For Christmas Robert and Laura gave me a sous vide machine. This is a clever device that can maintain a constant temperature in a water bath. That constant temperature allows you to cook food at a much lower temperature than normal. The result is a very even cook over then entire piece of meat. Today we tried cooking chicken. The temperature was set at 149F. It takes about 45 minutes to get to that temperature. We left the chicken in the water bath for 1 1/2 hours.

In order to cook the meat (in this case chicken breasts), you put them in a zip lock bag and take all the air out by submerging the bag in water. Some people use vacuum bags. The idea is not to cook the meat in a vacuum, but rather to make sure there is even contact of the bag to the meat so that you get a uniform heat transfer. One advantage of using this method is that it is hard to overcook things. When pan frying or oven roasting, the temperatures are very high relative to the target temperature you have for the food. You have to be on top of your game and remove stuff before it overcooks. In the case of this method, you set the target temperature for the food by the water bath temperature. In reality, once the food is heated all the way through you are just about done.

One shortcoming of the method is that the surface of the food is not very appealing. When we fry or roast things, the Maillard reation produces the tasty, brown surface. With the sous vide method you have to sear the surface of the meat in a second step. I just browned it in a frying pan. In the end, the chicken was delicious and cooked just right. I served it with some stir fry vegetables and voila a terrific meal. In a couple days I am going to try ribeye steaks. This should be good!