Sous Vide chicken for reheating

Question

My understanding is that a lot of the technical knowledge around sous vide was developed in the prepared foods industry by Bruno Goussault of Cuisine Solutions. This makes me wonder whether some of these techniques might be used with a home sous vide setup.

I'm a novice at sous vide, but chicken breast is easy and has been a definite crowd-pleaser. Unfortunately, it adds another 45 minutes to an hour to preparing the meal, which we don't have.

I was thinking I could make my own chicken nugget/finger things without all the salt and sugar and other junk. Is there any resource I can use for techniques around this, assuming its feasible?

I could just prepare them, and then do a reverse sous vide in an ice bath and then into the freezer, but I'm just guessing. I can also imagine them being a soggy nasty mess. I'm wondering if some of the sous vide techniques that are used in industrial food preparation. For example, I know how to sous vide and brown chicken for immediate consumption but I'm looking for how that might differ if wanted to have the food finish in the oven with similar results.

Answer 1

You'll want to do some research on sous vide. That way you can use the correct process and terminology. Cook and chill is common practice in sous vide cooking. Vacuum is not necessarily required. To make a chicken nugget, you'll want to bread the chicken after the sous vide step. For example, you could cook the chicken pieces, allow to cool a bit, blot dry, coat, then brown/crisp the coating. Your best methods would be to deep fry, pan fry, or heat in oven. If using right away, this will allow you to achieve perfectly cooked chicken with a crust that you like. You could sous vide a degree or two lower, with the realization that the browning step will finish the cooking. The challenge is to avoid overcooking the chicken when browning the coating, especially if cooking from frozen. Since chicken nuggets cook relatively quickly, in the end, sous vide may not be the best tool for the job here, as you could easily achieve the same result, more quickly, using traditional methods.