Have you heard about sous vide? That’s pronounced soo veed for the uninitiated. It’s a new method of cooking. Oh my goodness, is it ever a new method of cooking. Most people I talk to have never heard of it. You’re going to see sous vide cooking here on my blog now, since I’m embracing it for some of my cooking (not all, however). It utilizes a very precise temperature controlled water bath to cook food (mostly meat, although it’s also used for cooking fruits and vegetables as well). This post is all about the technique.

So, I’ve now embarked on a new leg of my cooking journey since acquiring a SousVide Supreme Water Oven. We visited with friends recently in Northern California (Russ & Stacey). Over the 2 days Russ really introduced us to sous vide, and prepared two spectacular dinners using sous vide.

I could go on for a couple of paragraphs about what he made (simply put: lamb shanks and carrots one evening; scallops, whole beef tenderloin and fennel the other evening). Russ first bought the machine above, but he/they love to entertain groups of friends. This machine can cook/feed about 4-5 people maybe (unless you cook in stages and reheat), so he eventually purchased a stand-alone type that can be immersed in any variety or size vessels (like a big plastic – lidded – bin from Target, for instance). With that type, he can cook enough lamb shanks (large) to feed about 12 or more people. You seal the food in thick heat-resistant plastic (like FoodSaver type), so each portion of food is cooked within an air-tight pouch.

You see, it’s all about the water temperature (it’s adjustable to 1/10 of a degree through the front digital panel) and that depends on what you’re cooking. Rare to medium-rare roast beef is generally cooked at 130° for example. Pork chops cook at 140°. Carrots cook at about 183°. Most veggies use that higher temp. And they take about 30 minutes.

In a nutshell I’ll just tell you this much – cooking tender meats like ribeye steaks, beef tenderloin or salmon take a short period of time (less than an hour). Tougher cuts like chuck roasts, brisket, flank steak or pork shoulder are cooked for hours and hours – up to 24 to 48 hours for instance. I think the sous vide is ideal for those kinds of meats because it takes that long, slow cooking to break down the connective tissue in the flesh of the meat to make it tender.

Sous Vide. Well, there’s a definite history about it. It was developed in France in the 1970’s, and was generally used for catering and restaurant use. The technique has traveled around the world in that interim time. And until just a couple of years ago it was strictly within the purview of restaurant chefs. The benefit to restaurants is that they can cook 200 chicken breasts at 9:00 in the morning, each sealed in its own little pouch and that night, or the next several nights, when you, the consumer in the dining room orders the chicken breast, the kitchen chef cuts open a chilled pouch and just pan sears it enough to warm it through and give it color. Many people question the safety of it – because the meat is cooked at and to a fairly low temperature – you might ask, is it safe? Yes it is providing it doesn’t go too low in temp – that’s when bacteria can/will form. One of the tricks is to quick chill food once it’s cooked in the sous vide – unless you’re serving it immediately. You remove the pouches and plunge them into an ice bath to chill them quickly. Then they can go in the refrigerator or freezer.

There are many jerry-rigged sous vide machines out there (that are on the cheap) – most of them using some kind of temperature variable crockpot type of control. They are NOT very precise, although there are lots of people who will certainly tell you they’re good enough. I decided not to risk that. And before I go much further I should tell you that right now this machine costs about $400. Not cheap. And I thought long and hard about it before we decided to buy one. Sous Vide Supreme also makes a slightly smaller model – SousVide Supreme Black Demi Water Oven Electric Vacuum Cooker (I think it’s $300) that has a smaller interior, is made mostly of plastic, and probably won’t hold more than 2-3 portions inside. I read reviews every which way from Sunday before I decided to buy the Supreme (larger size).

The SousVide Supreme was designed by two doctors here in the U.S. They happen to love to cook and wanted to adapt the restaurant style sous vide for home use. So they developed the stainless steel box-shaped appliance you see at top (it’s about the size of a big bread machine) for the home cook. If you want to cook with little or no fat, you can do that.

