Sous vide cooking, once the domain of upscale restaurant chefs, is now widely available. Almost any home cook can now achieve this cooking style thanks to the affordable pricing of sous vide specialty equipment. However, sous vide is not precisely the kind of skill you picked up from your mum or grandmother; therefore, it can be a little scary at first. But worry not. Sous vide cooking is a simple method to understand both conceptually and practically. Below is a simple overview of the sous vide cooking style.
What is Sous Vide Cooking?
The sous vide cooking method involves vacuum sealing food in a bag and cooking it in a carefully controlled water bath. Sous vide is a French term describing how food is prepared before cooking. Ingredients are safely enclosed in a vacuum-sealed bag and placed in a temperature-controlled water bath with a circulator.
The bag is progressively heated to a temperature equal to, but not higher than, the surrounding water’s temperature by circulating the hot water around the container. This makes it a far more precise cooking methodthan heating in an oven or cooktop.No other cooking technique can match the results obtained from this low-temperature, lengthy cooking process.
Is Sous Vide Cooking a Good Idea?
Sous vide cooking yields results that are unattainable with other cooking methods through precise temperature control and circulation. The reason is that when cooking using conventional methods, you are at the mercy of heat and temperature fluctuations. Consequently, cooking delicious food regularly is very challenging and time-consuming. Meals are overdone on the exterior and only partially cooked in the middle, depending on your preferred doneness. Food becomes dry and chewy, loses flavor, and cooks too quickly.
But with its ability to precisely manage temperature in the kitchen, sous vide offers the following advantages:
- Flavor: The food cooks with its juices, guaranteeing that the dish will be juicy, tender, and moist.
- Consistency: You can anticipate fairly consistent outcomes because your food is cooked at a specific temperature for an exact period.
- Adaptability: Cooking the traditional way can demand your whole focus. Sous vide cooking guarantees meals cooked at a precise temperature. Overcooking is not a concern.
- Reduction of waste: Conventionally cooked food dries out and goes to waste. For instance, a properly cooked steak might dry up and lose up to 40% of its volume. Precision-cooked steak retains all of its volume.
How to Cook Sous Vide?
You do not need a specific container or a vacuum sealer, but you will need specialized sous vide equipment to generate the water bath. Using the displacement approach, you can seal your ingredients in standard zip-top bags.
With most sous-vide machines, any large container will do; a large saucepan is an excellent example of a heat-safe food container. After adding water to the container, assemble your circulator as per the instructions on the packaging, seal your contents, and begin cooking. This cooking technique is perfect for various applications, from steaks and shrimp to soft-boiled eggs and vegetables.
