I just made a video about reverse-sear steak, and I am sure I will get a ton of people asking
me why don’t I just sous-vide it.
And I think it’s about time for me to come out of the closet and say it like it is.
I am not a big fan of the sous-vide method.
I don’t mean just for steak.
I mean for almost everything.
There are a couple of exceptions.
For the halibut and duck breast, I’ll pull out my immersion circulator, but for everything
else -- nah!
For years I’ve tried to like it because my students and viewers asked me for sous-vide
recipes and advice.
I’ve made videos about it.
I’ve taught classes about, but my heart is just not in that vacuum sealed bag.
There are a couple of reasons for my sous-vide apathy.
The first one is uniformity.
Sous-vide produces perfectly uniform results.
It sounds like a feature, but to me, it’s actually a bug.
Good cooking is not perfectly uniform.
A charred crust with a medium-rare inside is a close approximation of a beautifully
cooked piece of meat, but it’s not the same as a beautifully cooked piece of meat.
The problem is that cooking proteins is error prone.
Most home cooks mess it up really badly.
Most well trained restaurant cooks could do it without the time pressure, but on a busy
night they make mistakes too.
Sous-vide is a way to automate it.
It doesn’t produce perfect results, but it produces consistent results that are really
good.
And of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Some people find sous-vide meat to be tastier than what the best restaurant cook could produce
without the sous-vide method.
That’s great!
I am not telling anyone not to cook sous-vide.
I am just saying that I’d rather have a roast chicken than a sous-vide chicken.
Another thing I don’t like about sous-vide is how quickly you need to serve the food
before it gets cold.
When I cook meat using the traditional methods, it needs time to rest and during this time
I can make a pan sauce, plate the side dishes, assemble the plates, and call everyone to
the table.
If I want a pan sauce after a sous-vide preparation, it’s tough.
By the time the sauce is done, the protein is cold.
And the brown bits left in the pan aren’t all that great, because sous-vide proteins
can’t handle a good sear.
Now let’s talk about the cooking process.
People rarely discuss the enjoyment of the cooking process itself.
But it is important.
Personally, I don’t enjoy the procedure of putting meat in plastic, submerging it
in the water, extracting a damp gray thing out of the bag, and then incinerating it in
the skillet.
Even if the results are quite tasty, the process is not appealing to me.
I dread it, and cooking is not something I usually dread.
It’s something I look forward to.
I like the smells, the sounds, and the visual transformation of ingredients.
Sous-vide lacks that aesthetic.
It’s always interesting to hear what other home cooks have to say about sous-vide.
I am probably stereotyping here, and I don’t have any real data on this -- I just have
anecdotal evidence from talking to my students.
But here is what I’ve heard.
Many women tell me that sous-vide is fine, but they enjoy the process of regular cooking
more.
They might use it for convenience here and there, but I am not hearing a ton of enthusiasm
from most women.
Men, on the other hand, seem much more excited about it.
If Thomas Kellar, Grant Achatz, and René Redzepi use it, they want to use it too.
They want to be like the big boys.
Another sentiment is the pure joy that there is a tool that gives you control.
That you can own control.
Given what a control freak I am, I totally understand.
I completely expected to feel this way too.
I love scales, thermometers, and other control tools.
Why don’t I feel the same about sous-vide?
I am not sure, but here is my best guess.
A thermometer doesn’t change a steak, it checks a steak.
A scale doesn’t change pasta.
If I serve you a bowl of pasta, you’ll never know if I weighed the flour or if I measured
it by handfuls.
But the food cooked using the sous-vide method is blatantly obvious.
A sous-vide egg is not a poached egg.
And a sous-vide chicken is not a roast chicken.
To me.
Maybe to someone it’s not the same, it’s even better, but to me, it’s not better.
What are your thoughts?
Do you cook using the sous-vide method?
What do you cook and why?
Is it more convenient?
Is it more tasty?
Or is it both?
Here are more thought provoking culinary videos for you to check out and if you are ever in
the Boston area, maybe I’ll see you in one of my classes.