Page 26 - Sous Vide Que

Why do we sear the meat if it is already fully cooked after the sous vide process?
. The surface is soft and a uniform grayish tan. So much of the
pleasure in food cooked with dry heat is the dark brown crust that develops when the meat is seared over direct infrared radiation or in contact with hot metal. The crust results from a chemical reaction called the Maillard reaction when heat hits amino acids and reducing sugars creating thousands of flavorful new molecules and a crunchy surface. Plus, many of the appealing flavors of grilled and roasted meat are the flavors of the fats coming close to burning. This is what a perfectly seared steak looks like:
Not surprisingly, we prefer the flavor of the grill. Our goal is edge to edge Maillard like the picture above. Grill marks look great, but tan squares between grill marks are all lost opportunities to build flavor:
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The problem with sous vide is, when you take the
meat out of the bag, it is butt ugly and one dimensional in taste