temperature for several hours without any loss of
quality. (Low temperatures and a sealed bag prevent
overcooking or loss of moisture from cooked foods.
This is an invaluable asset, allowing a line cook, or a
harried spouse, to serve hot food at a moment’s notice,
without having to worry about precise timing.)- The ability to tenderize tough pieces of meat.
Traditional braises use relatively high temperatures—
180°F or so—to tenderize tougher cuts. But at these
temperatures, the muscle fibers will expel quite a bit of
their juices. With sous-vide cookery, much lower
temperatures (say around 140°F) are applied for much
longer periods of time—sometimes up to 72 hours. The
result is extremely tender meat with no loss of
juiciness. It’s particularly effective for cuts like beef
chuck or short rib. - The ability to cook vegetables without loss of flavor.
Vegetables cooked in vacuum-sealed pouches
naturally soften in their own juices. In some cases, this
can be overpowering (ever try sous-vide celery root?),
but in others, the results can be downright
extraordinary. Sous-vide carrots taste more like a carrot
than any carrot you’ve ever tasted.
Before I even began, though, I threw in the towel as far as
categories 3 and 4 go. There’s no way my beer cooler
would stay warm for the requisite 24 hours. Previous testing
had shown me that it loses about 1 degree per hour when
it’s in the 140° to 150°F range.
Vegetables presented an even bigger problem. Pectin, the