Why did I buy this? ONLY because of the taste of the food. It is so incredibly tender. The food retains all the juices. I swear, the carrots were the best carrots I’ve ever had in my life! The beef tenderloin was fork tender. The scallops were cooked to perfection – just barely cooked through. The flank steak was as tender as a tenderloin. Truly. A few days after Russ’ demonstration I was served a half chicken in a restaurant that was done sous vide. It was the most tender and perfectly cooked chicken I’ve ever had. The next day my DH made a sandwich from the left over breast meat and he thought it was the juiciest chicken sandwich he’d ever tasted. I haven’t tried chicken yet in my machine. I will soon.

If I haven’t already lost you up to this point, now I’ll show you some photos. When I was first learning about this I was all over the mechanics of it, and you need to understand the process. Here you go:

There’s the tank itself with the racks inside. I’ve removed the lid (and it’s kind of mousepad-like insulating cover). There’s no water in it at this point. (Actually I didn’t take any photos of the tank with water – I suppose I should – next time.) The lid nicely seals the tank. That thing in the middle is a rack with shelves, so to speak.

There’s the interior without the rack in it. When filling it up (I use the hottest of tap water – even at that it needs to heat the interior water for 10-20 minutes before it reaches 130° or 140°). I’ve learned I need to fill it a bit higher than that lower line (FILL) to cover two servings on the rack. The top line is the max fill.

There’s the rack sitting beside the unit. Indeed there really are only 3 slots for food there. Remember, everything you put here is sealed up in a plastic pouch. You can’t put anything on the top – it wouldn’t be submerged in water.  Some thinner things could probably be double-stacked. If you try to slide something down the side, it might not have proper water circulation. Thinner things (like salmon fillets) in a long plastic pouch could be 2 per shelf. The perforated bottom rack keeps food from sitting on the floor of the unit. Likely that’s not good as it might be too hot.

I’m still very much a novice at cooking sous vide. The Supreme comes with a tiny little instruction manual with about 8-10 recipes. I purchased two additional ones (and there are several out there),  both which had high marks on amazon.

As I write this I haven’t tried any of the cookbook recipes yet. You’ll read about it here when I do.

So there’s a package of carrots. At this point they’re raw and sealed up (all the air sucked out) using my FoodSaver. For now I’m trying to use my FoodSaver machine to do this. It works fine for dry foods – like these carrots. It doesn’t work so well with wet or moist things, even though the FoodSaver has a setting for “Moist” and “Dry.” So I may have to invest in a better quality vacuum sealer. SousVide Supreme does sell one for $129 –  the SousVide Supreme Vacuum Sealer , but the reviews on amazon.com are not good. Most users think FoodSaver makes an equally good machine. So, I’m going to wing it for a little while. There is nothing at all in the bag except carrots, salt, pepper and a little pat of butter.

Here are two pouches of pork chops. They were lightly seasoned with some mixed herb seasoning mix, salt, pepper and butter. They took no time at all in the SousVide Supreme.

I thought they were delicious. My DH thought they were “good,” but not up to my usual kind of cooking. I didn’t prepare any sauce or topping, which would have improved them some.

Also, once you cook the food in the sous vide, in order to get some color on the meat, you quickly sear it in a frying pan. In the case of the carrots, I poured them out into a skillet and sautéed them too. When I did flank steak the other night, I seared it on a stovetop grill so I had nice looking grill marks. I didn’t cook it there – just about a minute per side to brown the outside. That’s all. Same with the carrots – just enough to get a little caramelization going. You can eat any of the food directly from the sous vide – it’s just that it looks better with some browning on the food. When I did salmon the first time, the texture was fantastic – it was perfectly cooked. But I plated it on a room temp plate, and since the salmon was only cooked to 130° (I think it was) it wasn’t hot enough to hold a good eating temp for more than a few minutes on the plate. So I need to warm the plates well anytime I use the sous vide. More things to learn about this.

You can also sear the food before you cook sous vide. If I were making multiple portions that might be the best option. So far I’ve just pan-sautéed everything just before serving because I want the food to be served at a slightly higher temp. That’s enough for today. If you’re really intrigued about sous vide, go online and search. You’ll find numerous websites with explanations, including the more chemistry-oriented ones that will bring out the “science” in you.

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