Cooking enthusiasts are always looking for the newest trend to enhance their culinary expertise. Whether looking to gain an edge on their competitors in the restaurant biz, trying to impress friends and family, or working to enhance their own skills, staying up to date with new tools and techniques is a must. One of the newest trend that's come around in the past five years has been sous vide cooking.
What Is Sous Vide?
Sous vide cooking is the process of cooking food with heated water in vacuum sealed bags. The term "sous vide" comes from the French phrase which means "under vacuum". The overall goal is to have your food reach the water temperature that you set the sous vide to. This temperature controlled cooking technique makes for extremely laid back cooking and preparation that don't involve specific cook times. Most basic sous vide cookers look like a wand or a hair curler that you can attach to any pot or saucepan. And no need to worry about about the vacuum sealed bags for a sous vide, as any regular Ziploc bag works fine for sealing and securing your food.
Sous vide cooking has become such a sensation because of how easy it is to use and the ability to produce dazzling final results. For example, sous vide eggs are a regular feature at many Korean restaurants and some of the best steakhouses in the world use a sous vide to make sure their steaks are cooked at a precise temperature throughout the whole cut.
Sous Vide Cookers
There are many different types of sous vide cookers for you to choose from. The most basic style of sous vide, as I mentioned before, is a wand-like device that you can clip on to any pot, pan, or even some plastic tubs. Anova Culinary and Joule Sous Vide by ChefSteps are the best versions of these. The Anova Sous Vide clips to the side of the container, while the Joule Sous Vide sticks to the bottom.
If you want to get more technical, there are some all encompassing sous vide cookers where you get the entire package. These products contain the tanks to hold the water in as well. The Tribest Sousvant Sous Vide Circulator is a good way to go if you want to have full control over your sous vide cooking. If you really want to go all the way, the Sous Vide Supreme Water Oven is the professional method of keeping everything pressurized and can keep the temperature to within 1 single degree of your liking.
Sous Vide Recipes
Now comes the good part. Using a sous vide is a great way to come up with some extremely low stress and incredibly tasty creations. Sous vide steak is obviously the most popular and for good reason. When you cook a steak in a pan or on the grill, the cooking temperature is going to vary throughout the different layers of the steak. That means the outside is going to be more cooked than the middle and it's very difficult to regulate your steak being rare, medium rare, medium, etc. With a sous vide, you can guarantee that your steak will be cooked at the same temperature throughout, and the best part is there's no possible way you can overcook it! Cooking a steak on the grill requires an amazing level of precision and focus but for a sous vide steak, all you have to do is throw it in and it's perfect in about an hour. After you take it out of the bag, just sear it on both sides to get some grill marks and texture and you're all done.
Here are some other great sous vide recipes to try out. Enjoy!