Books
Are Douglas Baldwin Sous Vide Cooking Tables Correct? Review of Baldwin’s table with a 30 mm Salmon Mi-Cuit
by jean-francois on Mar.15, 2010, under Books, Equipement, Time and Accurate Temperature
As you may already know Douglas Baldwin “Practical Guide to sous Vide Cooking” is to date probably one of the only serious source of information about sous vide that you can download for free on internet (English, Portuguese/Brazil, French and German). The revolution of this document is to allow home cooks cooking sous vide with tables. No need of an external probe to be inserted in the pouch in order to get the internal temperature of the food. Before using Baldwin tables I purchased most of the books available but none of them were mentioning the thickness of food as a key information in order to cook sous vide. Therefore, in my opinion, all these books can be considered as art books but not cooking books where recipes can be reproduced.
I have experimented Baldwin tables for a while now and I have to admit that I have never been sick or disappointed by the degree of doneness according to the temperatures given.
Nevertheless I realized that nobody on the net ever discussed if Baldwin tables are correct or not. Do I have to accept the fact that everybody is assuming these tables are accurate?
This the reason why I decided to purchase an external penetration probe and verify by myself. For those who would like to purchase such equipment I want to say that I made a mistake in my previous post when buying the needle probe from Thermoworks. The one that should be used for sous vide (water proof) is THS-113-181 only (see on the right of the picture). The needle is very thin (1 mm) and long enough to get inside a 7 cm thick beef fillet (incl. the turbigomme foam).
For my first test of Baldwin table I took a cut of salmon, 30 mm thick that I wanted to cook “mi-cuit” at 47°C. Douglas Baldwin table indicates 1 hour and 2 minutes cooking time. As mentioned in Baldwin document I raised the temperature of my immersion circulator of 0.5°C (47.5°C) in order to be sure to reach the target temperature of 47°C.
In order to comply totally with Baldwin table I took care the core temperature of the salmon was 5°C. This step made me realizing that my fridge is definitely not cold enough as the core temperature of my salmon was 10°C before chilling it! As illustrated on the picture I immersed the pouch in iced water for some minutes.
As mentioned above I set my immersion circulator at 47.5°C for 1:02 and noted frequently the data in order to make a graph out it.
And the result is EXCELLENT!
I was very surprised to see how fast the temperature was raising during the first minutes. I was also having some doubts when the countdown of my sous vide equipment was indicating 22 minutes left while the core temperature of the salmon was 36.6°C. The last tenth of degrees take really long to be reached and I now understand why you should set your sous vide appliance 0.5°C above the target temperature…if you don’t it will take ages before you really reach the target temperature.
Jean-François
Pear cooked Sous Vide at 80°C during 30 minutes
by jean-francois on Jan.02, 2010, under Books, Recipes, Time and Accurate Temperature
Bruno Goussault’s DVD mentions a recipe of a pear cooked sous vide:
- 1 pear
- 30 g chocolate
- 20 g vanilla sugar (vanilla extract plus sugar)
The recipes mentions puting the pear sous vide and immerse the pouch in a water bath set at a temperature of 8O°C until the pear is “done”.
Their is no mention of the cooking time. I checked several times the pear before it becomes too soft and therefore decided to stop cooking the pear after 30 minutes. I chilled the pear and kept it in the fridge one day before serving it.
The result is a very nicely cooked pear but I can’t say this pear was something special. It was good but nothing amasing. I think the main advantage of this way of cooking pears is the possibility to keep them 15 to 25 days in the fridge (at the condition to keep them in the pouch). This is definitely a very good point for professionnals.
Jean-François
Bruno Goussault’s DVD about Sous Vide Technique and Recipes
by jean-francois on Dec.26, 2009, under Books
Santa Clause brought me a very interesting gift: a DVD full of videos, interviews and information about sous vide. This DVD was made by Bruno Goussault who is a worldwide authority in sous vide cooking. It seems to be available in French only for EUR 37. The Title of this DVD is “Recettes et techniques culinaires en vidéo – La cuissons sous vide à juste température”.
I have not seen all the videos so far but I have already noted some very interesting information I’ll share with you soon. Click here for a preview of this DVD.
Jean-François
A Practical Guide To Sous Vide Cooking of Douglas Baldwin now available in French and German
by jean-francois on Oct.12, 2009, under Books, General Topics, Time and Accurate Temperature
Good news for sous vide enthusiast who are not comfortable with the English language. Douglas Baldwin “Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking” has been translated en French and German by Addélice. This guide is therefore available in 4 languages (incl. Portuguese).
We are also waiting for the launch of addélice immersion circulator (the Swid) that should be vailable in some days (addélice postponed several time the launch of the Swid but told me some days ago that it should be available within one week. For the record, the Swid should be at EUR 449 incl VAT and sending costs!
Jean-François
Cooking Sous Vide – Under Pressure by Thomas Keller
by jean-francois on Aug.24, 2009, under Books
Everebody talks about this book, especially in the US. My uncle made me a great surprise offering me this book for holidays! I just received it so I can’t tell you so much about it. I read the first chapters of the book and was very interested in the history of sous vide.
Pictures look great, this is definitly the perfect sous vide gift!
Jean-François
English 
Français 
