Sous Vide Bistek with Rib Eye
byNic & Rei
YouTubers
Seattle, WA
Families pass their recipes on from one generation to the next in familiar ways: a box containing index cards with handwritten instructions, a plastic folder holding photocopies of cookbook recipes, or the lola whose specialties are stored in her mind and muscle memory.
YouTubers Nic and Rei represent an emerging way: filming the cooking process and posting it online. “Nowadays the best way to preserve your family’s recipes is to create it in video format,” Rei says. Their eponymous channel, Nic & Rei, is dedicated to sharing video how-tos for Filipino dishes and Kapampangan specialties. “That way, the recipes will still live beyond us,” Rei adds. Afterall, photocopies may fade but the internet is forever.
While the initial purpose of their channel was to document their parents’ recipes, Nic and Rei – now parents themselves – are also starting to develop their own originals. One such original, for Sous Vide Bistek with Rib Eye, is shared on this page.
“One of our friends a while back introduced us to sous vide, how you can make the perfect kind of steak with it,” says Rei about the recipe’s origin story. “I was constantly thinking about sous viding and something just clicked in my head – we should try making bistek with rib eye steak.”
And so they tried it. “We made a video on bistek [previously],” says Nic, usually in-charge of recipe development for the duo. “The measurements are pretty similar so we just applied it to a sous vide steak and it worked!” It’s a modern take on a well-loved dish that the next generation of Nic and Rei’s family can someday claim as another of their heirloom recipes.
Nic & Rei’s Tip:
With this and any of these recipes, the first time is not always going to turn out the best. It’s a lot of trial and error so be nice to yourself and don’t give up!
Sous Vide Bistek with Rib Eye Recipe
Ingredients
- 16 oz ribeye steak
- onion (1 small, 1/2 sliced into rings and 1/2 diced)
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp calamansi or lemon juice
- ½ tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp pepper
- oil
Instructions
- To make your bistek marinade, pour 2 tbsp of oil into a small frying pan and sauté the diced onions over medium heat until translucent.
- Drop in 3 cloves of minced garlic and sauté them until they’re fragrant.
- Remove the sautéed onion and garlic and transfer to a small mixing bowl.
- Add the soy sauce, calamansi juice, garlic powder, and pepper into the bowl, and mix all the ingredients together. Set aside.
- Place your ribeye steak in a plastic ziplock freezer bag. Then pour the marinade into the bag. Seal the ziplock shut, and shift your steak around to evenly distribute the marinade.
- Once the marinade has seeped into the steak, set the bag aside and set up your sous vide tool.
- Set your sous vide tool to your desired temperature and time based on the preferred doneness of your steak. (For cook times and temperatures, check out the full recipe here.)
- Once the water has reached the desired temperature, partially open the ziplock as you submerge your bag of meat into the water; be careful not to get any water into the bag or food into the water. Use the water to displace the air in the bag. Once you’ve gotten as much air out as you can, re-seal the ziplock bag. Now just wait until your steak is done cooking. Ours took 1 hour @ 129°F.
- When your meat is done cooking, remove the bag of meat from the water. Remove and pat dry the steak with a paper towel, and save the excess marinade in a separate bowl to be used at a later time.
- Afterwards, heat up a frying pan over high heat until it’s ripping hot and then add 2 tbsp of oil.
- Then sear each side of your steak for 1 minute.
- Finally, just plate your Bistek next to a scoop of white rice, pour the extra marinade over the steak, and top it off with caramelized onion rings!
