack over a tray and place in the meat section of the refrigerator to allow the steak to dry brine overnight.
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Fill your water bath with cold tap water.
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Attach the precision cooker to the water bath and set it up for a temperature of 55 °C (131 °F).
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Turn the precision cooker on so the water can be heated.
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Remove the steak from the refrigerator.
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Season with more salt and freshly cracked black pepper plus some garlic powder.
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Seal in a vacuum bag.
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When the water bath has reached 55 °C (131 °F) place the bagged steak into the water and cook for three hours.
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If your precision cooker can be controlled with a smart device application, set up the cooking time for three hours and because we all know that Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections may fail, set a timer as well because you invariably will forget when you started the cooking time.
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At the end of the cooking time, remove the bagged steak from the water bath.
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Cut open the vacuum bag and drain the fluid into a container.
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Remove the steak from the bag and dry the steak with paper kitchen towel.
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Place the steak between two plates and weigh down the top plate with something heavy and put the steak into the refrigerator for 10 minutes.
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At the end of 10 minutes, remove the steak from the refrigerator.
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Heat a frypan and add some high vapour point cooking oil. I use Queensland nut oil. For those interested, Queensland nut oil is oil extracted from the nuts from trees of species within the Genus Macadamia.
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Smear some of the homemade aioli all over the steak.
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Sear the steak in the hot frypan with the aim of achieving a nice caramelised crust on the surfaces of the steak.
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After searing the steak, allow it to rest before cutting the steak into slices.
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With a sharp knife, I use my Dick™-brand boning knife, dissect away the rib bone from the fillet muscle bundle (longissimus dorsi).
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Dissect the deckle muscle bundle (spinalis dorsi) from the fillet (longissimus dorsi).
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With another sharp knife, I use my Dick™-brand butchers knife, slice the deckle muscle bundle (spinalis dorsi).
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Put yolks and garlic in a blender with salt.
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Whisk well with a stick blender.
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Slowly add oil until half oil is added.
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Add lime juice, mustard, and more garlic and continue whisking in the olive oil.
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Whisk until the aioli is thick and creamy.
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Take the container of meat juice and add water to make one cup.
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Boil the diluted meat juice.
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Whisk in some commercial gravy powder until it’s the consistency you want.
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Mix some of the aioli with some salad leaves and lay them down on a plate.
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Lay the slices of deckle muscle on the salad.
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Poor the gravy over the steak.
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Shoot a photograph and a short video because Google now wants video on recipe cards.
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Eat the meal.
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Wash the dishes (hint, wash as you cook, it makes life easier).
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Write the recipe.
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Write the blog post.
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Hit publish and hope this blog post gets shared on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.
Recipe Video
Disclaimer
I have no culinary training nor qualifications. This post is not intended to convey any health or medical advice. If you have any health concerns about anything you read, please contact your registered medical practitioner. The quantities are indicative. Feel free to vary the quantities to suit your taste. I deliberately do not calculate energy for dishes. I deliberately default to 500 Calories or 500,000 calories because I do not make these calculations.
Photographs
This is a gallery of photographs. Click on one image and then scroll through the photographs.
Questions and answers
What’s the point of the Mayonnaise or Aioli?
It’s meant to be an alternative to butter and allegedly creates a crust more quickly than butter. The advantage of a quick sear is that the meat doesn’t cook more beyond how you want it.
It’s also less messy than spattering butter.
Why did you go with aioli rather than mayonnaise?
I prefer aioli to mayonnaise and both are basically based on egg yolk and oil. Aioli uses citrus juice while mayonnaise uses vinegar for the acidification.
Even though I used aioli, I still call this a mayonnaise seared sous vide steak.
What will you do with the fillet muscle?
I’ll use it during the week for lunch meat. The crust from the mayonnaise seared sous vide steak will have soften but that’s okay.
Final thoughts
- Have you ever seared a steak with mayonnaise or aioli?
- Do you prefer butter or mayonnaise for searing steak?
- Do you bother dry brining your meats?
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I’ve never used mayonnaise for searing meats, but when I was a study-abroad student in Spain, my host mother would prepare a separate meal for herself because she was on a diet. She would sear some fish in mayonnaise, claiming that her doctor said it was healthier. I bet it was tasty too.
What an interesting idea! I must give it a go one day when I make a steak. I do love that crust that it gets on the outside.
It was worth it Lorraine and less messy than lots of butter.
Both the steak and the aoili look delicious. I’m tempted to try the sous vide method esp after seeing Chef John’s stove top version. One day I’ll buy a digital thermometer and give it a try. Maybe with a duck
breast.
Home made mayonnaise is delicious but every once in a while ie 20% of the time, I don’t get emulsification. Can’t figure out why. And then, I have to do a FIX with an extra yolk or two … which is a pain. 🙁
I really like sous vide duck breast. The breasts keep well in the bag for days afterwards in the refrigerator.
I really enjoyed the aioli I made last night.
Your food looks very delicious, Gary 😀
It is funny, there are so many ways to create both mayonnaise and aioli.
When I lived in Denmark, I only used the egg yolk and sunflower seeds oil, lemon juice, white pepper.
Here in Spain, I learned to use the whole egg instead of only the yolk. This makes it less fat. Spain is the country of olive oil, but they use sunflower seed oil for both mayonnaise and aioli, but never vinegar for any of them, only lemon juice.
Thanks, Irene. It sounds like if I just use an egg, some oil, and something acidic, I can make a mayonnaise of some sort.
I will look forward to enjoying the mayonnaise I made this week in salads.
Butter!
Oh, that idea had never struck me – mayonnaise to sear steak but I see how it would work. I like butter on steak and a bit of blue cheese too… I dry brine sometimes but not often.
Thanks, Emma. I was surprised at how good the crust was on the steak. It was a nice little project to make the aioli and then cook the steak.