The Everything Guide to Cooking Sous Vide (10 page)

These additives can really help the sous vide home cook create sauces that stay syrupy, emulsifications that do not separate, and vinaigrettes that have the perfect consistency. Molecule-R is a company that makes an excellent starter pack for molecular gastronomy. The packets are portion sized and perfect for someone wanting to give this form of cooking a test run.

Making Life Simpler Sous Vide Style

The hectic pace of life can sometimes cause stress when you think about mealtime. Families can struggle balancing multiple schedules, tasks, chores, work, school, and extracurricular activities, so that even the idea of cooking dinner can bring about weariness. People often look for ways to make the actual preparation for supper simpler. Sous vide cooking definitely provides options for anyone who is strained for time, as there is an element of “set it and forget it” that comes with sous vide cooking.

Reheating Previously Cooked Food

Not only is sous vide an excellent way to cook meat, vegetables, and other foods, but it is also a great way to reheat food that was previously cooked. Food that has already gone through the process of being vacuum sealed and cooked in the sous vide is perfectly safe to be reheated at a later date. Simply leave the food in the bag, chill the food immediately after it is removed from the sous vide water bath, and place it in the fridge or freezer. Vacuum-sealed cooked meat should be good in the fridge for a day or two, while frozen meat will be good for weeks or possibly months.

If you are cooking food sous vide to eat on a different date, make sure to place the bag of food in an ice bath immediately after it comes out of the sous vide water bath. Let the bag chill in the ice bath to bring the temperature down rapidly and after that, it can be placed in the fridge or freezer, ready to go for a future sous vide reheat session.

To reheat food, simply set the sous vide machine to the desired serving temperature. Place the bagged, precooked food into the water bath and after about 45–60 minutes it should be reheated and ready to serve. Obviously the time to reheat would vary based on the thickness of the food in the bag, with thicker food taking a bit longer. It is not recommended to reheat thick cuts of meat, because the cooking, chilling, and cooking of larger pieces of meat creates too many opportunities for food spoilage and the growth of bacteria.

It is also possible to use sous vide as a way to reheat food that was previously cooked using other methods. In these cases, food cooked on the stovetop, in the oven, on the grill, or even outside in a smoker can be vacuum sealed and frozen. Then, at a later date, this food can be reheated in the sous vide water bath. One great example is a smoked pork shoulder that was slowly cooked in a backyard wood smoker. After cooking the pork in the smoker, it can be shredded, chilled, spread evenly into a food-safe bag, and vacuum sealed. At this point it can be thrown in the freezer. To reheat, simply heat up the sous vide water bath and submerge the bag of pulled pork in the water bath and cook until heated through, about 45–60 minutes. Using this method prevents the meat from drying out and burning in a way that could happen in the oven or stovetop.

Can I reheat frozen leftovers cooked another way?

Yes! The leftovers could have been cooked in the oven, stovetop, or on the grill. It does not matter at all. Simply toss the leftovers into a food-safe bag, flatten it to an even thickness of about 1 inch or less, and vacuum seal it. Then, once frozen, it can be reheated at a later date in the sous vide water bath.

This method of reheating cooked meals can be used for many different dishes. One idea is to make a big batch of food and then divide it into individual portion-sized vacuum-sealed bags. This is an excellent way for college students to get Mom’s famous meals, stacked in the freezer and ready to be reheated in the sous vide.

Using Sous Vide with Other Cooking Techniques

People regularly use multiple cooking methods when making dinner. They may not realize it, and in some cases it is second nature, but switching from one cooking technique to another is fairly common. Take braised short ribs as an example. The ribs are first seared on the stovetop and then finished in the oven: two methods, one dish.

While sous vide does an excellent job cooking meat so that it is tender and juicy, it does have some limitations. It does not have the ability to brown or crisp food, which is why additional steps are recommended to finish meat and some other foods. One of the best ways to use sous vide is to incorporate its cooking strengths during meal prep alongside other cooking procedures that have different strengths.

Here are a few recipe examples found in this cookbook that use sous vide along with other cooking methods:

• Double-Seared Beef Tenderloin
  (Chapter 9) is seared in a skillet and then cooked in the sous vide. Once it comes out of the water bath it is seared again. Sous vide allows the beef to be perfectly cooked throughout while the searing creates a Maillard reaction that cannot be replicated in the water bath.
  
