Sous vide: Cooking in a vacuum achieves consistent perfection

If you dine out frequently or find yourself drooling over TV shows like “Top Chef,” you have probably heard of sous vide (soo-VEED), a French term that means cooking “under pressure or vacuum.”

But you may not know why it has become an indispensable staple of many of the finest restaurants in the world.

Consistency and precision are hallmarks of all good cooking. The ability to nail that perfect fried egg or a blushing medium rare steak time after time is one of the hardest skills to master.

Technology has played a role in taking some of the guesswork out of cooking, with advancements such as nonstick skillets, digital thermometers and other implements. But few innovations have given cooks the ability to achieve precise accuracy in cooking meats, fish, fowl and vegetables like sous vide.

Sous vide cooking requires an immersion circulator, a device straight from the science lab. Think of it as the slow cooker’s much wiser, more efficient cousin. With the cost of such devices coming down into the $200 to $400 range in recent years, an increasing number of home cooks have started dabbling with the technology.

Food is sealed in plastic bags to remove air and then cooked in a water bath heated to the desired temperature. The method has become popular because it allows full control over ingredients of all kinds, especially meat, fish and poultry.

There is no suffering through the ups and downs of cooking uneven cuts to differing degrees of doneness or leaving something in the pan a minute too long. The gentle and precise temperature-controlled environment of a water bath means that something can be cooked through evenly and held for a period of time at the exact desired temperature, without over- or under-cooking.

Another bonus: You don’t lose the essence of flavor that renders out with many traditional cooking methods. Because nothing is leaving the airtight bag, you do not lose flavor to poaching water or braising liquid. And a carrot or beet cooked sous vide retains all of the vibrant nutrients it came out of the ground with.

One drawback to cooking items this way is that you miss the Maillard reaction, that is, some of the things we seek in delicious food, like grill marks on a steak or browned pork chop.

Most cooks get around this by cooking an ingredient to a desired temperature, then removing it from the bag and quickly searing it in a hot pan, creating crisp chicken skin or a steak with that perfect seared crust.

The equipment

The basic sous vide setup requires a heating implement placed in a container of water large enough to hold sealed pouches of food.

The most accurate tool for this is an immersion circulator, which has a heating element and a pump so that it agitates the water to surround what is being cooked and holds it at that temperature within a tenth of a degree. It is the ultimate “set it and forget it” kitchen instrument that allows you to work on other things while it does its job.

The newer Sansaire, Nomiku and Anova brand circulators, available at gourmet cookware stores and online, are around $200, with other models like the Polyscience Professional and Sous vide Supreme (which is a box water oven, not a circulator) moving up to the $400 range.

Large stockpots or food-safe plastic tubs in the 10- to 20-gallon range work well as vessels in which to submerge the circulator.

Affordable vacuum sealers, such as the FoodSaver, are available for $60 to $200. (An additional $10 or so buys a supply of bags.) These devices work by compressing all air out of the pouch before sealing food inside with a heat strip. The drawback to home models is liquids will often leak out, hindering the sealing process. For this reason, the recipes developed here use solid fats rather than liquids.

Many of the same rules that dominate conventional cooking apply to sous vide, starting with cleanliness and safety. Following standard food safety rules to avoid cross contamination is important when using vacuum-sealed items.

Some items, like fish or steak, are generally cooked under 140 degrees and should not be held for longer than 3 hours to avoid any chance of harmful bacteria. Following the manufacturers’ instructions regarding low temperature cooking is recommended.

The advantage to the sous vide method is that when cooking something as simple as a chicken breast or pork chop, you can cook and hold it without the need to cook it to well done. A chicken breast cooked sous vide at 155 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour is fully cooked through and retains a beautifully moist interior.

Sous vide also allows you to prepare many ingredients ahead of time, but if you are not consuming the dish immediately, it is best to chill all ingredients in an ice bath before refrigerating. Then when ready to use for a meal, reheat in a water bath and cook to desired doneness.

Times and temperatures

Every animal is a complex mix of lean and tougher meats, so look at the cut you are cooking and adjust time and temperature to it, much as you would if grilling or braising.

Lean muscles with less intramuscular fat, such as beef steaks, chicken white meat, and pork loins and chops cook quicker and at lower temperatures, generally in the 140 to 155 range for under 3 hours.

The tougher, fattier cuts such as beef short ribs, brisket and chuck roasts, pork or lamb shoulders and bellies and dark meat chicken cook for longer periods to break down those tissues to desired consistency, from 6 to 24 hours or more.

Softer green vegetables and more fibrous root vegetables cook differently. Both heat at a relatively high temperature of 185 to 190 degrees, with green vegetables cooking rather quickly and for short times to preserve their texture and color.

Root vegetables take longer, and as with tougher meat, have fibrous structures and pectin that take high heat and time to break down. Depending on size, those take around an hour or more to cook to a tender finish.

This story was originally published March 10, 2015 at 7:00 AM.