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What's not to love about sous vide?

Sous vide?

Not as glamorous as the French name sounds, sous vide (sounds like sue veed) is simply a style of cooking that involves "poaching food in a vacuum-sealed pouch at very precise temperatures," according to Gregory Ott, chef at Restaurant Rosalie, a sous vide restaurant in Montgomery County.

The basic concept behind sous vide cooking is not that foreign to home cooks, Ott said. For years, large manufacturers have vacuum-packed their food, frozen it and sold it to consumers who cook the plastic-packaged food in water until the food is ready to eat.

However, sous vide is gaining popularity at some fine dining restaurants in large metropolitan areas. Home cooks, too, are making sous vide food, from start to finish.

If you know what you're doing, it's very difficult to prepare sous vide food that's not perfect, Ott said. That ability to serve perfect food is one of the reasons why Ott decided to specialize in sous vide at Restaurant Rosalie.

To start the process, Ott vacuum-packs his meats with a consumer-grade vacuum packer. Then he poaches the meat in industry-grade sous vide equipment that circulates water around the meat and keeps the water at a specific temperature.

"Precise temperature control gives incredible choice over the doneness and texture of meat, poultry and fish," said Douglas Baldwin, a Colorado University doctoral student of applied mathematics, who has researched sous vide cooking on the side. He has published "A Guide to Sous Vide Cooking" online that has been reviewed by several food scientists, he said.

"Tough cuts can be made tender. Tender cuts are the same perfect doneness from edge-to-edge. Fish and light meat are moist and flavorful. Pork and poultry no longer need to be brined to be juicy (because they can be made safe without being cooked well-done)."

For example, sous vide chuck roasts poached for 24 hours at 131 degrees will come out as soft as a prime rib, Baldwin said.

Manheim Township patent attorney Steve O'Donnell has had a similar experience: "I've done really cheap, tough roasts for as long as 30 hours and they come out as tender as a filet."

O'Donnell, like Baldwin, did his own research to learn about sous vide cooking. He shrink-wraps cuts of beef and freezes them. When he wants to prepare it, he puts one or two packages in his Crock-Pot, covers it with water, and turns the Crock-Pot to its "keep warm" setting, which happens to be 130 degrees.

Four hours later, he takes the medium-rare steak from the package, sears it in a frying pan or on a grill for 15 seconds on each side and it's ready to eat.

Different meats require different temperatures and different amounts of time. Chefs learn through experience how long and high to cook the meat so it will be at its best. They also rely on a variety of charts.

The advantage of sous vide cooking, according to Ott, is that the window of perfection is very large. Seasoning the sous vide entrée can be done before the meat is vacuum packed or after it is removed from the plastic. Ott says he adds some salt and pepper while he sears the entrée in a sauté pan or skillet for 5 seconds to 10 seconds.

If you add seasoning before vacuum-packing, add it sparingly, Ott advised. The oil from the seasoning can really get into the meat and overpower it if you're not cautious.

Home equipment for sous vide cooking is coming onto the market. Vacuum-packing equipment is available at many stores, but sous vide cooking equipment is primarily available online. From a $1,000 immersion circulator to a stovetop pot with a water thermometer, sous vide cooking can be done at home.

Dave Arnold, director of technology and a sous vide instructor at the French Culinary Institute in New York City, said most slow cookers are unlikely to work because very few have temperatures as low as 130 degrees.

However, Arnold acknowledges that sous vide cooking can be done with a variety of makeshift devices, created or adapted by handy people.

O'Donnell says he tells his friends about sous vide cooking every chance he gets. At first they are "freaked out by it," he said.

When you tell them you're going to cook a shrink-wrapped steak in water for the next couple of hours, no one expects it to work. But, O'Donnell said, when you serve them sous vide steaks, they are very impressed.

Temps equal success

Home cooks who try sous vide must pay attention to safety.

One of the most important safety practices is knowing how long and at what temperature the food should be heated.

An integral part of sous vide is using low temperatures, lower than what is required when cooking within a short period of time, Arnold said.

The lower temperatures, when carefully maintained, are not a health issue because the food usually reaches the recommended internal temperature, Arnold said.

"A rare steak is 55 degrees Celsius, no matter how you cook it," he said.

Web resources for sous vide times and temperatures are listed below.

In sous vide cooking, home cooks have a lot of leeway in the amount of time they heat something, but the level and consistency of the temperature is critical, he said.

One degree more or less can impact the quality and the safety of the food. Therefore, it is important to do your sous vide cooking in a container that keeps a consistent temperature and heats the meat evenly, Arnold said.

One advantage of food that is vacuum-packed is that no new germs are introduced to the food from the outside. And, Arnold added, "Real sous vide prevents the oxidation of fats and stops spoilage bacteria," he said.

However, one bacteria, listeria, can grow even in a vacuum pack. Listeria is potentially deadly to pregnant women or immune-compromised individuals.

The key to avoiding listeria, Arnold said, is to not store vacuum-packed food in the refrigerator any longer than you would store any other food. Freeze the food or use it in a reasonable amount of time. Make sure food is cooked to a time and temperature that results in food being pasteurized. Oddly enough, Arnold said, normal cooking doesn't pasteurize food.

Charts that indicate the appropriate length of time and temperature to cook poultry safely can be found at www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/rda.... Charts for other food can be found at amath.colorado.edu/~baldwin..., though the site bears a disclaimer in case any content is inaccurate.

Equipment is costly

The best equipment for sous vide cooking at home is an immersion circulator. Though priced from $950, the equipment offers many advantages, according to Arnold.

The temperatures remain constant; it does not need to be monitored while food is cooking; it's big enough to cook enough food for guests; and the food will be perfect every time, he said.

However, Arnold realizes that not everyone can afford that kind of cooking appliance, so being a cooking innovator in his own right, he recognizes that cooking sous vide can be done other ways.

Sous Vide Magic, from Fresh Meals, starts at about $75. The "magic" device adapts a rice cooker so it can be used for sous vide cooking. Essentially, what it does, Arnold said, is gives you a controller that allows the water inside the rice cooker to go up to a specific temperature but never exceed it. It only works for cooking small quantities, he said, and it will require some experimentation.

You could do the cooking in the oven or on the stovetop if you had a way to ensure that temperatures didn't fluctuate and food was heating evenly.

E-mail: lespenshade@lnpnews.com