What You Should Know About Cooking Wild Game Meat Using a Sous Vide
OutdoorHub Reporters 11.15.19
Sous vide, which translates to “under vacuum” in French, is a cooking method that utilizes precise temperature control to deliver consistent, restaurant-quality results. If you regularly cook with wild game meat, this will be a tremendous game changer.
The process is super simple; All you need is a container to hold water, a way to package/seal whatever you’re cooking (look below for suggestions), your choice of protein and a way to sear the meat when finished. You might feel like you’re performing some type of science experiment, but after the first bite you will be feverishly hunting for new recipes to use this cooking technique.
Speaking of new recipes, sous vide isn’t just limited to cooking meat. Or cooking in general for that matter! One of my favorite sous vide “hacks” is to set the temperature of my Anova Precision Cooker to JUST above freezing, drop it in a water bath and make a little floating beer cooler. You’re welcome!
Bottom line, sous vide cooking is a lot easier than you might think. Check out the video below from MeatEater to see how it’s done:
A couple takeaways from this video:
First, you do not NEED a vacuum sealer to cook sous vide. Here are a few options Anova Culinary says you can turn to for sous vide packaging:
Resealable Bags or Jars
Resealable bags are very versatile, and can be used with the water immersion method to remove air from the bag. We recommend heavy-duty, BPA-free bags, like Ziplock’s freezer bags.
Reusable Silicone Bags
Reusable sous vide bags made from silicone, like these Stasher Reusable Silicone Sous Vide Bag bags, make it easy to enjoy they same quality results night after night.
Vacuum Sealing Bags
You don’t need to purchase a vacuum sealer and vacuum seal bags, but they work well for batch cooking. Foodsaver and Oliso are great options, and both are pretty affordable.
Canning Jars
Several different types of foods can also be cooked in glass canning jars. Beans and grains both work well in jars, as do desserts such as cakes and custards. Get tips on cooking sous vide with jars in our Guide to Sous Vide Cooking with Canning Jars.
Also, I recommend using a grill or a cast iron pan to sear with. While the torch method is convenient, you’re missing out on imparting some extra flavor by finishing in a pan full of butter and garlic or other tasty fats.
