Ask the person with the Sous Vide Supreme

Cafe Society
1

At the request of Lindsaybluth in this thread, I’m here to answer questions on sous-vide.

My primary hobby is cooking. I’ve taken ~75 hours of formal French technique courses, and have been cooking since I was a wee Goddess. I’ve known about sous-vide cooking for several years, having read about it in various chef’s books, eaten it at some amazing restaurants, and (of course) watching Top Chef.

Sous-vide is a cooking technique that’s been around for at least 20 years. It formally translates as “under vacuum” but that’s not a great description of the technique. The idea is that you seal food in plastic and cook it in a water bath at a precise temperature for a long time. With this technique, you can get perfectly-cooked food with no room for error; you simply can’t overcook food because the water bath itself never gets higher than what you set it as. For example, if you want a perfectly medium rare steak, seal it up, throw it in the water bath at 135 degrees, and walk away. When you come back in an hour (or 3 or 4), it’s perfectly medium rare, all the way through. Throw it under the broiler to get a nice char on the outside and you’re good to go.

Until last fall, sous-vide setups were either something you tried to rig up yourself, or you bought expensive professional gear. Then came the SousVide Supreme - a device intended for home use. Not cheap, but considering the professional versions were many thousands of dollars, it at least brought it into the realm of home use.

It started to get reviews from places I trusted (here and here). I considered buying one, but it was pricey enough that I didn’t. Mr. Athena was listening, though, and he got me one on my 40th birthday, in early January.

Along with the sous-vider, he got a couple really nice filets (flown in from Lobel’s!). We cooked them all day, and sure enough, they came out perfectly medium rare, all the way through. These were 2.5" thick steaks, there’s no way I could have done that using traditional cooking techniques. You don’t get any of the “bullseye” effect you get with traditional cooking, where the outer bits are more done than the center.

Aside from steaks, I’ve also made chicken breast & thighs, eggs, beef roast (sliced thin for sandwiches), flank steak, duck confit, pork ribs, various vegetables, and even used it as a poacher to make mortadella.

Ask away!

2

Well… I’m dying to know…

How was the food??? I’m mainly interested in the chicken and I wonder if you’ve made fish. What was the steak texture like?

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The chicken is ethereal. Seriously. I’ve done boneless chicken breasts & thighs, and they are both incredibly good.

Anything you put in the sous-vider is supposed to be boneless, as the bones can cause uneven heating.

I put the chicken in the bag with some butter and a thin slice of lemon and a shake of salt, and cook at ~146 for maybe an hour. Take them out, and if there’s skin, either broil or crisp it with a torch (another birthday present!). I usually pour the butter & accumulated juices into a pan and reduce a little bit to make a sauce.

Even plain ol’ breasts come out flavorful and juicy with this technique. I’ve never much liked chicken breasts, but honestly, they were so good that I’m using them instead of the thighs now because if I can get the same flavor with less fat/calories, bring it on.

Steak is the same - the texture comes out better than the best steak you’ve ever had. I’m digging around for pictures now.

I have not done fish yet, for the simple reason that fish (other than ubiquitous whitefish and trout) is of low quality and hard to find in my area. I do want to try the whitefish/trout one of these days, I just haven’t yet. I had some amazing Michigan trout sous-vide at Alinea (restaurant in Chicago). I doubt I can totally reproduce it, but it’s worth a try.

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I put up some pics - you can see them here.

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How do you vacuum seal the stuff? Does the machine come with bags and a pump?

ETA: amazing food pics!

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Doh! I can’t believe I forgot to address this.

The machine does NOT come with a vacuum sealer. You have to buy that separately. For me, it was no big deal, because I had a vacuum sealer already. But if you don’t, you have to factor that into the cost.

If you really want to get serious, you get a chamber vacuum sealer, which allows you to seal in liquid. The ones you buy for home use will suck out any liquid as part of the vacuum process, so any liquids must be frozen before sealing.

