Sous-Vide

After long resisting the movement of sous-vide cooking as unnecessary and tedious, I decided to swallow my pride and try it out (as a quick background, sous-vide is slow cooking vacuum packed protein in a hot water bath around 60degrees - and we're back). And now, I'm convinced. My first foray in the art was not without tribulation (we'll get to that), but I must admit, the end product was an effect unreproducible through any other cooking method.

Quick facts

Dish: Sesame crusted chicken in a Thai salad.

Cooking time: long.

Result: great success.

The first hurdle encountered was the absence of a vacuum packer, so the brainstorming began. Many ideas were discarded for obvious reasons; sticky tape, surgical gloves, plastic laminate and condoms to name a few. Although the later might be revisited when Masterfoods and Trojan team up to release a line of gourmet herb and spice flavoured-condoms. Trojan gourmet - every sausage deserves the masterchef treatment. But i digress.

Eventually the duct tape of the kitchen, the ever trusty, glad wrap was settled on. So came problem two - no thermal immersion circulator. This was tediously circumvented using a large saucepan placed half over the smallest flame I could produce. Surprisingly, my rather imprecise meat thermometer informed me this set up maintained the temperature at an ideal ~63 degrees.

After generously coating the chicken in whisked egg and sesame seeds, it was thrice wrapped in glad wrap, then wrapped once more for good measure. This was placed in the water and weighed down with a smaller saucepan lid. 1:45hr later it was removed and the praying that it was cooked began. As I sliced into that tender, succulent chicken a wave of relief enveloped the kitchen as a slice fell away to reveal a perfectly cooked centre. On to a salad of Cos lettuce, some red lettuce, carrot, capsicum and sugar snap peas it went. After drizzling with a refreshing lime and chilli Thai dressing, it was complete.

The end result was the most incredibly moist and soft pieces of chicken I've ever had. Sous-vide literally degrades the proteins in meat, and if left for another 30mins or so i would hazard a guess that it would have turned to mush. But as it was, it was held together just enough to melt in your mouth. The biggest improvement I could have made would have been to sear off the chicken after removing from the water. This would have further evoked the flavours of the sesame seeds and crisped them nicely to contrast the soft centre (much like a Lindor Lindt chocolate), but ultimately I was ready to eat and the 30seconds that would have been required seemed too much.

While I would like to claim awesomeness, I found this website to be an invaluable reference and highly recommend it to anybody trying sous-vide for the first time. My set up was perhaps (read definitely) not the best option for sous-vide, but when faced with price tags approaching $1000 for a good immersion circulator, I must say this is a perfectly acceptable alternative for the occasional dabble. Other than the unique texture, the biggest benefit in sous-vide can be seen in the uniformity of the cooked product. Instead of having the centre at the perfect temperature with the temperature (and associated overcookedness) increasing towards the circumference, the entire cross section will show the same perfect level of doneness.

This is definitely a technique I would recommend trying at least once (if you're not confident perhaps use something other than chicken). Or at least, order it when you see it on a restaurant menu next time.

Happy Eating!