Beer COOLERS, Plastic BAGS, AND THE SCIENCE OF SOUS-VIDE There’s been a small revolution going on in restaurant kitchens since the early 2000s It’s changed everything from the way line cooks cook and chefs conceive dishes and menus to the way fast food chains maintain consistency and organize their workflow I’m talking sous-vide, from the French for “under vacuum,” the cooking method wherein food is placed in a vacuum-sealed pouch and cooked in a temperature-controlled water bath The technique was first introduced to the public in the 1970s at Michel Troisgros’ eponymous restaurant in Roanne, France, but it wasn’t until early in this century, when chefs gained access to very precise, laboratory-grade equipment that it became both practical and possible to implement on a large scale You may be thinking: “OK, interesting, but I’m a home cook, and I couldn’t tell a water circulator from a rotary evaporator—what’s this got to with me?” You’ll just have to trust that I’ll get there in a moment According to famed British chef Heston Blumenthal of The Fat Duck, outside London, “Sous-vide cooking is the single greatest advancement in cooking technology in decades,” and he’s not the only one who thinks so Everyone from Thomas Keller of New York’s Per Se and California’s The French Laundry to your local Chipotle Mexican Grill is serving food cooked sous-vide Here’s what’s great about it Recall the problem of temperature gradients developing in meat? To recap, food cooks from the outside in, which means that the outer layers are going to be hotter than the very center Thus, cooked foods develop an internal bull’s-eye pattern: perfectly cooked at the very center and increasingly overcooked as you move out to the edges So, for example, imagine you’re starting with a steak that’s a consistent 40°F through and through Place it in a 500°F pan, and the outer layers will almost immediately reach around 212°F, the temperature at which the internal moisture at the surface of the steak starts to evaporate Eventually all the moisture will dissipate and the temperature of the outer layers of the steak will continue to increase It’s quite easy for those outer layers to achieve temperatures in excess of 200°F (that’s beyond the welldone 160°F stage for steak) before the core temperature has even begun to shift By the time the center reaches 130°F (medium-rare), the outer layers are hopelessly overcooked Now imagine cooking the same steak in a constant 130°F environment Sure, it’ll take much longer for the center to get up to 130°F, but it’ll get there eventually and, in the meantime, the outer layers have no chance of overcooking That’s precisely what sous-vide cooking is all about If you place the meat in an airtight vacuum-sealed pouch and submerge it in a temperature-controlled water bath, the water very efficiently transfers heat energy to the steak while maintaining a very precise temperature The result is meat that’s cooked evenly from edge to edge ... consistent 40°F through and through Place it in a 500°F pan, and the outer layers will almost immediately reach around 212°F, the temperature at which the internal moisture at the surface of the steak... excess of 200°F (that’s beyond the welldone 160°F stage for steak) before the core temperature has even begun to shift By the time the center reaches 130°F (medium-rare), the outer layers are hopelessly overcooked... Now imagine cooking the same steak in a constant 130°F environment Sure, it’ll take much longer for the center to get up to 130°F, but it’ll get there eventually and, in the meantime, the outer layers have no chance of overcooking