Sous Vide Cooking

Today I saw an interesting piece of sous vide cooking equipment called Chef Touch System from KitchenAid. This concept gather a vacuum chamber sealer (a must in terms of vacuum that gives you the possibility to add liquids such as oil or a marinade in you pouch without destroying the machine) a shock freezer (very usefull and safe device if you want to keep meats in the freezer after you cooked it at low temperature) and a steam oven.

The concept of this all in one sous vide equipment gives an idea of what could look our kitchen in a close futur. The only weak point of this beautiful item is the steam oven. Why not replacing it with a PID controlled steared water bath?

Any idea of the price of the Chef Touch System and availability?

JF

Who never dreamed of getting a bath that would be at the perfect and desired temperature? I want to reassure you, I have not tried my immersion circulator in my bath but I was sure this would work in a baby pool!!!

DANGER OF ELECTRIC SHOCK: Please keep in mind that you MUST NOT immerge an immersion circulator in a waterbath that would contain an human being, or an alive animal (if dead, better put the animal sous vide for better result

Today was a nice day in Paris but not warm enough for my little cousine to enjoy her baby pool on the balcony. Anyway she has insisted a lot to fill the pool and I did so, but the water coming out of the pipe was  cold. Then I had the option or to pour a big pan of hot water inside the baby pool or to use…my immersion circulator.

If you know Addelice Immersion Circulator you may know a float switch cuts the heater if the water level is too low. For the purpose of this post I blocked the float switch with a tape. I just had to take care the pump was immerged.

Herunder the result : a nice 31°C baby pool!

Jean-François

When I started cooking sous vide, one year ago, I searched information about cooking times and temperatures on internet. Nothing was available at this time except Douglas Baldwin Practical Guide to Sous Vide. Therefore I purchased some books that were rated good or excellent on some online shops such as “Under Pressure – Cooking Sous Vide” of Thomas Keller and “Sous-Vide: Garen im Vakuum” of Viktor Stampfer. These books were nice with beautiful pictures…but not really containing relevant technical information. Above all, sous vide recipes of these books couldn’t be reproduced without a penetration probe. Then I realized that Douglas Baldwin’s Guide was the best source of information.

At the same time I heard about a book from Spanish cooks called Joan Roca and Salvador Brugués. But this book was available in Spanish only. This book is now available in English and French. The price of this book is crazy! I saw some online shop proposing it at USD 200! I bought mine in French language at EUR 110 incl. shipping.

The book is nice and full of technical information (100 pages of tech. information to be compared with 50 pages of recipes). I didn’t have time so far to read it completely but one think already disappointed me, you cannot find cooking tables such as Baldwin ones. If you want to cook with Joan Roca and Salvador Brugués cooking book then you need to purchase some turbigomme and a penetration probe…again. Anyway this book seems very interested and I’ll give you my feed back soon about it.

Jean-François

Rhubarb is the vegetable of my childhood, my mum was often preparing jam out of fresh rhubarb coming directly from our garden.
I found the post from The British Larder’s blog about rhubarb cooked sous vide interesting. Therefore I have decided to reproduce the recipe and try to obtain a delicious rhubarb tart.
Madalene recipe is easy:

• 140g rhubarb
• 30g sugar
• 30g water
• 1 vanilla pod

Madalena recommends a hard vacuum for this recipe. I was happy to test my MiniVac (a very compact vacuum chamber sealer) at this occasion. I am almost sure you can obtain a similar final result with a good clamp vacuum sealer.

With a storng vacuum, color of fruits and vegetables appear more intense as usual. It is also amazing to observe the sudden transparency of the food stuff.
Contrary to what was recommended by The British Larder (61°C during 20 minutes) I cooked the rhubarb 61°C during 45 minutes with my immersion circulator. I had the strange intuition that rhubarb can’t be cooked at 61°C during 20 minutes.

The result was excellent, not too soft, not too hard. The vanilla syrup was very tasty. The texture of the rhubarb was also surprising. As you will see on the picture bellow the rhubarb cooked sous vide at 61°C is not becoming mushy at all. The rhubarb remains in one piece.

Here is the final result, a rhubarb tart I let probably a little bit too long in the oven. Anyway, it was delicious.

Jean-François

I was very surprised to see that the Sousvide Supreme was today available in Europe (Kookpunt.nl – Netherlands) at € 599 (incl. shipping?).
No star Chef, no Heston Blumenthal for the introductory in Europe of the so called  “water oven”?
So strange that the Sousvidesupreme (USD 449 in the US) is now almost as expensive as a Grant SV100 immersion circulator and 30% more expensive than a swid! Please keep in mind that, contrary to what was said in several articles on internet,  the Sousvidesupreme is not an immersion circulator but a non stirred water bath (PID controlled).

JF