Lesson: Sous Vide 101 | Blue Jean Chef

sous-vide literally means under vacuum but that really doesn't explain what it is or how to do it stay tuned this is sous-vide 101 to put it basically sous-vide cooking is cooking in a water bath that's held at a very precise consistent low temperature over a long period of time it's like slow cooking but even at a lower temperature when you sous-vide cook you get really precise results which means you have perfectly evenly cooked foods from edge to edge they have an enhanced tender texture that is beautifully moist it's really easy to do and it's perfect when you're cooking for a crowd so how do we manage to cook foods in that water bath at that low temperature in our home kitchens sous-vide machines used to be very large and used in restaurants but today you can actually get something called a sous-vide circulator this circulates water heats the water in a vessel that vessel could be a stockpot or a big plastic container like this but by holding that water at the consistent temperature we now have the perfect medium to do some sous-vide cooking instead of putting your food directly in water which would of course leave it saturated with water and flavorless you put the food into a zipper sealable plastic bag whether that's a sous-vide bag like this or even freezer bags that you can get at your grocery store you put the food into the bag with all kinds of flavors herbs salt pepper anything even a sauce and then remove as much air as possible that's where the under vacuum idea comes from from the name sous-vide but in fact you don't have to vacuum seal the bag you just have to remove as much air as possible so that the bag sinks in the water as long as the food is submerged by that low consistently held temperature water you're going to cook your food perfectly over a long period of time so when you cook a steak to a hundred and thirty-eight degrees for example it's never going to go above a hundred and thirty-eight degrees because the water is held at a hundred and thirty-eight degrees what does that mean to you that means you're going to have a perfectly cooked medium-rare steak the first thing people think about when you think about sous-vide cooking is steak and sure enough sous-vide is perfect way to cook steak evenly from edge to edge but it's also really great for chicken breasts for pork chops for sausages for burgers even for large pieces of meat like pot roast or brisket those large pieces of meat get cooked to a perfect tenderness without overcooking or ever becoming dry foods with sauces can work well in sous-vide as well for instance beef stew or a chicken curry mix the meat and the sauce in the bag and then sous-vide everything together for the perfect blend of flavors and you're never going to overcook anything again you can even cook foods and little jars in a sous-vide you can cook egg bites little puddings even yogurt can be made in a sous-vide container to help you understand sous-vide a little better let me show you by doing a simple steak demonstration here I have a ribeye steak and just some fresh thyme the first thing I need is my water bath set up and ready to go so I put hot water into this container then I'm going to attach my sous-vide circulator and I'm gonna set this for the right temperature now the secret to sous-vide cooking is a mix of time and temperature when you're cooking a steak you're gonna cook it to a temperature based on the degree of doneness that you're looking for if you're cooking chicken or pork you're actually looking for a safe temperature for those foods so I know that I like my steak a little bit more than medium-rare between medium rare and medium so I'm going to set this sous-vide circulator to about a hundred and thirty-eight degrees if you wanted to cook your steak for rare you was set up to 125 for medium-rare between 130 and 35 for medium around 140 but the best way to remember all of this is to take a look at a sous-vide cooking chart that's gonna give you all the temperatures you need for whatever it is you're cooking and you can find one on my website in the cooking school so I'm gonna set this to 138 very simply just by setting that temperature and now I have to set the time time can be a little more tricky because you have so much flexibility with the time you need to cook sous-vide foods for generally at least an hour but because it only goes to that hundred and thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit you actually have as much time as you need within reason to cook that steak you can cook it in as little as one hour or you can leave it going and cook it six hours and it will be the same degree of doneness all the way through from edge to edge so to get your steak ready you're gonna need a bag that bag can be a sous vide bag or it can be a freezer not storage but freezer zipper sealable plastic bag use a good quality bag because it's critical that no water get into this bag when you put it into the water bath I'm gonna fold over the edge and then I'm going to season my steak now if I'm cooking my steak for just one or two hours I might put salt on it right now if gonna go for six hours I'm gonna season it at the end of cooking not at this moment so let's go with some black pepper on both sides and I'm gonna place it into my plastic bag now is my opportunity to add some more flavors so I could put some fresh herbs and if I wanted to you could even if you like put some steak sauce inside and cook it with the steak sauce but I'm just gonna put some thyme on either side of this steak and then I'm going to seal it in this bag now what has to happen is we have to get the air out of this bag and there are a few different ways to do that if you have vacuum sealer bags and a vacuum sealer that's a perfect tool to use but you don't