Chicken Breast Sous Vide – Praying for Summer Sun.

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Chicken Breast Sous Vide (8 of 8)We are being threatened by summer here in Ireland. As with most Irish summers, there is a lot more threat than delivery. Yet, we live in hope. Each year, praying (those of us that still believe in our direct line to God) that the summer will live up to the imagined heights of the dull, uninspiring summers gone before.

You won’t find me on bended knee, praying for some decent weather. No, I am a man of action. If the Powers That Be (Me capitalising that bit is me hedging my bets) refuse to deliver on summer sun, I’m going to do what I can to make things around here as sunny as possible. What better way than with Chicken Breast Sous Vide with Ciabatta and Salad?

The chicken breast bit of this doesn't have many ingredients.

The chicken breast bit of this doesn’t have many ingredients.

This is a pretty easy recipe. All one needs is some chicken breasts, some lemon zest, butter and thyme.

The first thing to do is to zest a lemon. I show it here only because I liked the colour of the lemon zest. Note the shadowy photo. No summer sun!

A nice bit of zest adds a nice sharp edge to the otherwise soft flavours.

A nice bit of zest adds a nice sharp edge to the otherwise soft flavours.

Next, assemble the chicken breasts and other ingredients as shown in the following photo.

I got a mini assembly line going. here's the end of the line, as it were.

I got a mini assembly line going. here’s the end of the line, as it were.

Place in bags and vacuum seal.

A nice pair of breasts, if you will forgive the terminology.

A nice pair of breasts, if you will forgive the terminology.

These then need to be cooked sous vide at 65ºC for an hour. When they come out, they will look like this next picture.

They don't look so nice after sweating in plastic for an hour.

They don’t look so nice after sweating in plastic for an hour. Neither would yours.

Once sliced and served on delicious ciabatta the chicken really comes into its own.

A nice drizzling of olive oil makes this a totally delicious dish.

A nice drizzling of olive oil makes this a totally delicious dish.

I served the chicken on ciabatta, with a mixed salad, olive oil and a nice drop of white wine. It rained outside. But, we had summer on a plate and we can only hope that when those living above the clouds will see it and decide that it must be summer.

If that doesn’t work, I may just have to pray….

35 thoughts on “Chicken Breast Sous Vide – Praying for Summer Sun.”

  4. I love how easy this was for you to throw together. I so need one of these little devices. So delicious and the perfect way to greet summer. You can have a little bit of my Hong Kong summer , if you wish. Full of heat and humidity and a sweaty 8 million people kind of a summer.

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    • Hi Ronan,
      I set ‘Free Range’ as the low marker. It also has to be Irish. There are varying degrees of free range (by what I see) so it helps to also have an idea of who the farmer / producer is. Moving up the scale, one can be either confused or delighted to be paying large amounts extra for ‘corn fed’, ‘organic’ or ‘barn raised’ whatever those mean.

      A butcher friend of mine defends the price he charges for very good free range birds as follows “if you think you can get quality chicken, given that it passes from grower to processor to retailer (all taking a margin) and pay the price of a large coffee, you are fooling yourself.” I think he sums it up pretty well.
      Best,
      Conor

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      • In DFW, “free range” is meaningless. All it means is you let the chicken out of its crate for a few minutes each day. It still eats commercially processed chicken feed and spends the vast, vast majority of its short life in a crate. What you want is a “pastured” chicken/turkey. This is a bird that is allowed to roam the pasture eating natural grasses, insects, seeds, dirt – essentially anything it sees and decides to eat. It’s a more natural process and the chickens are more susceptible to predators which results in higher prices. Like you said, however, you really need to know your farmer because anyone can call anything whatever they want.

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        • The last time I was in NY, I ate in a sandwich bar whose clams to fame was “We only serve Natural Chicken and Turkey”. I shudder to think…

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  9. Last time I looked at both the kinds of chickens and ‘types’ of eggs available at our supermarkets there seemed some dozen appellations most probably meaning the opposite of what one thought! Then on the same evening struck ‘foodie’ presentations of the Bresse chickens in France and some lovely fatty ones in the English countryside [courtesy of the ‘Hairy Bikers’ 😉 !] happily lost in green, green grass and just had to sigh!! Oh, am going to come pinch your thyme . . .love it so much am always running out . . .

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  10. Continue to be very envious of your sous vide cooker. Lovely looking thyme…wonderfully fresh. Poached chicken is the nearest I can come to this and the shops and markets here do sell very flavoursome poules that produce succulent meat and potent broth. I remember buying a poule by mistake when I first came here. I cooked it like a roasting bird, for around an hour, only to find my carving knife bounced off the breast as though it was made of rubber. I received funny looks whenever I went into the shop for quite a few years after:)

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    • Those poulet need long cooking but are worth the effort. Best stewed, as you now know well. We will be passing through your neck of the woods on our drive to BDX early next month. I can’t wait to get over there. I love France!

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  13. Hi Conor, I really enjoy your sous-vide posts. I prefer chicken breast at the lower temp of 60C/140F. Did you do anything with the lemon-thyme-chickeny butter from the bag? I bet a bit of that would be great on that sandwich, too.

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  15. I can only imagine how tender chicken would be cooked sous vide! I can just taste the sunshine in that beautiful sandwich… I hope the powers that be will deliver some of it to your neck of the woods soon!

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      • Such a shame. We are in the throes of summer high pressure here and terrible wildfire threat with low humidity. We had a wildfire start today just out of town and subdivisions were on evacuation alert but they got it contained to just 10 acres and lifted it. Whew! I expect huge wildfires here this year as we hardly had any snow that we rely on. We had one that burned up 6,000 acres last summer! Anyhoot, not to take away from your great recipe and lack of sun. I wish you the best! xo

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