[hrothgar]

Bought myself a sous vide cooking rig last weekend.

Enjoying it immensely (though there has been at least one severe miss - step)

Tonight's dinner turned out absolutely brilliantly.
Cod poached in olive oil and a heirloom tomato reduction.

[dicklont]

I had never heard about sous vide cooking so I looked it up.
Now I'm not sure if the Water Cooler is the right place for this subject.

[1eyedjack]

Well, I suppose it works, since it seems that it has been around since the 18th century and hasn't died out since. Never tried it, but instinctively I shy away from it. Sealing stuff in a vacuum presumably prevents new pathogens from entering the system, but would not exclude those which are already present. The thought of leaving a fish in a sealed containor for 24 hours at 60 degrees brings visions to mind of that fish vendor in the Asterix cartoons.

[hrothgar]

1eyedjack, on Aug 22 2010, 01:21 PM, said:

Well, I suppose it works, since it seems that it has been around since the 18th century and hasn't died out since. Never tried it, but instinctively I shy away from it. Sealing stuff in a vacuum presumably prevents new pathogens from entering the system, but would not exclude those which are already present. The thought of leaving a fish in a sealed containor for 24 hours at 60 degrees brings visions to mind of that fish vendor in the Asterix cartoons.

I readily admit that food poisoning is one of my major concerns with the methodology. (I've jokingly been calling my initial experiments "Adventures with Botulism")

Both of my cookbooks open with long, involved talks on issued related to safety and sourcing.

[1eyedjack]

Talking of slow cooking, I have been looking around for inspiration on what to do for this year's Christmas bash, and came upon this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk...porkwithf_65663

Now, cooking time "8 - 24 hours" is my kind of margin for error

[blackshoe]

1eyedjack, on Aug 22 2010, 06:21 AM, said:

The thought of leaving a fish in a sealed containor for 24 hours at 60 degrees brings visions to mind of that fish vendor in the Asterix cartoons.

It brings memories to me of the local farmers in Vietnam making nuoc mam.

[ggwhiz]

What does Howie Mandell think of this?

[benlessard]

Ive heard form a top notch cook that sous vide is the best way for foie gras although manny purist will disagree.

[hrothgar]

benlessard, on Sep 3 2010, 03:58 PM, said:

Ive heard form a top notch cook that sous vide is the best way for foie gras although manny purist will disagree.

Sous vide originally jumped into high end cooking as a technique to improve yield when preparing foie gras. (Traditional techniques lead to too much shrinkage from fat rendering out of the livers)

I suppose the question boils down to a question of what is meant by "Best" <Bad pun, I know>.

Does the efficiency of the production process matter? In this case sous vide wins hands down. Alternatively, do we simply care about flavor (in this case, sous vide has pluses and minuses)

[gwnn]

dicklont, on Aug 22 2010, 10:12 AM, said:

I had never heard about sous vide cooking so I looked it up.
Now I'm not sure if the Water Cooler is the right place for this subject.

huh, do you think it's BBO/IBLF/bridge related?

[jjbrr]

I thought this was a bit interesting/dangerous/impractical. While the sense of accomplishment of doing everything yourself must be nice, surely an immersion circulator or something is a better bet.