Under Vacuum

The cooking technique you haven’t tried at home

The world really wants to sell you more appliances.  Slow cookers, air fryers, Instant Pot-type things.  Sandwich makers, panini presses, waffle irons, and toaster ovens.  If you actually bought everything that you kinda sorta thought you needed you’d probably need to add an extra room on your home.

Many of these appliances head for storage rooms once their counter space and cleaning requirements wear out their welcome.  And in storage such items stay because they are too heavy to move or aren’t worth getting out for just one meal (I’m looking at you, waffle iron). Their future in a garage sale is sealed almost before they come in the door.

But, I’m heading into my third week without a functional oven (the ordered part was not the thing, natch) and I’m getting sick of stovetop cooking. I’m reaching that point where creative inspiration is giving way to frustration.

So while I’m not in the habit of recommending “you need to buy this” as many other writers of the Interweb spaces are so happy to do, I’m going to tell you there’s a thing you should totally consider buying, not only because your oven might die, but because it’s really cool.

You’ve gotta get an immersion circulator and try cooking sous vide.

Sous vide cooking has been around for a while, has long had a following among chefs, and there’s almost no doubt you’ve eaten food cooked by sous vide. But it hasn’t quite cracked the home market yet. There are household versions of immersion circulators but unless you are a super-serious and slightly nerdy cook you probably haven’t considered buying one.

So let me explain, and if not convince you at least get you curious.

Sous vide is literally “under empty” or more accurately “under vacuum” in French. The technique involves cooking something in an airtight container immersed a water bath at very precise temperature. The temperature of the water bath is maintained with an immersion circulator, which is essentially a heating coil with a water pump. If you have an aquarium of tropical fish or a hot tub you have the general idea.

The Pros:

• The sealed container (most often a plastic bag) keeps moisture inside and ensure that marinades and other seasonings stay in contact with the food. This equals more flavour and your food stays juicy.

• The water bath can be adjusted to an extremely precise temperature so you needn’t worry your food will overcook. Want your beef tenderloin medium rare? Set your sous vide for 130F and it will cook to precisely 130F - not one degree more nor one degree less. You can grab that spendy cut of meat at the bougie butcher and be confident that it will come out perfect.

• It’s super hands-off and is perfect for busy people. Need to delay dinner an hour or two? No problem - your food can continue to swim in its bath and will be just fine. It’s also awesome if you’re into meal prepping since your sealed bags of cooked food can hang out in the fridge until they are ready to be reheated. Pop those bags right back in at their cooking temperature and they’ll be good as new.

The Cons:

• You need to plan ahead. Tougher cuts of meat benefit for very long cooking times (18-24 hours isn’t uncommon for cuts like pork belly) and even a simple steak will need a couple of hours.

• The plastic. In many (but not all cases) you need to use vacuum bags or other sealable bags and you will have some plastic waste. Cooking food in plastic can seem, well, just wrong, particularly if you remember the early days of microwave cooking with steaming, almost melted cling wrap covering foods. Thankfully, plastics have come a long way in the last forty-ish years and the risks are lessened since sous vide never reaches the almost nuclear temperatures of an over-excited microwave oven. To further mitigate the risks stick to brand-name bags since most have been tested for sous vide cooking.

Ready to see how easy it is? Let me show you with last night’s pork loin roast.

First you need a circulator. Your local general merchandise store may not have them in stock but they are easy to find in specialized kitchen stores and from various online retailers, with most models running somewhere in the $100-200 range. Higher-end models have fancier controls, are Wi-Fi enabled, and have other sexy features, but a basic model is perfectly fine for most cooking situations. Mine is Instant Pot brand and is lightweight, reliable, and easy to use and store. Banana for scale.

Beyond the circulator, you’ll need a ziptop-type plastic bag large enough to hold your food, a moderately heat-proof vessel (like a stock pot), and of course your food.

But don’t you need a vacuum sealer? Nope. If you don’t have one (and I don’t), you can use water displacement to seal the bag. It won’t be quite as tight as a vacuum seal, but a sinkful of water is a heck of a lot cheaper than yet another appliance. Just leave your bag a crack open and submerge it right to the seal line to push out the air. Fully seal the bag and you’re done!

Attach your circulator to the side of your vessel (it will screw or clip on) and fill with water to the level indicated on the circulator. It’s best to start with hot tap water otherwise it might take half an hour or more to come up to cooking temperature.

Set the controls to the correct temperature and set the timer for your recipe. Place the sealed bag in the hot bath and ensure that the food is fully submerged and that the bag seal is above water. If your food is determined to float you can set a heat-proof spoon or other implement on top. A sealed plastic bag full of wine corks works great!

And, uh… that’s it, at least for a while. Talk a walk. Read a book. Go about your business. If you’re cooking for a long time (or your kitchen has especially low humidity) you’ll want to top your water up once in a while, or drape plastic wrap over the top of the vessel so you don’t lose too much to evaporation.

Once your timer beeps (or whatever little tune it plays), your food is done. It’s edible, but it might look a little grim. There’s no crispy skin or fat, and no yummy caramelization or Maillard browning.

Heat a pan (or your grill) to high and add a little oil if needed. Sear all sides until sufficiently browned to your taste. There might be a bit of smoke so open the windows or fire up the hood.

There’s no resting needed. Cut in and you’ll quickly note that your food is precisely cooked, edge to edge. There’s no overcooking or uneven cooking - the internal temperature reached the same temperature as your water bath. I cooked this pork loin for five hours at 140F. It’s not as pretty as beef would be, but there is not a hint of toughness and it’s juicy and perfect.

But pork should be cooked to 145F to be safe, right? Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that.

The reason we have set temperatures is to ensure that food is heated enough to kill harmful bacteria. We can thank Louis Pasteur for the advice, but killing bacteria isn’t just a function of temperature, but also of time (it’s called the logarithmic decay curve for you nerd-types like me). In pork, for example, all the bacteria is killed instantly at 145F. The same bacteria can be killed at lower temperatures, it just takes longer. So the long, slow cooking process of sous vide allows you to consume foods at a lower temperature. This, however, is not without its limits, so it’s best to consult tested recipes and the charts that come with your circulator until you get the hang of it.

And lest you think that sous vide is only for meat, it’s really only the beginning. You can cook almost anything sous vide. If you are fussy about your boiled eggs you’ll love sous vide - you can have nearly any texture of white and yolk you’d like because you can adjust your temperature to a single degree. You can cook custards right in cute little canning jars, or poach potatoes in butter. There are countless recipes and there’s always someone messing around to come up with something new.

Will sous-vide ever catch on in home kitchens? I’m not sure. But then again, the microwave oven first came to market in the late 1940s, but it wasn’t until about thirty years later they started to appear in middle class homes. Now they are ubiquitous, even if we’re only re-heating leftovers and making popcorn. Immersion circulators are versatile, take up minimal space, make delicious food, and are now priced within reach of many households. If you’re in the market for a new piece of kitchen gear you may want to give it a try - you’ll be ahead of the curve.

Just don’t wait until your oven’s broken.