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I have a bunch of food fanatic friends who like upscale cooking and the associated gadgets. A number of them started talking about Sous Vide cooking a couple years ago.

This is a process where you take your food item (usually a meat), seal it in a waterproof bag (or vacuum pack), and then put it in circulating water which the Sous Vide maintains at a very fixed temperature (variance under 1 degree I believe). Then you leave it in there for an extended time to get it exactly to the temperature you want (can’t beat convective heat transfer from circulating water). Once it has been in there long enough to attain thermal equilibrium, you take it out and brown the outside (in a pan or with a torch) and you are done.

This means if you want a steak perfectly medium rare, you sous vide it to 130F for 30-40 minutes, take it out, brown it quickly (so you don’t dump in extra heat) and you get your steak medium rare throughout. No uneven cooking or such.

So, in the interest of sowing a future Christmas present for myself, I bought one for my sister since the price has come down on them to rational from ‘Good Lord that’s steep!’.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GT753W8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

She put it to limited use, then decided to move and take very little with her, so she shipped it to me to use. I have been putting it to good use. I am particularly taken with how it does a pork chop. Traditionally I’ve always ended up with overdone dried out chops, and hence I’ve avoided them. With the sous vide, you can get them to an internal of 140F, pan fry them in some butter and you get a damned good, juicy pork chop. Best if you season it in advance before you do the immersion. The nice thing is that pork chops are only about $2/lb in bulk at Sams when even hamburger is around $4/lb these days.

Mind you, these are not cheap devices, and work best if you also have a vacuum sealer. However the results are really quite amazing.

I use the Sous vide system for Veggies. I like the golden potato coins. Cut potatoes into 1/4 inch thick circles. Lay them flat in a vacuum punch so they do not touch each other , add a tablespoon of butter (cut into small chunks ) on top of the potatoes circles. Add a small amount of EVOO, salt and pepper to taste. I use garlic and onion salt sometimes. Seal bag. Some set the temp of the water at 185 F. But I use 175 f and the results are the same. Cook for 1 hr. Remove the bag and pour the contents into a bowl. Heat a iron fry pan on high . Add the Sous vide potatoes circles and fry until golden brown. Can do 1/4 cut up potatoes to. Best to cook veggies in separate bags.Good Eating. I leave the skins on when I cook the potatoes. You can cook most veggies Sous vide and the results are truly amazing. Chicken is juicy when cooked this way. Lots of books out there on this method of cooking. You can use Almost any thing that is heat proof and holds liquids. There is on immersion heaters around $200 dollars and clips to the side of a pan. To slow water evaporation. Warp foil over the top of the pan. Check often to insure that the water level is covering the food. I use zip lock bags to hold the food. Using the water displacement method for removing the air. You can take the food out of the freezer and put it in the water bath. Just increase the cooking time 1 hour for the defrosting to reach the middle of the food. Best to cut up chicken,duck, or turkey into pieces. An cook the dark meat first at 175 f in a separate bag . Leave in the bath and lower the tempt to 160 f for the white meat (also in a separate bag). You do not need to de-bone the meat. Just cover any sharp bones with parchment paper.Note: you can do the same, by cooking Veggies at 185 f. When they are done you lower the tempt for the meat you want to cook. You do not have the remove the Veggies while the meat cooks. If you want to cook something today but use it tomorrow. Go head and cook it. Then quickly cool down the cooked item by placing the bag right out of the water bath and into a 1/2 water and ice mixture that will completely cover the bag. If the bag floats weight it down with a plate. You leave it in the ice water until the middle of the cooked item is cooled to below 37 F. About one hour. Then refrigerate or freeze the item. To reheat just set the water bath for what ever tempt you want to serve the item at. Put bag in the bath and heat then remove food from bag, pat dry and sear on high tempt for about 30 seconds to 1 minute per side for the browning effect. Also you will notice that the meat in more red in color. This is normal. Just gets use to seeing it. If the bag floats while cooking weight it down with a plate. When cooking veggies you will see the bag float because of the gases released when cooking. Just open the zip lock bag and reseal. It is really a set-it and forget-it cooking. You do not burn the food. Do not have to watch the set tempt. Just add some water maybe once or twice. After you use the system you know when you need to add water to maintain the correct level of cooking water. Some food can be cook in 1 hr but left in the bath at that the cooking temp for up to 4 to 6 hr with hardly any lost of weight and not burning. Bet you can not do that with a prime rib steak in a frying pan set on the stove. and serve it at 135 f. How about ribs 6 hours or 24 hour to 48 hours or pork shoulder.