By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com
Sous Vide Supreme Water Bath
If you have watched Top Chef on Bravo TV or Iron Chef on Food TV you have seen Sous Vide cooking at work.
The advertisement for the SousVide machine describes Sous Vide cooking as “Sous vide cooking involves vacuum-sealing food in airtight pouches, then submerging it in a water bath at precisely controlled temperatures – often much lower than those used in traditional ovens – but for a longer time. The result is perfectly cooked foods with enhanced flavors and nutritional benefits.”
So what is it really? It’s actually very similar to the concepts used in slow-smoking meat for BBQ. Slow-smoked BBQ is all about taking very tough (and cheap) cuts of meat, cooking them for a very long time, and transforming the meat into something tender and super flavorful. The trick to this is to not overcook the meat or to cook it too quickly.
When you cook meat at a low temperature for a very long time you are breaking down the connective tissue (Collagen) in the muscle fibers that make the meat tough. When you break down these fibers, you make the meat tender as there is nothing left to to hold it together. This is why pork shoulder can be pulled apart or is “fork tender” when you cook it for a long time. You have cooked it long enough for the Collagen to dissolve, leaving the tasty muscle behind.
Chicken in the Sous Vide Supreme
If you cook it too long, you cook all of the fat down and all of the moisture out of the meat. When this happens you are left with nothing but the muscle fibers which are dry by themselves. The other trick, past breaking down the collagen, is to know exactly how much fat to cook away versus leaving behind before serving the meat. If you cook away too much fat, it will be dry.
Sous vide cooking addresses the above issues through two things: the first being that there is no air involved since you are cooking the food in a vacuum. The second part is that you are cooking in water at the temperature you want the food to reach and not a degree higher. Both of these steps combined mean that your food will never go above the temperature you set. There is no air to heat and since the water is at the desired temperature, the food cannot go above what you set. This means you can take two hours or two days to cook your food and it will never overcook! And guess what? You can cook food for two days without problems with bacteria since it’s vacuum sealed and maintains a “perfect” temperature.
Cooking in the Sous Vide Supreme is quite easy actually:
- Dry and seal your protein in a vacuum bag. I use a Food Saver machine to do this.
- Turn on the machine to the desired end temperature (with it full of water).
- Put the food in the machine, close the lid, and let it cook.
- You come back 2-48 hours depending on what you are cooking and pull the food out of the water bath. You then cut the bags, remove the food, and pat it dry.
- The last optional step is to sear the meat in a pan with hot oil to develop a nice crust. It only takes a few seconds to sear since it’s already cooked and this step does not result in overcooking. The only way it would is if you seared it for too long which would most likely burn the food anyway. This is an easy mistake to avoid.
- Serve!
There are a few caveats to cooking with this method:
- You do not use meat that is in a sauce or wet (like a marinade) as it will not seal properly in a vacuum unless you have an industrial vacuum packer.
- You do not cook things like stews which require braising techniques.
- Meat can turn out mushy if you cook it for too long.
Luckily, the caveats are really only rules and don’t take away from the opportunities. I’ve cooked chicken and meatballs in the machine and they turned out great. I’ll be posting my meatball story at a later time but needless to say they turned out very tasty.
The Food Saver Home Vacuum Sealer
You may be wondering if you can do this with a pot of water and food in ziplock bags? Well, you can, but you technically can BBQ brisket in a trash can with charcoal. Do you want to? The problem with doing this in a pot of water is keeping a constant temperature and not letting the water cook out. You also have the problem with ziplock bags in that they are thin and not recommended for long term cooking.
The Sous Vide machine is expensive for a few reasons: it’s durable, it’s well insulated, it heats up very quickly, and it maintains the water temperature within one degree. All of these characteristics are what lead to it being costly but also necessary if you want to do this type of cooking. One of the reasons I got the machine is because previously, you had to buy an immersion circulator for over $1500.00 to get started. The Sous Vide Supreme lets you get into the art for $450 which while expensive, is much cheaper than it was before.
You do need a vacuum sealer for this to work and thats where the Food Saver unit comes in. You can get one for around $150 at most stores and they work great for the purpose of sous vide cooking. The ultimate you can get is a clamp vacuum sealer but they are usually only found in commercial settings and can cost more than $2000.
I love my new machine and hope to do some interesting things with it in the future. I really like the fact that I can take a cheap cut of beef such as flank steak, cook it for a day, and end up with something as tender as filet mignon. This is the true power of the machine as while it’s expensive, it allows you to enjoy things like steak without breaking the bank every time you want it. Flank steak is $7.99 a pound here while filet mignon is $21.95 a pound. It won’t take long for me to actually save money especially when you consider the cooking done for parties. I also will be able to cook things like lamb chops, venison (during deer season,) and other meats without worry of it drying out.
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