New food produced the old way

By: 
Keith Bryant
 This week I studied  what I thought was a new method of cooking, but it turns out this method of cooking has been around a long time and is just now finding its way into main stream cooking. 
 The method is called sous vide and in French means under vacuum. 
 This is a method of cooking in which food is sealed in airtight plastic bags then placed in a water bath or in a temperature-controlled steam environment for longer than normal cooking times – 96 hours or more, in some cases – at an accurately regulated temperature much lower than normally used for cooking, typically around 55 to 60 degrees C (131 to 140 degrees F) for meat and higher for vegetables. 
 The intent is to cook the item evenly, ensuring that the inside is properly cooked without overcooking the outside, and retain moisture.
 The method was first described by Sir Benjamin Thompson in 1799. It was re-discovered by American and French engineers in the mid-1960s and developed into an industrial food preservation method. 
 Placing the food in a water bath, with the temperature having been set at the desired final cooking temperature of the food, avoids overcooking, because the food cannot get hotter than the bath it is in. 
 In conventional high-heat cooking, such as oven roasting or grilling, the food is exposed to heat levels that are much higher than the desired internal cooking temperature; the food must be removed from the high heat prior to its reaching the desired cooking temperature. 
 If the food is removed from the heat too late, it becomes over-cooked, and if it is removed too early, it is under-cooked. 
 As a result of precise temperature control of the bath and the fact that the bath temperature is the same as the target cooking temperature, very precise control of cooking can be achieved. Additionally, temperature, and thus cooking, can be very even throughout the food in sous-vide cooking.
 The use of temperatures much lower than for conventional cooking is an equally essential feature of sous-vide, resulting in much higher succulence: at these lower temperatures, cell walls in the food do not burst. In the case of meat cooking, tough connective tissue can be softened, without heating the meat’s proteins high enough that the texture toughens and moisture is wrung out of the meat. 
 In contrast, with the cooking of vegetables, where extreme tenderness or softness is seen as undesirably overcooked, the ability of the sous-vide technique to cook vegetables at a temperature below the boiling point of water allows vegetables to be thoroughly cooked while maintaining a firm or somewhat crisp texture. Additionally, enclosed spices or ingredients added to the food item transmit their flavor more intensely than during normal cooking.
 Now I have used this method with baby carrots with a ginger glaze and I even cooked a steak this way just to try it and then finished it on the grill to give it a nice crust. 
 This week I was able to get a piece of salmon to work on and marinated it in orange juice and some other ingredients. It is possible to do it at home with a pot of water and a thermometer, but if you really want in on this you need to buy a vacuum sealer and an immersion circulator. 
 An immersion circulator is a device that you insert into a tub or pot of water. It draws water from the tub, heats it up to a precise temperature, then spits it back out, simultaneously heating and circulating the water. A good one will have single-degree precision and accuracy. These days, you can get a great one for under $200. I use my induction cooker and a remote meat thermometer to test out the technique.
Orange infused salmon
Ingredients
• Four 4-ounce salmon fillets
Marinade:
• 1 cup orange juice
• 1 to 2 lemons, zested and juiced (set aside 1 teaspoon of zest for dry rub)
• ¼ cup olive oil
Dry rub:
¼ teaspoon lemon pepper
½ teaspoon coarse ground black pepper (black, white and pink)
½ teaspoon chopped garlic
1 teaspoon lemon zest
Directions: 
 Combine pepper and garlic. Generously sprinkle fillets with the rub and massage gently.
Combine the marinade ingredients in zipper type Ziploc bag and get as much air out as possible
Place in water that is 122 degrees for 50 minutes. Remove from bag and place in hot skillet just to get crust on fish.
 

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