those wonderful crusty, roasted aromas only take place to a significant degree at temperatures well above 300°F, a good 170 degrees hotter than normal sous-vide cooking temperatures—which means that you still need to pull out the sauté pan to finish it The key is to sear the meat as quickly as possible, to prevent overcooking Get your skillet or grill ready and ripping hot, dry the meat thoroughly before adding it to the pan (wet meat will cool the pan down faster than dry meat), and leave it in the pan only long enough to color There’s some debate over whether or not meat should be preseared before bagging and cooking it sous-vide The idea is that the flavors created by a presear will penetrate the meat as it cooks in the bag, giving it a deeper, roastier flavor I cooked a few steaks side by side to see if this was true Visually, there’s not much distinction Flavorwise? In a blind tasting, tasters were split across the board over which one they preferred, and when asked to identify which steak was which, they fared no better than with blind chance Conclusion: Don’t bother with the presear—you develop plenty of flavor with just a single, postwater-bath sear And what is the best method of searing? These are three that I employ often Pan-Searing Advantages: Easy and done indoors Drippings stay in contact with meat Disadvantages: Without an ultrapowerful burner, crust can take a while to develop, leading to slightly overcooked meat underneath Grilling Advantages: High heat leads to fast char and good flavor development Disadvantages: Requires an outdoor grill Steak loses moisture and flavor to drippings Torching Advantages: Very high heat makes it easy to char You look badass doing it Disadvantages: Charring can be uneven, resulting in some blackened bits before the rest of the steak has even browned If you’re not careful, it can also leave your steak tasting like uncombusted fuel ... You look badass doing it Disadvantages: Charring can be uneven, resulting in some blackened bits before the rest of the steak has even browned If you’re not careful, it can also leave your steak tasting like uncombusted fuel