Sous vide at home

The literal translation of "sous vide" is "under vacuum".  The cooking techinque, which has been around since the mid-70's, involves sealing food items in vacuum bags and cooking them by immersion in a water bath (or other liquid) held at a precise temperature.  The technique can produce interesting and tasty changes in texture and flavor when used properly.  First, since the items being cooked are sealed in a vacuum bag there is no loss of moisture, flavors or nutrients.  Second, since the temperature is precisely controlled there is no chance of overcooking the food.  Finally, the texture of the food items can change noticeably due to the vacuum sealing.  This depends on a lot of factors such as original density, temperature of the bath and cooking time.

When I was in culinary school we did discuss sous vide cooking, for about 10 minutes.  The equipment to do it properly is expensive and the school wasn't willing to make the investment.  The closest thing we did was poaching salmon in 120-130 degree olive oil.  Lately I've become more interested in trying this technique so I started looking for the equipment.

The basic equipment for cooking sous vide includes a vacuum sealer (which I already had), a container to hold the bath and a way to maintain a constant temperature.  One way would be to use a good thermometer to monitor a pot of water on the stove and manually maintain the temperature.  This isn't very appealing if you plan on cooking items that require very long exposure times like short ribs.  On the other end are all-in-one sous vide systems like the SousVide Supreme , but it is a little more money than I wanted to spend.  What I chose to do is look in to immersion circulators.  These are also expensive, but I found instructions on a DIY immersion circulator by The Seattle Food Geek.  While browsing through Ebay for the parts, I noticed that there were a lot of older models being offered and I bid on an old Fisher Scientific 7300 immersion circulator...and lost.  But a few days later, I received a second chance offer from the seller who said he had another one available.  I snapped it up and another few days later it arrived.

The box arrived on a day I had taken off work, so I was able to play around with it immediately.  When I set it up in a pot of water and turned it on, it was VERY loud.  It was also causing the GFCI in the kitchen to flip off.  After disassembling the unit and giving it a thorough cleaning the noise problem was solved, but it still has an issue with GFCI.  No problem, as long as it isn't plugged in to a kitchen or bathroom outlet everything works fine!  The next day I started my first vacation in over a year, but since I was going to visit family I just brought along my new toy so I could continue to play.  I found an old 48 quart Igloo cooler in my parents basement that served well as the water bath.

My first foray in to sous vide was pork back ribs.  I made a rub using whatever appropriate spices I could find, applied it to the ribs and sealed them up in vacuum bags.  The ribs were placed in a 150 degree water bath and allowed to stay there for about 14 hours before being removed and placed in the refrigerator to cool.  That was a nervous night, I had never run the circulator for so long and didn't know if it could take the abuse and the cooler I was using for the bath had a drain on the bottom that I was afraid would pop open due to the temperature and flood the room.  I read somewhere that chilling the ribs in the pouches after cooking allows the meat to firm up, no idea if this step is actually needed or not.  I had always been told that collagen breaks down to gelatin at a little below boiling temperature, but the huge amounts of gelatin present when the bags were opened the next day proved that is wrong.  The ribs were dried off and heated up on a hot grill to produce a nice crust.  The meat was still pinkish, which some members of the family didn't like, but it was extremely tender and moist.

The next thing I tried was filet mignon.  They were seasoned with garlic salt and a product called Dale's Seasoning Sauce, which is mostly soy sauce and spices.  We sealed them in the vacuum bags and let them sit 24 hours in the refrigerator.  The next day, I set the immersion circulator to 135 degrees and let the steaks cook for 2 hours.  They were allowed to cool a little bit before being removed from the bags and seared on the grill for about 45 seconds per side.  They were incredible...fork tender and cooked to a perfect medium rare all the way through.

When I returned home, the first thing was to get another cooler, preferrably one without a drain.  I found another Igloo cooler for $20 that is a perfect fit for the circulator's mounting bracket.  It is also 48 quart so there is enough room for just about anything I want to cook and has no drain at the bottom.  More difficult to empty, but I'll be able to sleep better when it the circulator is running.  My first dish cooked at home was sous vide salmon.  First i put a tablespoon of olive oil in the bag and put it in the freezer until the oil had solidified.  The salmon was seasoned simply with Lawry's Seasoned Pepper, lemon juice and fresh dill.  The bath was set to 122 degrees and the cooking time was 40 minutes.  The fish was removed from the bag and the skin side was seared briefly in olive oil to crisp it up a bit.  The texture and flavor were amazing!  I served it with some sauteed spinach for a very tasty and healthy meal.  Next up?  I'm thinking of cooking some potatoes sous vide for a Memorial Day potato salad.