More about sous vide cooking

Sous vide is French for ‘’under vacuum’’ and can be defined as the cooking method of using plastic bags which contain food such as meat, vegetables and fish vacuumed in it and cooked for a lot of hours in low temperature in a water bath. By using this technique, anyone with proper equipment and some basic knowledge can create delicious dishes.  This method is worldwide usable in hotels and restaurants.

Benefits

One factor that makes sous vide one of the best methods is that keeps your food juicy because while it’s in cooking process, the juices are not getting out of the bag but they are reabsorbed again by the ingredient and as a result the moisture stays there.

Another important thing that you can succeed in this method is to keep the food evenly cooked from the center to the outside. This factor is related to consistency because of the exact cooking time and temperature that you use.

Preparing for packaging

Marinating

Try to use a marinade with acidic ingredients so you can achieve a proper tenderness. Avoid wine because if the alcohol is not cooked, then it will vapor and the meat will be cooked uneven. But if you want to use wine, just heat it and then use it.

Temperature

Most of the foods cooked with sous vide are done below boiling temperatures varying from 50°C to 90°C. Sous vide machines perform more accurately with the set temperature. At 50°C meat slowly begins to tenderize as the connective tissue in the meat begins to break down. Meat also begins to lose its moisture above 60°C as the heat causes the collagen in the cells to shrink and wring out the moisture. This happens very quickly over 65°C and meat becomes completely dried out above 71°C. Below you can see a chart with some temperatures that you might find helpful.

Chilling

A big advantage of this method is that you can rapidly chill your food so you can extend its shelf life. Before using it, you must reheat it in a water bath with the same temperature or below and then sauté, grill ,or sear it. You have to be very careful, because the chilling must be immediate so you can avoid any multiplication of spores and also the food must not be refrigerated for a long time.