Inspired by a conversation last evening with the always entertaining T & A, I did a bit of follow-up research on a topic near and dear: sous-vide and meat.  A mentioned that a chef had said that searing helps to trap juices and improves flavor when cooking with sous-vide.  It’s a widely debunked myth that searing hels to seal in moisture.  In fact, experiments show the opposite to be true.  Furthermore, one of the advantages of sous-vide is that it can cook proteins at the optimal temperature to help retain most of its juices, thus making searing for this purpose redundant.

What I did wonder however, was whether searing first before sous-vide had any benefit to the flavor.  Afterall, the real reason to sear meat is to give it that wonderful caramelized crust and flavor (via the Maillard reaction).  Fortunately, thanks to the internet and Serious Eats, my question had already been answered.  In short, no.  Searing, pre-cooking, has no noticeable impact on the flavor of the meat, and since you’ll want to sear it after the sous-vide, there’s doubly no reason to do the same thing twice.

And there you have it – searing is still great, but you should just do it at the end.

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Additional resources on sous-vide:

• http://www.fiftyfourdegrees.com/
• http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html
• http://www.sousvidecooking.org/
• http://svkitchen.com/