You don't have to go to a 3-star restaurant to eat sous-vide, and you don't have to buy a sous-vide machine either. You can DIY perfectly done meats and vegetables without breaking the bank or taking up precious kitchen space. The cooks at Q&A network Stack Exchange tell you how.
Jacob R Asks:
I live in an apartment and have limited space to store kitchen gadgets. I don't really like the idea of having a machine that is dedicated to one specific task. I particularly want to get into using sous-vide as a cooking technique, but I don't really want to buy a machine specifically for this task.
Is there any way to get a similar cooking method?
yossarian Answers:
Fresh Meals Solutions makes a couple DIY sous-vide add-ons. The FreshMealsMagic submersion heater goes into a pot of water and creates air bubbles to circulate heat. The company's SousVideMagic temperature controller claims that "it instantly turns rice cookers, slow cookers/crockpot, and many other cookers/heaters into a constant temperature bath for professional sous vide cooking." I think the FreshMealsMagic is probably your best space-saving device (as it requires just an additional pot). I have not used either of these. I do however use my Sous Vide Supreme 2-3 times a week. It's awesome!
You can also use the beer cooler idea described by Serious Eats. Or you can do sous-vide on the stove top if you have a good thermometer, but that requires constant tending rather than set-and-forget.
If you experiment with those last two ideas, you can use regular ziplocs. Put your food in the bag and then submerge the bag in water just to the zip. The pressure will expel all the air. Then zip the bag up as you pull the closed portion underwater. This gets results comparable with a home vacuum sealer, I think, with the added benefit that you can include liquids easily.
Marc-Andr? Lafortune Answers:
In all cases, you will need a precise thermometer. For short durations, different hacks like the beer cooler method can work. But for extended cooking times (8 hours, or days), I'd recommend investing 40$ towards a pot that can do basically anything: the Presto multi cooker.
Find a $10 aquarium pump to create bubbles and thus create water circulation and you're set. I have the real stuff (an ancient immersion circulator bought on Ebay) and I use the Presto as a second unit when I need more more than one. I estimate that you can be precise to about ?0.7?C, which may be insignificant depending on what you are doing.
For very long cooking however, nothing beats a dedicated machine such as the SousVide supreme, because with a sous-vide machine there is no loss of water. With all other methods, refilling is necessary. Consider purchasing a machine. Beef ribs made over 2-3 days at 58?C are just so amazing.
Peter V Answers:
Do you have a rice cooker? If you do, and it's not too fancy, you could inline a temperature control and save gadget space. This is the most space efficient solution I'm aware of. See how Popular Science turned a rice cooker into a DIY sous-vide machine.
Adisak Answers:
Before you use a cooler bin for sous-vide, make sure you're aware of a few necessary precautions. For thin cuts of tender steaks (1" or less NY Strip or Filet Mignon) or other tender meats (i.e. fish) that will safely cook in under two hours, the cooler bin can be a safe and inexpensive alternative. But be sure to seal the cuts individually and allow enough room for water to circulate around each cut, or else risk dangerous temperature variations in the bath since there is no active heater or circulator.
Thicker cuts of meat require long term cooking. Famous sous-vide expert Douglas Baldwin notes that if you double the thickness of a cut, you should quadruple the time to ensure cooking safety. Since cooler bins lose 1-2?F temperature per hour, they may not hold the desired temperature long enough to properly cook a really thick cut of meat.
Cooler bin limitations affect other areas of sous vide cooking. You can not do long-term tenderization of meat at a specific temperature such as required for 72 hour sous-vide short ribs.
Finally, food that is not sealed in food grade plastic may not be safe depending on the container you use. For example, cooking "cooler corn" in cheap plastic beer coolers can leach toxic chemicals into your food. The websites out there promoting the awesomeness of "cooler corn" neglect to mention that you can only make this technique safe if you have a large "food grade" styrofoam container (i.e. the same stuff that is manufactured to hold boiling water for tea or very hot coffee). I'd advise against using a cheap plastic cooler without sealing your food "sous-vide" or you risk contaimination.
Illustration by Sean Gallagher.
Find more answers at the original post here. See more questions like this at Seasoned Advice, the cooking site at Stack Exchange. And of course, feel free to ask a question yourself.
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