Sous vide cooking has been called revolutionary. It's been named the best thing for cooking since the microwave. It's also been accused of being wasteful, unnatural, and just plain weird. But what, exactly, is it?
Simply put, sous vide cooking is the process of vacuum-sealing raw food in plastic pouches and cooking it slowly in a temperature-controlled water bath. The water is held at the final temperature you want the food to reach and the food is left submerged until it reaches that temperature (for instance, a medium-rare steak would be cooked at 130°F until it reaches 130°F).
Slow and low is the name of the game here. Some times cooking food sous vide means hours, sometimes it means entire days. Food safety is a concern, but doesn't generally an issue as long as you stick to the temperature and cooking time specified for the food you're cooking. Nathan Myhrvold, author of Modernist Cuisine, has quite famously tested and documented all the correct cooking temperatures and times required for sous vide cooking.
What you gain with sous vide cooking is perfectly cooked food. Every single time. The vacuum-packaging seals all the natural juices, flavors, and seasonings into whatever you're cooking. The temperature control means the food will literally never over-cook. Proponents of sous vide cooking point to chicken breast so tender you can cut it with a fork and scrambled eggs the consistency of fine custard.
What you lose with sous vide cooking is the hands on experience of...well, cooking. Everything is sealed in plastic, so there is no tactical experience of handling the food as it cooks. No aromas fill your kitchen. No adjustments can be made mid-cooking. There's an artistry to sous vide cooking, there's no denying that; but it can also make a home cook feel remarkably distant from their food.
Those plastic bags are also a single-use product. This isn't a huge deal for the occasional sous vide dinner, perhaps. But if you're someone who focuses on keeping your kitchen green, re-using everything you can, and avoiding waste, this does bring up a concern. It's also difficult to know exactly how the plastic might be interacting with our food as it cooks, raising another set of health worries.
Shiny counter-top sous vide cookers like the SousVide Supreme are now available to anyone with a few hundred dollars to spend while instructions for hacking your own are all over the internet for those of us who don't. Yes, it's safe to say that sous vide cooking has jumped out of professional kitchens and landed squarely in our kitchens.
What do you think about it? Think sous vide cooking is here to stay?
Related: Best Chicken Breast Ever? Try This Semi-Sous Vide Method
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Mmmmmmm. Steak cooked in plastic sounds WONDERFUL!
Maybe washed down with some Tang.....
My boyfriend's mother does something like this in the oven. She rarely eats meat other than chicken, and she decided to try and cook a pork loin. She took the pan and the bag out of the oven (this is the first time I've ever seen anyone cook in a plastic bag in the oven) and then was getting all worried that it wasn't cooked. I asked her how long she cooked it and at what temp.
3hrs at nearly 400 degrees. Honestly, it was kind of dried out and tasteless, but sweet of her for trying.
Facetiousness aside, sounds like you can make things soggy and nasty if'n you don't exercise some common sense - much like cooking in a Crock Pot: some things need to be seared first to put a nice crust on before they go in the crock, otherwise they'll come out flabby and nasty.
I'm not real crazy about the idea of YET ANOTHER "one-trick pony" kitchen appliance, much less one that requires you to buy special (and no doubt horrifically expensive) bags, nor am I thrilled with the idea of cooking in PLASTIC.
I cook sous vide occasionally and in many cases you will want to sear the meat afterwards. This is particularly important for steaks. If you are going for more of a braised texture it is not really necessary.
@Audeo5 - that horrifies me. While I am not particularly concerned about the effects of cooking sous vide in plastic, that is because the cooking temperature is usually well below the boiling point - not 400 degrees! That is well beyond the safety point of those types of plastic. Honestly I am surprised it didn't melt all over the meat.
@Audeo5, that's not sous vide at all though. sous vide needs to be at a low temperature.
