When it comes to sous vide, the food won't get soaked, but the cook might.
The once-obscure cooking technique, which involves shrink-wrapped ingredients and water baths, is making its way from television cooking shows and cutting-edge restaurants to home kitchens - with lots of pricey gadgets in tow.
Fans of sous vide, which is French for "under vacuum," want to lock in juices and flavors just like the celebrity chefs who've recently popularized the method. So they are buying the $159 SousVide Magic, a gizmo that turns a rice cooker or slow cooker into a water bath. Or they go all out for the $450 SousVide Supreme "water oven." On top of that come vacuum sealers, which start around $60.
That may leave little money left over for actual food. But there is a way to cook sous vide with equipment no more exotic than a spaghetti pot and plastic freezer bag.
Sous cheap? Zip vide? By any name, the low-budget approach is not for everyone or every protein. Some experts question the safety of attempting sous vide without the water circulators and high-tech temperature probes required of commercial kitchens. Even those who go the zip-bag-and-pot route recommend limiting it to fish, which cooks more quickly than denser proteins such as chicken and beef.
And then there's the question of how much plastic you want in your diet. SC Johnson, the maker of Ziploc-brand bags, said they do not contain bisphenol A, an estrogen-like chemical known as BPA that is found in some plastics that have been linked to cancer and other ills. But could something else leach from the bag into the food?
Jenny Taylor, director of public affairs for SC Johnson, said Ziploc bags can stand up to sous vide water baths, which can be as low as 120 degrees for fish. But for reasons she declined to specify, the company does not endorse using the bags that way.
"We don't recommend that our bags are used in this manner; however Ziploc bags are made to withstand warming to 170 UNKNOWN_HIGHBIT_b0 F," Taylor said in an e-mail.
Brave sous-vide seekers who press ahead anyway can create moist, flavorful food in a humble store-brand zipper bag, as Benjamin Erjavec did in Baltimore the other day.
"It's almost like marinating it while you're cooking it," Erjavec said as he prepared two salmon fillets. "You're not letting any of the natural juices release from the item that you're cooking."
It must be noted that Erjavec did not accomplish this feat in his home kitchen but in his work one, at The Oceanaire Seafood Room, where he is executive chef. But he did not use any special sous vide equipment in the process. In fact, there is nothing cooked sous vide on the menu at Oceanaire.
Erjavec agreed to demonstrate the method for The Baltimore Sun last week after Wade Wiestling, Oceanaire's vice president of culinary development, posted a how-to on the upscale restaurant's blog.
"Everyone wants to see what the new trends are in the industry and try to re-create them at home," said Erjavec, noting that sous vide has gotten a lot of play on TV shows such as Bravo's "Top Chef."
Erjavec started by seasoning two boneless, skinless salmon fillets with olive oil, salt, pepper and fresh thyme. He slipped the fish into a gallon-sized freezer bag - he happened to have CVS brand on hand - and pressed out as much air as possible. Then he submerged all but the top of the still-unsealed bag in a pot of cool water, worked the remaining air bubbles out of the bag and sealed it.
He placed the fish on the bottom of a pot of water heated to 120 degrees. With a digital thermometer stuck in the pot, Erjavec kept the water temperature between 120 degrees and 125 degrees by periodically turning the stove top flame on and off. He stirred the water with a fish spatula every minute or so to keep the temperature even.
About 15 minutes later, Erjavec could tell the fish was done because the color had lightened and the fat had coagulated. A less experienced cook would not have to worry about overcooking the salmon, however, since the fish temperature would not exceed the water temperature. (For fish, 125 degrees is medium-rare, he said.)
Erjavec removed the fish from the bag and briefly seared it in a pan with olive oil to give it a golden crust.
Someone having a dinner party could cook the fish in the water bath earlier in the day, unseal and store it in the refrigerator, and sear it just before serving time, Erjavec said. (It is not recommended that home cooks store sous vide foods sealed in plastic because bacteria can thrive in anaerobic environments.)
The home sous vide technique would work on any fish, though Erjavec said he would not try it on fragile varieties such as sea bass and black cod; they would probably fall apart when removed from the bag. Nor would he advocate using this technique for pork, beef or chicken.
"I'd be a little leery of the home cook" attempting to cook denser proteins in that way, he said, because it would be hard to maintain the desired temperature range over a longer period of time. Some meats are cooked for hours, even days, with more sophisticated sous-vide equipment.
That's where the SousVide Supreme and SousVide Magic come in. The Supreme claims to keep water at a desired temperature for days at a time, if need be. SousVide Magic promises to do the same thing by attaching to an ordinary rice cooker or slow cooker and turning the heat on and off to keep the temperature within a set range.
Even with that special equipment, home sous vide has its doubters.
"To me, that's a little scary," said Todd Eucke, senior marketing manager for Cuisine Solutions, an Alexandria, Va., firm that prepares sous-vide cuisine for hotels and restaurants across the country.
Eucke said he just completed sous-vide training by the company's food scientist, Bruno Goussault, a sous-vide pioneer who schooled super-celebrity chef Thomas Keller in the method. In a commercial setting, he said, safety is ensured by sophisticated computer controls and special thermometers that read the core temperature on each piece of protein without breaking the water seal on the bag.
It wasn't that long ago that the same fears were raised about commercial sous vide. When sous vide first hit the New York City restaurant scene in 2006, health inspectors ordered some of the city's finest dining establishments to cease the practice, The New York Times reported at the time. Health officials, worried that the low-heat cooking and airtight packaging were a perfect recipe for botulism, have since drawn up safe-handling rules, the paper later reported. (Baltimore health officials had not encountered sous vide in city restaurants and did not have an opinion on the matter.)
New York's chief of food safety, Elliott Marcus, even told The Times recently that home sous vide is safe as long as the food is "cooked to the usual safe temperatures."
Sous Vide Salmon
2
5-ounce boneless, skinless salmon fillets
Olive oil
Sea salt
Fresh ground pepper
2
fresh thyme sprigs
Season the salmon with olive oil and a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Place a fresh thyme sprig on each fillet.
Place the fish inside a gallon-sized zipper freezer bag. (Non-freezer plastic bags will be too thin.) Space the fillets at least 1 inch apart and press as much air as possible out of the bag.
Submerge all but the top of the still-unsealed bag in a heavy pot of cool water. Work the remaining air bubbles out of the bag, taking care not to let any water leak inside, and then seal the bag. (If water does get inside, remove the fish and place it in a new bag. And don't feel bad - even Chef Erjavec was forced into a do-over.)
Putting the bag of fish aside, heat the pot of water to 120 degrees. (You'll need an inexpensive digital thermometer with a probe that can lie in the pot or clip to the side.) Place the fish on the bottom of the pot, moving the thermometer probe out of the way if need be. (If the probe is the type that lies in the pot, you do not want it resting directly on the bottom of the pot or directly on the fish. To get the most accurate reading of the water temperature, place it in between the fillets.)
Leave the fish in the water for 15 to 18 minutes. During that time, keep the water temperature between 120 and 125 degrees, turning the low stove top flame on and off as needed. Stir the water with a spatula about every minute to keep the temperature even.
When the fish is cooked, remove the bag from the pot and take the fillets out of the bag. (You can double-check the temperature by inserting the thermometer directly into the fish. It should be 125 degrees, which is medium rare.)
Heat olive oil in a saute pan on high heat until almost smoking. Place the fillets in the pan, presentation side up, for about 1 minute to create a golden crust.
Remove from the pan and serve.
Courtesy of the Oceanaire Seafood Room