The French surpass us in the kitchen once again
Home cooking has changed a lot over the past decade. Men are cooking at home more, women are cooking at home less, and people who used to struggle with Hamburger Helper are now gramming photos of homemade lamb tail fritters with artisan fern water that they made using an Instapot, air fryer, and $200 worth of duck fat.
Every year of the past decade had its own trendy kitchen gadget that promised to make cooking at home faster, easier, healthier and turn you into a regular Julia Splenderpoot in the eyes of your loved ones—which is essentially the same pitch kitchen appliance manufacturers have been promising home cooks for 70 years.
But among the spiralizers, mecha blenders, psychic fryers, and magicpots, there is one device that I predict will stand the test of time and eventually become as commonplace in home kitchens as crockpots and cursing—the sous vide machine (technically known as an immersion circulator).
Sous vide is French for “under vacuum” which immediately conjures up images of white lab coats, bunsen burners and pocket protectors, but sous vide is actually a cooking method that is simply the evolution of a technique that’s been around for centuries; slowly cooking food that’s been wrapped in something such as leaves, intestines, clay, or even submerged in fat to make it more tender, easier to eat, and easier to digest.
Over time, chefs, physicists, and commercial food scientists figured out that you can do miraculous things by putting food in a vacuum sealed bag, submerging it in water and cooking it at a very carefully controlled temperature. But do not confuse sous vide with its Neanderthal cousin “boil-in-a-bag.”
With boil-in-a-bag you’re heating up bagged food in boiling water. Sous vide, however, gently cooks food at well below boiling point. The immersion circulator heats the water to a precise temperature that matches the food’s ideal internal temperature and maintains that precise temperature.
What this means, practically speaking, is that there’s no guess work. If you put a steak in at 140° (the temperature for perfect medium-rare), there’s no chance that steak will go past that temperature and the entire steak end to end will cook to a perfect medium-rare. When you’re ready, take it out of the bag, sear it in a screaming hot cast iron skillet for about a minute on each side and like magic, you’ve got the perfect browning and caramelization you want on the outside with a perfect medium-rare inside.
Steaks are a great place to start but there is so much more you can do with an immersion circulator. If you start to look at an immersion circulator as a way to provide continual, precisely controlled heat rather than just another cooking gadget, a world of possibilities opens up in your kitchen.
Use an immersion circulator to infuse alcohol in hours rather than days to create your own combinations like green tea gin, coco rye whiskey, or Thai chili Aperol. Pasteurize foods like eggs, nut butters, fish, or homemade mayo that can be kept in the fridge for up to seven days and frozen for six months or longer. Sous vide cold brew coffee for less bitterness, create flavored oils, make silky-smooth custards and purées, even make your own yogurt—no Instapot or Greek grandmother required!
Ricotta cheese, condiments, sauces, fruit coulis, compotes, stocks, pickled vegetables, and perfectly cooked eggs every time can all be done while you sit and enjoy your favorite relaxing beverage. And if you forgot to chill your favorite beverage, the immersion circulator’s got you. On most models you can turn the temperature down and use it to rapid chill beverages when you forget to put them in the fridge.
Even with all the possibilities immersion circulators have to offer, my go-to everyday use for these versatile little devices is to cook vegetables. I seal up carrots, asparagus, beets, green beans, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, leeks or whatever vegetable I’m in the mood for into a bag with a little bit of seasoning and fat (butter, olive oil, etc.) and cook to stunning perfection.
The best part is that because it’s vacuum sealed, very little of the precious flavor can escape the vegetable and what does cook out, gets conveniently captured in the bag for you to make a delicious pan sauce at the end.
Was there a time when sous vide machines were expensive and pretentious? Certainly. But those days have passed just like hipsters and avocado lattes. So grab a Franklin and get yourself an immersion circulator and make something delicious!
Mike McJunkin is a native Chattanoogan who has traveled abroad extensively, trained chefs, and owned and operated restaurants. Join him on Facebook at facebook.com/SushiAndBiscuits