sous vide chicken thighs with cauliflower, squash and potato mash

… of course I couldn’t properly test my new sous vide supreme machine without cooking my beloved chicken thighs… one of my concerns about the whole sous vide thing is that yes, whilst it undoubtably gives you wonderfully succulent food, packed with a divine intensity of flavour, what I feel is lauded as one of its strengths – that it allows you to slow cook the food ‘hands free’ – it also means that you don’t need to do so much stuff in the kitchen… and this is the stuff I love to do… I feel that this machine takes away my kitchen duties somewhat and whilst I can still be creative it also means I don’t have to be and i’m not entirely sure i’m alright with that…

… one of the great things about the sous vide is that I put the thighs on the night before I needed them and then simply browned them in the oven before I ate them and they still tasted incredible so I really should stop my complaining and start experimenting…

sous vide chicken thighs with cauliflower, squash and potato mash
again I do have to admit that these were the tastiest chicken thighs i’d ever eaten… they were unbelievably tender yet still held the texture which is so important.. they were moist and so flavoursome.  I’m so impressed that I think I may try cooking some turkey portions in it this year for christmas day… moistness, or lack thereof is always the number one complaint about turkey but I imagine the sous vide will eliminate this in one swift bathe… we shall wait and see…

4 chicken thighs – on the bone with the skin
lemon thyme and rosemary
salt and pepper
butter

1 cauliflower – cut into florets
1/2 butternut squash – cut into cubes
3 medium potatoes – cut into cubes

for the chicken thighs fill the sous vide with water and set the temperature to 80C

place the chicken thighs into individual bags, add seasoning and fresh herbs and a nob of butter and vacuum seal

place the bags into the sous vide for 4-6 hours, once ready you can either leave them in the water until you need them or set them aside in the fridge

to make the mash place the veg into individual bags along with seasoning and vacuum seal

place them into the same water as the chicken at 80C for 1 hour until tender, again the veg can be set aside until you’re ready to mash them, at which point I whizzed them up with a hand held blender along with plenty of butter and pepper

once ready to eat pre-heat the oven to 180C, place the mash into a pot and re-heat… you can also brown the chicken thighs in the oven too for 10 mins until golden

eat and of course, enjoy!