Tom's practice hit full time this fall and he now has a wait list. As office hours have increased, his time for shopping and cooking has largely vanished--with a welcome exception. Somewhere he found time to develop an interest in sous vide cooking and recently purchased the necessary components. Pre-Thanksgiving, he tried it out for the first time with chicken. Result was OK -- a bit of a weird, spongy texture. Today he cooked two hunks of beef top sirloin. One he cooked to settings for steak done medium. The other he left in to cook to a roast-like texture. The steak-style was yummy -- much better than the too-well done results from the crock pot. The roast piece is still cooking. More experimenting ahead.
9 comments:
What are the benefits of sous-vide cooking?
I've been intrigued by sous vide for several years now, it seems, but haven't gone so far as trying it. Do we need one more item in the kitchen?
What the dickens is sous-vide?
Kristen can correct me, but I believe it works like this: You vacuum seal your food, put it in a water bath, and then set the temperature of the bath to the target temperature of the food and wait for equilibrium. It's supposed to cook very evenly while preserving moisture and avoiding violence to the exterior, although apparently a lot of people pan-sear their meat after sous-vide cooking because otherwise it doesn't look right.
Congratulations to Tom on his business success!
Roy's explanation agrees with what I've heard from Tom, though he's opted for ziplocs rather than vacuum sealing. Food cooks longer at a lower temperature so it's safe to eat without being toughened and overdone. It's output is quite different than results from the crockpot.
More tasty. But ecological? Do you wash and reuse the ziplocs?
Yes. We do wash and reuse ziplocs. Tom has wondered if the extra hot water to clean them is ecological--I've decided for us that the answer is Yes.
Thanks for the great explanation! It doesn't sound as if there is too much call for it in our cooking world...if I become inspired to try a sous vide carrot I will let you know how it goes.
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