Sous Vide Ginger-Garlic Chicken

After a long day in lab (and getting home an hour before hungry Britt does), I don't always want to spend my whole evening cooking. What I cook, or if I even cook at all on any individual evening, is often determined by small results throughout the work day: PCR didn't work? Making fish tonight... Western worked? How 'bout a lasagna... Cells got contaminated? Fuck it. Going to Chick-Fil-A. Everyday is a new adventure, and there is no telling what I'm going to decide on. Today was a sous vide kind of day: cloudy, but work was good, so soup seemed too sad.

We came to sous vide by virtue of our best-friend Kevin. Last Christmas he went above and beyond (until this year when he got us a skydiving adventure) and shocked us with a cylindrical tube bearing the name Anova. This new gadget changed the way we cook. From steak all the way to salmon, this glorified fan with a heating element has far exceeded our expectations! 

Tonight I was feeling something with an Asian flare, and decided that something along the lines of chicken teriyaki with veggies would not only satisfy the hunger, but would be easy and practical enough for a typical Wednesday evening in any home. Here's what I came up with:

Sous Vide Ginger-Garlic Chicken and Spicy Brussel Sprouts

For starters, you could marinate the chicken overnight in the bag that you'll sous vide it in or just do it right before you cook (my preferred option with these on-the-fly recipes). For the marinade, I combine fresh garlic and a few thumbs worth of ginger that have been grated (a fine chop would work if you don't care to make a mess with the microplane) with some hoisin, soy sauce, and a little chicken stock. I sealed those up on the "wet" setting of my vacuum sealer with my marinade (you could do all this in a ziplock bag with the majority of the air removed as well).

I preheat my sous vide bath to 62.5℃ (145℉) and drop the sealed chicken in for 1-2hrs depending on the thickness of the breasts (clip to side of your water bath if using a ziplock bag). Note* 1-2 hours may seem like a pretty large time frame when cooking chicken breasts, but with sous vide you cook the meat to the temperature you want and you don't have to worry about over cooking for the most part. There is some amazing science and technique to sous vide that I implore you all to read about from Kenji Lopez-Alt. His book, The Food Lab and his amazing blog, Serious Eats both explore sous vide in pretty great detail and he has great recipes to boot!

While the chicken was cooking, I put some shaved brussel sprouts in a nonstick pan and cooked on medium heat until just underdone, seasoning to taste (as you always should). Then adding a modified version of the chicken marinade containing hoisin, garlic, ginger, red pepper flake, and a little chicken broth and cooking until liquid has boiled off and sprouts are tender. In the same pan that has been wiped clean, the sous-vide chicken is briefly seared (30 seconds per side or so on high heat) to give it some color and crisp. Its important to not sear to long to avoid overcooking as well as burning, this marinade will burn quickly.

And there you go! Simple, flavorful and quick dinner from one busy person who "doesn't like dry chicken you spent way to much time slaving over" to another. Sous vide can give you moist and flavor infused chicken with very little active cooking time. 

Sous Vide Ginger-Garlic Chicken and Spicy Brussel Sprouts

Chicken Marinade- Enough for 2 large or 4 smaller breasts

• 1/3 C Hoisin Sauce
• 2 tbsp Soy Sauce
• 2 thumbs of ginger, grated
• 6 cloves fresh garlic, finely chopped
• 1/3 C Chicken Stock
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Brussel Sprouts

• 10oz shaved brussel sprouts
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flake
• 2tbsp Hoisin Sauce
• 1/4 C Chicken Stock
• 1 thumb of ginger, grated
• 4 cloves fresh garlic, finely chopped
• Salt and Pepper to taste