I know there's a few chefs on here who might be interested in a little experiment I've been doing in the kitchen. Inspired by Heston's programmes and the "science" of cooking, I been reading about the various techniques and I decided to give this sous vide thing a go. I had a look at Jaccarding but it seemed to be cheating a bit to me!

Sous vide is a variation on the low and slow principle, you basically stick your portion of meat to be cooked in a bag, vacuum seal it and plonk it in a temperature controlled water bath, so you can get a much more accurate way of controlling the cooking process. Water is a much better conductor of heat than air and so you need to remove the air from the bag to ensure all the surface of the meat is next to the water (and to stop the bag floating!).

You can get commercial kitchen immersion circulators but they're in the 1500 quid range. There is now a home version for 250 quid, but thats still too much for me! So I improvised. The idea is to have a water bath at a constant temperature, so you need a heater and a temperature controller. Bit like a fish tank. Or a fermentation vessel for beer. Enter the ATC-800+ controller, yours for 25 quid on ebay It basically turns a circuit on or off at the temperature you set. So now we just need a heater and a bowl of water. A rice cooker does both, recently on offer in Argos for £13.50...

Lash the whole lot together, include some interesting wiring and you get





Just vacuum seal the meat in a bag (ok another 35 quid when on offer I admit, although I've heard Lidl do a 20 quid one, missed a trick there!) and you have a complete set up.

Is all the fuss worth it? Possibly yes. I've only just started using it, and tonight had some lamb steaks, that came out nice and pink and tender. You often need to quickly flash fry either side for 30 secs to get some browning (and additional "cooked" flavour) to the meat, but that's no hassle. Trying some 20 hour cooked duck legs at the moment and then the true tests, pork chop and chicken breast, both difficult to get moist and tender. Fingers crossed for those.

Anyone else here tried it?

 

So is it just a fancy slow cooker?

 

Really want to try this - still can't work out why they want £250 for the real deal when all the components come to about £40!

 

Usually with better temperature control.

I cant' remember the exact numbers but there are some methods where the temperature range for cooking is a couple of degrees in the mid-50s. Not many cookers can do this.

 

I often cook meat long and slow but use a roasting bag on a temp of about 55c for beef and 70c pork or chicken legs. The results are always excellent. A chateuabriand is lovely cooked this way at about 55c for 3 hours then slice and very quickly brown each steak in a red hot cast iron pan. The steak will remain rare but give a lovely caramelised taste to the outside.

Got a piece of belly in the oven cooking now for lunch later today.

Chip

 

For fillet steaks i brown/sear the meat in a pan as a whole piece then season with salt and pepper and wrap it nice and tight in clingfilm then place in the oven at 65 degrees. I watched a 2 michelin star chef cook it this way, it,s so easy and perfect every time. As chip say,s slice and sear if required..