Dutch Courage and Belted Galloway Rib Sous Vide

Dutch Courage – I know, I know. You will be assuming that I’ve been at the wine again. Perhaps having a couple of ‘swifties’ while the beef cooks. That warm glow of a nice glass or three of red while a meal cooks can be a delight. But, no, on this occasion, it was not me gathering the Dutch Courage. 

The Dutch Courage was shown by my friends, Stefan and his partner Kees from Amsterdam, who risked staying with the Wife and myself for a weekend. Stefan, who is a very talented blogger and fastidious cook, also came to the butchers with me and helped select the meat. We got our hands on some rare breed Belted Galloway ribs. Stefan advised (and who am I to argue) a cooking temperature of 54ºC and between five and six hours in the bath. So here’s how we prepared the Belted Galloway Rib Sous Vide.

Totally gratuitous beef shot. I hope you like it.

I’m afraid there really is no detailed recipe. However there are a few tricks.

Trick 1

Stefan recommended browning the meat before chucking it in the bath. There is always a good debate on the benefits of browning before or after. Let’s leave that for another day. As there was a big fat cap on the ribs, while we were browning it, we rendered the fat too.

Trick 2

We used the rendered fat to fry and roast the potatoes for even more beefiness in the dish.

Trick 3

As we had so much raw beef flavour, we didn’t season the meat before cooking. Risky, but with such flavoursome beef, worthwhile.

First we fried the beef on the fat edge. This released plenty of tallow to brown the beef on both sides and leave us enough to cook the potatoes.

That is a big pan. These are big ribs.

We let the ribs cool completely before vacuum sealing them for cooking.

These are my biggest vacuum bags. These are BIG steaks.

We placed the steaks into the water bath, went for a walk, came home, hit the wine and relaxed. While I was doing that(hitting the wine), Stefan prepared a delicious Chimmichurri sauce.  Having managed to over-serve myself, I missed exactly how he put it together. I have memories of parsley, garlic, olive oil and wine vinegar. But, I have no recollection of quantities and method. Look it up on Stefan’s excellent blog here.

We eventually removed the beef from the water bath and carved it.

A picture paints a thousand words. Delicious steak…

The meat was incredibly tender and packed with beef flavour, even before seasoning.

Yes, I did sneak a taste before serving. You would too.

We cooked some small potatoes in the oven (in the beef fat) and served them with the beef and Chimmichurri.

The beef was just about as good as it looks.

The Belted Galloway was delicious. The potatoes were crispy on the outside and fluffy inside. The whole thing worked wonderfully well, particularly as we served it with a nice drop of St. Emilion. Stefan and Kees enjoyed it no end too. Hopefully the dutch will have the courage to visit us again. It was great fun indeed.