The Yum Yum Factor

Have I told you how much I enjoyed being in Portugal lately? Well, we all fell madly in love with Portugal. In fact, I loved it much more than I expected to and that surprised me. I have spent a lot of time in Spain and I think I assumed that Portugal would just kind of be like Spain-light but after spending a couple of weeks there, I know that this couldn't be further from the truth. Not only do they speak a completely different language, their music is different, their culture is very unique and their food is not Spanish at all.

 So, here is the first important lesson that I just learned for you, you're welcome. We were out and about and decided to splurge on an expensive bit of meat at The Friendly Butcher on Yonge St. for our next sous vide dinner. Because we had made an amazing strip loin in an hour, we were excited to see what kind of results we would get with this cut, a favourite of ours for the grill. We get home, I prepare a mojo to marinate the steak in since we decided we would turn it into tacos and then I sat down to check on times and temps for flank steak. Well, as it happens, cooking a sous vide flank steak is not ANYTHING like making a strip loin because flank steak requires five million years in the water bath. I read at least 20 recipes and charts and it looked like it was going to require anywhere between 18 hours and 48 hours. So much for tacos for dinner. Flank steak is considered a leaner, tougher cut of meat so it requires a much longer cooking time to soften the...