need it I'm gonna use the water displacement method to get the air out of this bag it's critical to get the air out because it's critical that this bag sink in the water that food must be completely covered in water in order to cook properly so to do the water displacement method simply lower this bag while it's still open into the water bath and let the water push all the air out of that bag it's a little bit tricky because you don't want the water to get inside but you do want as much of the air out as possible just like that so with that done you're going to let that go into the water bath one handy trick that I use is to clip the bag to the side of the container so there's absolutely no chance water can get in through a seal that I might not have sealed quite properly if you're having a hard time getting that bag to sink in the water you could put a weight on the bag or sometimes even something as simple as a pair of tongs we'll just make sure that that meat is completely submerged in the water now this is going to cook for as long as I need it to at least 1 hour and as long as 6 hours I mentioned before that with sous-vide cooking you can't overcook your foods that's not quite true if you let this go for longer than six hours the texture will start to change a little bit and could be undesirable so don't let it go forever or overnight but just know that you have the flexibility of anywhere between 1 to 6 hours to pull that steak out and finish it that's the next step finishing this steak let me show you how now this steak has been cooking for about four hours now and we set it to 138 degrees it's time now to remove it from that sous-vide water bath and get it ready for its next step now the one disadvantage with sous-vide cooking is that it doesn't brown the meat at all so when you take the meat out of the bag it doesn't really look that pretty so we need to now give it some color and a little bit of flavor by searing it at the very last minute dry the steak as well as you can with clean kitchen towel and then remember did you season the steak beforehand or not if you didn't you're gonna want to season it with some salt right now this steak is cooked perfectly so it's really important that we don't overcook it with this next step I'm preheating a cast-iron pan on the stovetop until it is very hot because this sear is going to be about 30 seconds per side and that's all we want to make sure we get the most out of that pan to get the most color we can in the shortest amount of time so the pan is really really hot I'm going to add some butter and immediately add my steak to that pan [Music] now if you have some weights you can weight that stake down to really give it a good impact with the pan otherwise just wait that 30 seconds and then flip it over there's no need to move that stake around in the pan while it's cooking so if you're cooking larger pieces of meats or anything that you would usually braise like beef stew or a pulled pork you're going to want to do something called a reverse sear that is searing the meat first and then putting it in the bag you can do that with steak as well but I prefer the texture given with a sear at the last minute a quick 30 second series all it should really need and now you can put it down on your counter top now resting meats is always important although it's not as important when you sous-vide cook because the steak has not undergone an intense heat situation so let it sit for a few minutes while you prepare the rest of the plate then we'll be ready to slice so let's slice into the steak and see how perfectly evenly it has cooked look at this steak this is a beautiful beautiful medium from edge all the way to edge you're not seeing a line of medium in the center with grey edges on either side you're seeing perfect medium all the way through and that is what sous-vide can do for you so that you never worry about overcooking it even if he took four hours to cook this steak you can also cook foods with sauce already included in the bag that means you can actually make your own meal that you could freeze and just reheat in a sous-vide later on here I'm gonna make chicken with red curry and coconut I've made my sauce ahead of time on the stovetop and now all I have to do is add that to chicken in the bag and seal this up again we're sealing the bag not because it has to be vacuumed but because it has to sink in the water so we have to remove the air so that it doesn't float here's another technique you can use to remove the air and it's called the counter method simply hold the bag firmly and let it hang over the edge of your counter bring the bag so that almost all the air is out from the end there hold it flat and then seal it along the counter top now all the air has been removed and it will sink in the water bath so now all we have to do is submerge this into the water bath and then as a safety precaution they always like to clip that bag to the edge just to make sure that in case I've made a mistake in the seal no water will get in the bag this chicken is going to cook at 140 degrees for at least 1 hour or for as long as 4 hours now you might wonder why bother making a stew in a sous-vide water bath but the reason is really about the texture this chicken will be so tender with no moisture loss because we've cooked it at such a gentle temperature so after cooking for at least two hours at 140 degrees we know all the pathogens that could possibly hurt us are gone from this chicken it's ready to serve now remember you can cook it for as little as two hours or as long as six hours without any concern you're gonna have beautifully cooked chicken that is super moist and super flavorful because it's been cooking in this bag of sauce the next step for the chicken is to take it out of the water bath and