What I Ate: April 14, 2010 (Failed Sous Vide Oxtails)

Today's dinner was a bit of a failure. I had been cooking oxtails sous vide at 55°C for 40 hours - but the controller I have was registering the wrong temperature (it was reporting a higher temperature than what the water actually was when I checked with my Thermapen). So, I think the oxtails were heating in 49°C for most of that time (which isn't hot enough to break down collagen into gelatin or pasteurize). I prepared pan fried garlic-sage polenta (made polenta first, set it in a mold, cut it, and then pan fried for texture), and Tina sauteed some spinach to go with the oxtails which turned out to be a bust. I tossed the oxtails into a pot, added some water and beef broth and started it simmering on the range. Meanwhile, we ate polenta and spinach for dinner.

Later… much, much later, I ate some of the oxtail that had been cooking for 3.5 hours.

I'm going to try to contact the company that makes my temperature controller to see if they have an idea of what went wrong. I may simply have a bad probe.

Lunch: We ate microwaved tamales.