Page 59 - Sous Vide Que

meat, veggies, potatoes, and dessert, and if you don’t plan to
sear them or sauce them.
• I have heard sous vide experts say that one of the advantages of
sous vide is that there is more flavor because it is all trapped in the bag. When grilling or cooking on a stovetop or oven, they say, you can smell the flavor molecules escaping. Nonsense. There is an awful lot of very flavorful juice in the bag after sous vide. When cooking a 12 ounce hunk of brisket flat at 155°F, there was 4.5 ounces (by weight) of purge expelled.
Is Sous Vide A Fad?
Skeptics say this too will pass, like fondue pots and slow cookers. Both boomed when new, and now sit in the pantry and come out only a few times a year. Then there is the microwave oven. Few people prepare whole meals in them, but many of us use them regularly to defrost and reheat, to melt chocolate, and aid with other cooking techniques. What will be the impact of time on sous vide?
Sous vide is not new. Experiments began in the late 1960s. The first public sous vide meal was almost certainly served at the Holiday Inn in Greensboro, SC, in 1970 by Ambrose T. McGuckian. He had been an employee of Grace Cryovac, makers of commercial vacuum sealing systems, and was involved in programs to improve hospital food with NASA. Big advances in the method were made in the 1970s by Dr. Bruno Goussault, a brilliant French scientist, and Joel Robuchon, a brilliant French chef. But the original equipment was bulky, expensive, and complicated. It caught on with restaurants, especially those that served large parties. But it wasn't practical for home cooks.
In the past few years, the prices of sous vide machines have dropped, the equipment has become easier to use, and software has made it easier to find the right time and temperature. More and more foodies are using this method on a regular basis. If you're serving a crowd, it really simplifies things because most of the cooking is done ahead — and without your attention. As with a
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