Things come out plenty juicy without adding liquid, so this hasn’t been a big deal for me. Which is good, since the cheapest chamber sealer I’ve seen is about $2500.

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Damn. I want. I want I want I want. A torch too. i want!

DO you use the vacuum sealer for food storage as well? Can I ask how that works for you?

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Yup, that’s the reason I originally bought the food sealer many years ago.

It works pretty well for food storage. I have a stand up freezer, and freeze a lot of meats, and it’s been great. It can be a little finicky with the seal at times - it is possible to have small holes in the seal that will leak in air slowly. If you make the bags big enough it’s rarely a problem, but they are pricey so I’m always trying to use the least amount per bag so I get myself in trouble sometimes!

With Sous-viding, I really, really don’t want my bag to leak in the water bath, so I make sure to use a large enough bag and seal it twice. So far, I haven’t had any leakage at all.

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I buy meat in quantity (sounds nicer than “in bulk” :)) and prep and store it away in our chest freezer. I often like to freeze it away in a marinade of some sort, so I’ve been thinking about a vacuum bag system. If it works with a sous-vide, well, bonus!

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Your cooking resume for a home cook is pretty great, Athena!

This is the most fascinating aspect to me. I’ve eaten in some pretty darn nice places, but never sous vide, and I literally can’t conceive what a medium rare steak the whole way through would be like.

Is there any downside to having to broil/grill the outside when you take it out so that it has a nice crust? What’s the ratio of stuff you have to “cook a second time” to stuff that comes out ready to serve from the sous vide?

In the Times piece, the reviewer commented on how it feels odd not to sample, taste, and use your senses with sous vide. Do you find that to be a problem at all, or do you get your “fix” from browning/broiling/getting a crust on the food afterwards?

Have you done any vegetarian dishes in it? And how does meal prep time differ - less “active” but more “overall” time is what I’d expect.

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Oh wow. What a cool thing. The photos are awesome! And if it can make boneless chicken breasts interesting, I’d say it’s worth the $.

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Can I express my intense jealousy? I’m a vegetarian but I’d still love this; my omnivorous husband would be a very happy camper, trying out all of my “let’s see how this cooks up” experiments.

I recently went to Thomas Keller’s Bouchon in Las Vegas while on a business trip, and kind of internally whimpered over the mention of the sous-vide dishes in the specials list - none of which I could eat, of course.

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Thank you! It’s been a big hobby of mine pretty much forever, but has increased over the past 8 year since I moved to a town where if I want anything other than bar food, I need to cook it myself.

You might be surprised - a LOT of high end restaurants use sous-vide but don’t advertise it.

I think everything that I’ve made needs crisping on the outside, with the exception of boneless skinless chicken breasts (nothing to crisp!) and vegetables. I don’t see it as much of a downside; lots of dishes require last-minute prep work, this is just one more thing like that. It doesn’t take long, nor is it difficult, so no biggie.

It is kind of weird to not have to check on things. On the other hand, it’s pretty nice to just be able to put things in and forget about them. It’s a strange juxtaposition - I’m cooking things using cool new techniques that all the fancy chefs are using, but the process itself is more like something I’d get out of a cookbook aimed at beginner cooks or busy working people. I admit, I tend to open the cover and look at the food a lot while it cooks, but it’s all sort of like “Yup, it’s still there” then you close it up again.

I’ve done carrots and beets in it. The beets were neither better nor worse than roasting beets (which is what I normally do) - they had a nice texture and tasted good. But I did have to peel raw beets which is a hassle. So overall, for beets, roasting wins because they’re just as tasty that way and less work, since roasted beet skins slip right off.

Carrots were better in the sous vider, I think. I glazed them by adding some butter & sugar & salt to the bag, and they were perfectly cooked, very sweet (from the carrots themselves, not the sugar), and delicious. Would do that again definitely.

Exactly. Very little active time at all. Overall time is longer for tougher and/or thicker cuts of meat. For thin steaks/chicken breast/etc, they cook up in 30-60 minutes, so not too much time there. Fish goes very quickly (not that I’ve tried it yet).

