[Sca-cooks] Sous Vide

[Katja]

Hi,

My husband surprised me with a sous vide for Christmas -- I hadn't asked for one, but a very good friend of ours got one and was totally entranced by the chicken breasts he made with the tool, so my tech-tool-loving hubby wanted one for us.

It's an Anova, and their website really explains the process very clearly, has an excellent FAQ for newbies, etc.: http://anovaculinary.com/

Plus, the website has a TON of recipes from both the company and from users, and they very clearly walk you through the process and include the specific temperatures and times: http://recipes.anovaculinary.com/recipes 

The tool looks sort of like a large "boat motor" type blender -- it's a thick, long rod that clamps onto one of my large stainless steel pots. I fill the pot with water up to a certain mark on the tool, plug it into the wall socket, then set the temperature I want on the tool and hit the button to start. (You can also download an app to set the temperature and time (and I think start and stop it when you're not at home), but since I work at home I find it easier to use to the simple interface on the tool itself.)

When it brings the water up to the temp you need, you place whatever you're cooking in the pot and let it cook for the desired amount of time.

Although some professional recipes recommend using a vacuum sealer and vacuum bags, it works perfectly well with simple zipper-top food bags. (Plus, zipper ones allow you to open and reclose the bags during cooking to check on the progress, which sealed ones won't.) You don't even need to get Ziplock or Hefty -- I use my supermarket's generic brand of zipper bags. Just make sure they're the freezer type, not the simple storage type (so they're thicker), and that the box clearly says they're BPA-free so you're cooking the food within safely.

We seasoned some chicken breasts, pork chops, and steaks over the course of a couple of weeks, plopped them in and walked away for hours, then fished them out, dried them off, and seared them in a smoking-hot pan. Each was good, but didn't blow me away. OTOH, it was really convenient to set the machine up at noon, toss in that night's meal, then walk away, and come back downstairs to quickly sear dinner when my husband arrived home.

I was, personally, far more impressed with the eggplant I cooked whole in the sous vide -- it was silky and amazzzzzzzzing. 
Zucchini was also very, very lovely. 
Carrots slow-cooked in the sous vide with honey, butter, and spices and then quickly seared in a pan produced a yummy version of "roasted" glazed carrots without heating up the oven.

I haven't tried any of the dessert recipes, but there are many, many other things to try on the recipe page.

So far, the most frequent thing I've done with the sous vide is heat up organic milk to make my own yogurt, funnily enough. 

I've been heating up the milk in one of my Le Creusets for even cooking, but I've always found it awkward and heavy to then pour into my yogurt machine. Pouring the milk into two ziplock bags, clipping them to the side of my steel pot with binder clips, and walking away for an hour while they slowing come up to 180 (without me stirring) is really convenient. Then I reset the sous vide to reduce down to 110 and walk away again -- no tedious swirling over a pot of ice and constantly sticking my instant-read thermometer in! Once the sous vide has held at 110 for a bit, I carefully pour a bit of the hot milk into a large Pyrex measuring cup to temp the little bit of starter yogurt, then pour in the rest of the warm milk and stir to combine, then pour into my yogurt machine, set it for 12 hours, and walk away.

It's a pricey toy that can be very useful for a cook to set something and ignore it for hours, as you do with a slow cooker. I imagine some cooks could set something up in the morning before leaving for work and let it sit all day until they get home, but I personally wouldn't trust my cats with that. 

Katja


>> 
 Ok, far from medieval, but I know people on this list have
 one. What are the recommendations for best books, recipes,
 extra equipment, etc? My husband attended a professional
 staff seminar with lunch at Sur la Table and was intrigued
 enough to arrive home with one.
 
 Johnna