• Buffalo Chicken Wings
  (Chapter 6) are first cooked in the sous vide and then deep-fried. The water bath cooks the chicken wings so that they are moist and juicy, while the deep fryer crisps up that skin like everyone loves!
  
• Pulled Pork Shepherd’s Pie
  (Chapter 10) is started in the sous vide with the pork being cooked in the water bath. After the meat is shredded, the shepherd’s pie is assembled and then it is all baked in the oven. Now, while the sous vide is amazing for creating super-tender pork meat, it obviously could not be used as a substitute for oven baking.
  

Do not think that entering into the world of sous vide cooking means that everything now needs to be done in a bag and under water. Instead, the best way to use sous vide is to maximize its cooking potential and to use it where it shines.

Converting Traditional Recipes for Sous Vide

Now, while home cooks today may not keep their favorite recipes stored away in a handwritten recipe book, there is no question that people still have their “keeper” recipes. They may be in an e-mail document, posted on their Facebook timeline, or found on a popular food blog. Either way, everyone has those “tried and true” recipes that regularly make the dinner rotation.

Some of the most important tools in converting recipes for sous vide are the
Time and Temperature Charts
, found in Appendix A. These charts show the cooking temperature for meats, veggies, and more, as well as provide minimum and maximum cooking times. Use these guides as a starting point in making changes to those favorite recipes.

Is it possible to take these non–sous vide recipes and convert them so that they can be cooked in a water bath? Well, there is no simple answer to that. Some recipes can easily be adapted so that they can be cooked sous vide. Take oven-baked salmon with creamy dill sauce as an example. This is a delicious way to prepare salmon, and it can work just as well using sous vide. Instead of cooking the salmon in the oven, place it in a food-safe bag with any desired aromatics and vacuum seal the bag. Place it in the water bath at the temperature for salmon found in
Appendix A
. Make the dill sauce separately, and when the salmon comes out of the water bath, you will have one delicious meal.

Now, while the salmon recipe is relatively simple to convert for sous vide, others can be more challenging. Beef stew is a more complicated recipe that will require decisions to be made regarding how the recipe will be cooked. Stewing beef in the sous vide is amazing because it can be fork tender, with all the collagen dissolved, but still be medium-rare. This is something that cannot be replicated any other way. But cooking stewing beef this way will not result in tender potatoes or carrots for stew. Instead, they need to be cooked using a different method. So, to convert this recipe, maybe the best thing to do would be to cook the beef in the sous vide with a rich marinade or spice blend and then cook the rest of the stew on the stovetop, in the oven, slow cooker, or even the pressure cooker. To serve, toss the beef with the vegetables for a delicious beef stew.

There are so many options and possibilities when it comes to adapting family favorite recipes for sous vide, but there is no exact guideline. It will require some consideration for the way the food is to be cooked and what you think will work.

The Potential of Sous Vide Cooking

Just like fashion has trends that look like they will last but eventually fade away (bell bottoms anyone?), there are most definitely short-term culinary crazes. Many people have tried different food fads and likely gave the Atkins diet a try, have a fondue machine in their storage closet, right next to that bread maker they never use, and they likely paid way too much money for a gourmet cupcake. While each of these was simply a flash in the pan, popular one day and forgotten the next, sous vide cooking is looking to be a revolution, changing the way people cook.

In many ways, sous vide is creating a paradigm shift in the kitchen, where more and more people are discovering the vast benefits that come with using this cooking technique. Companies that are making sous vide machines cannot keep them in stock, as they are selling out as quickly as they are built.

In the 1970s it was slow cooker mania when the Crock-Pot entered the market. Housewives everywhere were learning the benefits of creating one-pot meals in the slow cooker. Now, while many foodies refer to the slow cooker as the easy way to destroy a good piece of meat, there is no denying that it has survived and become a commonly used kitchen appliance. Homes all over the place use the slow cooker because of its foolproof nature and the opportunity to prep it all in the morning and get it cooking on low, knowing that dinner will be ready once you get home.

Sous vide has a similar opportunity to establish itself as an excellent way to prepare food and cook succulent meat every time. Just like almost every home has a grill, there may come a day when every home has a sous vide machine. There may come a day when people crave a juicy steak, so they get the water bath going and reach for that food-safe bag. There may come a day when people never settle for dry oven-baked chicken and instead enjoy moist and juicy sous vide chicken. There may come a day when people no longer wonder how to cook a medium-rare duck breast properly because they have learned how simple it is using the sous vide cooking technique.