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Oh! Forgot to mention, I did the apples mentioned in the NY Times article as well. They were amazing! Very nice.

So see, Ferret Herder, there may be sous-vide stuff for you as well!

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I worked as a line cook from about '86-'89 at a small regional chain in Baltimore (they also had locations in DC and Virginia), and quite a bit of our hot stuff was Sous Vide. I didn’t handle any of the Sous Vide prep, although I would have loved to have seen that done – all that was prepped at central kitchens and delivered regularly. We learned all about it though, and I remember them making a big deal about how revolutionary it was at the time.

The cooking itself was completely idiot proof, and the results were indeed very, very good. I was a teenager without much training turning out quality meals. Of course, I was just doing the ‘bathing’ of the foods and presentation, but the process was great.

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That looks like a very interesting and versatile system you have there and I thank you for sharing.

If you don’t mind me asking, how wide is the available temperature range? I’m wondering if it goes high enough to kill bacteria and produce shelf stable, MRE type meals. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to stock my survival shelter but it might be very handy for a weekend camping trip.

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Wow, that must be frustrating. When I visit my parents (there are some places slightly better than Olive Garden) I find myself hauling my food in bags and coolers with me.

So you can open the lid and you won’t lose any heat? That’s what I’ve always hated about crockpot cooking - I wanna taste it and poke it, dammit!

How long does it take for the thing to heat up, and what’s the range of temperatures?

One of the few vegetables I dislike cooked are carrots, so I’m intrigued. Do you usually just do one bag per night/meal, or do you do separate bags for the same dinner?

Also, do you see any upside for fish in the sous vide? I generally like mine broiled, but I suppose it would work the same way steak does, sticking it in the oven quickly to crisp a bit.

:smack: So I’ve definitely had it then and just didn’t know it. Never had a sous vide steak though, that’s for sure. I very rarely eat steak - maybe once ever few months - but I’ve honestly dreamed about what a steak would taste like medium rare the whole way through. Kind of like how I dreamed about jet packs, except this has come true!

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It goes from 41 degrees to 203 degrees F.

Bacteria is an issue, and when I realized I was cooking things at low temperature for long periods of time… I worried some. As it turns out, as long as you keep things at a steady temperature for a bit of time, it kills most things. Check out the USDA PDF here.

Shelf-stable, I’m not sure. What’s required for that? I’m figuring most sous-vide things are fridge-stable for a while after cooking, but I’ve been wondering how long I can keep them myself as well.

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Thanks for replying. I’d be amazed if it can actually produce shelf stable foods and in retrospect I probably shouldn’t have even asked. I know that commercial systems use much higher temperatures and pressures than could easily be achieved at home. Still, if you don’t ask, you don’t find out.

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It’s good and bad; it’s saved us enough money that we bought a sous-vide supreme :smiley:

Temp range is 41-203 degrees, though there’s no cooling element so I don’t know how it would maintain 41. Heat up time depends on how hot you need it; getting to 130-140 takes maybe 10 minutes, maybe double that for 180.

You can’t open up a crockpot and poke things? I don’t have one, so I have no clue. I’ve opened the sous vider and looked at stuff without any significant change in temperature.

I haven’t done both veggies and meat sous-vide for the same meal, simply because they typically need different temperatures. I think you could if you wanted - you could cook the veggies, remove them, lower the temperature, then cook the meat and re-heat the veggies for the last 20 min or so.

Fish is one of the best things you can sous-vide; fish is so delicate that it’s very easy to overcook. I’ve had some amazing sous-vide fish at restaurants. You can bet that if I could buy more fish locally, I’d be sous-viding away. Hmm. Maybe I need to revisit the fish counter at Wal-Mart - if you can believe it, it’s the only grocery store in town with a fish counter, and I rarely shop there so I tend to forget about it. And, of course, being on Lake Superior I have a constant supply of very good lake trout and whitefish - so constant that I tend to overlook it because I get it when we eat out a lot.