Sous Vide

I don’t enjoy cooking. So I am always looking for easier ways to get fed. But, I don’t like eating out all the time either. So I am always looking for easier ways to prepare food at home. Our newest method is called Sous Vide, pronounced “sue veed”. That apparently translates to “water bath”.

No, I’m not boiling all our food now. I know that’s what it sounds like but, honestly, I’m not.

It starts with buying a bunch of meat. LIke these steaks and pork chops.

meat

 

Then filling the meat’s bathtub with water.

water

 

And setting the temperature for the desired degree of done we want for this particular batch of meat.

power

 

We have special bags to put the meat into after first turning down the tops to keep from making a mess of the closures.

bags

 

Then the excess air gets vacuumed out of the bags.

vacuum

 

And the bags of meat are test fit into the water.

depth

 

Then more water is added to cover this particular batch of meat.

more water

 

Then we put the lid on and go watch TV, or do laundry, or whatever else is on the agenda while the cooker does its thing. Sometimes we set a timer to remind us to take the meat out but sometimes we don’t bother. In this case, we set the temperature for 140° for the steaks then came back an hour later and removed them; then we upped the temperature to 160° for the pork chops and put them in to cook. We came back several hours later to remove the pork chops. We could safely do this because the machine cooks the meat to just the temperature you selected then keeps it there until you are ready for it. Leaving it in longer does not make the meat overdone; it just makes it more tender. And who would object to steak you can cut with a butter knife?

Here’s what the pork chops look like right from the cooker.

pork chops

 

If you like your chops or steaks to look more finished, you can throw them on a hot grill for a few seconds per side to get that crispy outer crust so many like. Dave cooks his steaks that way because he likes his a little more done than I like mine.

And you can put seasonings or marinades right in the bag with the meat so you can gets lots of different flavors from each batch of cooking. And you can cook fish, poultry, eggs, and vegetables this way, too.

But, with only the effort it took to bag the meats and drop them into the cooker we made, I think, nine servings of meat to be readily available for consumption over the next few days.

Next fall, I plan to cook lots of meats this way and freeze them so when I head south for the winter I can eat for a long time while only having to thaw the meat and prepare side dishes. That’s a style of cooking that suits me just fine.

TTYL,

Linda

10 thoughts on “Sous Vide”

  1. Wow! That sounds like a lot of work to me but if you’re getting lots of meals, it’s probably not too bad. We’ve been using our little Weber for almost everything and have discovered it’s so much easier than cooking inside too. It’s actually about the easiest way I’ve ever cooked vegetables as well as potatoes too.

  2. I’ve never heard of this process. It’s interesting, but looks a little complex to get the finished results. I guess once you do the preparation, it’s easier (and faster) to cook a meal.

  3. The French person has to pipe up and tell you that ‘sous vide’ actually means ‘in a vacuum.’ So the technique is more about sucking the air out of the bags than the water bath.

    I’d have a hard time eating chops that look that grey and would need some sort of marinade!

  4. Ha! So I guess now you are ready to compete on Iron Chef America! That’s where I learned about that technique.

  5. I can see you could put this to good use on the road. I guess! unless plugging into the electric would be a problem somewhere. i’m sure it probably doesn’t use that much energy though?
    i’m not a cooker either. I do it only because I have to. eating out all the time is too expensive. I’ve never been an imaginative cook.
    it’s a necessary evil to me!!!

  6. “Sous vide” actually literally means “under vacuum”. Water bath would be “bain d’eau”.

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