I own the SousVide Supreme as well as Thomas Keller's Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide cookbook. Honestly, we use it more than our slow cooker. Chicken breasts always come out tender and juicy. I have some tasty grass-feed steaks come out like filet mignon. My favorite is loin lamb chops seasoned with cracked black pepper, sea salt, fresh rosemary, and lemon juice - unbelievably tender and delicious. Do not know it until you try it.
We love shrimp in a Thai peanut sauce. No worries about over cooking. We have not had luck with adding a good sear to beef...We have tried broiler, grill, griddle and torch. Our version of sous vide pork shoulder was a disaster. It came out like baby food.
We have a home-made sous vide set-up and it is wonderful. Although the method may not make your mouth water when thinking about it, I think many people would be surprised to learn how many restuarants are using this technology - it means that it is very difficult to overcook a piece of meat, which becomes extremely important for the more expensive cut. Fish cooks very quickly and flat Iron steaks come out as tender and more flavorful than a filet mignon. I wasn't a believer (it was all my husband's idea) until the first bite. That, and you don't have to turn on the oven or stove in the summer! Big plus. Take a look at our duck confit sous vide...
http://onionsandchocolate.wordpress.com/2010/03/29/duck-confit-sous-vide/
@James P, i think the actual saying is, "don't knock it until you try it."
i don't doubt that the food cooked in the sous vide tastes amazing. the plastic does scare me a little, though. you know... it's plastic. it's on your food. it's heated. none of it sounds good. and one-use bags sound like a terrible waste.
My MIL sent me an article on zip lock bags, eggs, and omelet ingredients - each guest prepares a ziploc, they all get boiled and voila - perfect custom omlets. Hmmm.
I do think the plastic needs to be BPA free, but I'd be willing to try this. I especially like the idea for fish - and it would be a good way to cook something in a minimum of liquid, while getting the flavor into the food.
There are so many one-use items, if one did this once a week, it might be OK.
Or - can you do this with a sealed glass container? It would still come to temperature, and if it were well sealed, could be functionally equivalent while reusable.
I'm in the "wasteful" camp. Restaurants already depend a lot on plastic wrap, and ones that use sous vide go through an additional and absurd amount of plastic.
I've wanted to ask various places in SF how they justify all that plastic and still strive for sustainability. Maybe that only applies to the food before they cook it :/
http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/04/cook-your-meat-in-a-beer-cooler-the-worlds-best-sous-vide-hack.html
We use a cooler to sous vide steaks and then sear it afterwards. Super easy and cheap! And it tastes delicious.
A lot of top restaurants and chefs use this technique, which says something about the results.
I would try it, if I had the space for a sous vide machine, though I have seen the technique used in a normal pot- the results are probably not the same however.
Is this just for meat and eggs? That's all I'm seeing on the web.
@missdewey - it is mainly used for meat, but you can do vegetables as well. I haven't experimented much with them as they are a bit tricky to do.
Sous Vide is just another method used by so-called foodies to alienate and feel superior home cooks. Top restaurant chefs just do as much as they can to make food that is not accessible to the masses. Then, food snobs can look down their noses and act aghast at those who don't know what it is. How could you NOT know what sous vide is? You don't know what charcuterie is? Calling something caramelized that is really a product of the mallaird reaction? What is wrong with you? You don't really like to cook since you don't know what THE most important trends in cooking are today. Give me a break.
Sous-vide machines? Nope, we just use a large pot and a candy thermometer - works like a charm.
Also, don't knock it 'till you've tried it. Making a $6 steak taste like a $30 steak by spending little to no effort? Priceless.
Cooking sous vide is great for lazy cooks like me. When I'm feeling productive I can make a batch of meatballs or something, vacuum seal them and freeze them. Then later I can throw (still frozen) them in my Sous Vide Supreme and they will thaw and cook perfectly. And if I forget about them and accidentally leave them in there overnight, they'll still be fine to eat for breakfast.
By comparison cooking in a frypan seems too complicated.