now you can serve it now I like to keep the food's up a little bit because this is cooking at 140 degrees I'd like to eat it a little warmer so I quickly just heat it in a Dutch oven before taking it right to the table so now we spend all that time making sure we didn't overcook the chicken so we only want to heat it really briefly on the stove just to get that sauce hot while you're doing that make sure you prepare your plates prepare your garnishes get ready to serve as soon as it comes to a bare simmer that's good enough for me and we can serve this beautiful chicken with red curry and coconut over some rice and know that every single morsel of chicken is cooked perfectly a quick little garnish and you have made very easily while you weren't watching a perfect chicken curry now little jars make their own perfect watertight airtight container that will sink in water when filled with ingredients so they are a perfect tool to use in your sous-vide cooking you can use jars to make yogurt to make little puddings I've even made cheesecakes in there and they're perfect for egg bites which you can make at the beginning of the week have 12 egg bites ready to go for running out the door on the weekday mornings here's how you make an egg bite taking some eggs and cheddar cheese and some cream cheese blended it up in a blender with some salt and then we put some ingredients that we'd like to have in our egg bites right into the jars so today I have some sun-dried tomato in there fill the little jars just to the bottom of where the lid stops and then seal the lids on to the jars just fingertip tight that means that we want the air to come out of the jars if it wants to it we don't want any water to come in so you just tighten that lid until it's just fingertip tight no need to get some strength in there and really tighten that lid on then use some tongs to lower this into a water bath and cook these at a hundred and eighty-five degrees for 45 to 60 minutes then take them out immediately put them in the refrigerator or eat them right away when you're ready to eat the egg bite you can eat it right out of the jar if you like or you can run a knife around the outside and then invert it onto a plate top it with a little bit of basil and serve it to your guests so is sous-vide cooking safe yes it is if you're worried about bacteria you need not worry bacteria is a die at 140 degrees and they also die at lower temperatures if you keep that temperature for longer periods of time sous-vide cooking holds those foods at low temperatures for enough time to kill any harmful bacteria if you're concerned about cooking in plastic bags well you also need not be concerned use high quality bags that are bpa-free and FDA approved remember they don't get to very high temperatures because they're being cooked in a sous-vide water bath it is important however to cool your foods properly when you finish sous-vide cooking or before you sous-vide cook make sure that your steaks are kept cold make sure that you chill your chicken curries and stews appropriately if you're not eating them right away make sure your bag is fully submerged in that water bath while it cooks so that the water completely surrounds your food here are some tips and tricks to go along with your sous-vide cooking first make sure you get good quality zipper sealable freezer bags not storage bags freezer bags that are good quality tend to have better edges that don't allow the water to leak in and a better seal up top you can reuse your sous-vide bags but not for sous-vide sous-vide food is completely ruined if any water at all gets into the bag so use it for sous-vide once use it for something else afterwards tip number two is to use a trivet underneath your sous-vide container it doesn't get too super high temperatures but it does become quite warm so to protect your countertop make sure you put a trivet down first and then put your container on top tip number three is to use hot tap water when you're filling your sous-vide water by hot tap water means it'll take less time for your sous-vide water bath to come to temperature tip number four is if your sous-vide bag is not sinking enough use a weight of some kind just to make sure that it sinks low enough in the water tip number five is to remember to sear your meats either before or after sous-vide cooking so that it has enhanced flavor and a prettier color the last tip is for when your sous-vide cooking for a long period of time say 72 hours if you're making a pulled pork roast it's important to minimize the amount of evaporation you're going to get from your sous-vide water bath so make sure you cover it either with a lid or simply some aluminum foil that will help keep that water in so you won't have to replace the water because you're never going to be able to replace the water with water that's exactly the right temperature let's talk about cleaning your sous-vide machine and this is the best part of all because there's honestly no cleaning at all simply unplug your machine turn it off remove it from the water bath and then dry it well Sufi cooking might be a new cooking method for you but I think if you do it just once you'll realize how easy it is and what great results you get from it every single time you can look at the cooking chart on blue jean chef cooking school to find out all your times and temperatures for all kinds of foods plus check out the recipe section for all the sous vide recipes here and we'll see you for another lesson really soon you

Channel: Blue Jean Chef

Views: 109,045

Keywords: sous vide, sous vide everything, sous vide cooking, sous vide egg bites, sous vide recipes, sous vide cooker, sous vide steak, sous vide eggs

Id: kpRPcVDmPa4

Length: 19min 19sec (1159 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 19 2019