Starbucks brings sous vide cooking method to the mainstream

It may seem counterintuitive to cook anything for 68 hours, but Jill Mora, a chef and instructor at the College of Southern Nevada, says that’s the best way to prepare beef short ribs — provided you’re using the sous vide method of cooking.

“I just love it,” she said of sous vide. “There’s so many things you can do with it. It’s a really great cooking method if you do it properly.”

Sous vide, which was conceived in 1799 but didn’t start coming into practical use in restaurant kitchens until the 1960s and ’70s, is a method of cooking food, sealed in a plastic bag, in a bath of circulating water at a low temperature for a long period. Esteemed chef Thomas Keller has long been one of its proponents and helped popularize the process, but it didn’t come into home use until the past few years, when less-expensive equipment designed for the consumer became available. Sous vide officially entered the mainstream in January, when Starbucks began offering sous vide eggs.

Mora said she discovered the method around 2000.

“I’m always looking at the science of cooking, always trying to stay ahead,” she said. “I think it’s important that we stay on the cutting edge of everything that’s happening and be aware of it. It keeps our kids current.”

Mora, who’s been using the process at home for five or six years, said an immersion circulator clamps to the side of a pot of water — for instance, a stock pot — and keeps the water at a specific, constant temperature, circulating it to eliminate hot and cold spots. She said countertop water ovens also are available.

“They don’t circulate the water, but they hold it at a certain temperature, which is what sous vide is all about,” she said.

Mora said she favors an Anova circulator, which is available for $150.

“For home use, it’s fabulous,” she said. “A lot of people are adventurous cooks; they’ve gotten into barbecuing and smoking. They want to try new things. Sous vide for the home cook is actually really viable because they’ve gotten more affordable.”

The term “sous vide,” means “under vacuum,” but Mora said the vacuum aspect isn’t important; the temperature control is. Therefore, she said, heavy-duty Ziploc freezer bags can be used, although she cautions against using inexpensive bags because they can leach chemicals into food.

The low temperatures give the protein structures in the food a chance to tenderize. And the plastic bag keeps flavors from escaping.

“You know how when you put a steak on the grill, you can smell it?” she asked. “Some of the flavor components are going up in that smoke.”

Tao group chef Marc Marrone said he likes the convenience factor of using sous vide at home.

“It’s a way to slow-cook things while you get other stuff done,” Marrone said. “It’s a safe environment, so it won’t burn, scorch or overcook.”

Todd Harrington, culinary consultant for Blau & Associates, said he uses it at home largely because he isn’t at home much, traveling frequently for work for one to three weeks at a time. He circulates the food on his days off, packs it in bags in the freezer and writes instructions on the package so his wife has quick dinners for herself and their two children.

“Then all you have to do is take it out and drop it in super-hot water, and then it’s perfect,” he said.

Harrington said his favorite sous-vide foods are chicken and beef.

“Chicken because it’s foolproof,” he said. “If you do it the wrong way in the oven, it can be dry in a matter of five minutes. Beef because it’s simple to have your beef at exactly 130 degrees, and then you sear it and it’s a perfect 145 when it’s done. It’s a time-saver if you’re entertaining 20 to 30 people; the steaks are only on the grill for like five minutes.”

He likes to put chicken in a bag with a pat of butter, rosemary, thyme, a bay leaf and salt and pepper.

“Throw in a dash of soy sauce, or whatever flavor profile you want it to be, and cryovac it,” he said. “I circulate four or five meals at a time.”

Marrone said his favorite thing to cook with the sous vide method is pork loin like his mother used to make.

“Pork’s an excruciatingly unforgiving meat,” he said. “I have an almost-1-year-old at home; your plans can change rapidly.”

He puts it in the bag with Dijon mustard, a touch of sour cream, thyme and a pinch of lemon juice and sets the temperature for 140 degrees, cooking it for a minimum of an hour. Then he finishes it in a 450-degree oven for about 15 minutes.

“But all those flavors and tenderness are cooked right in” before it gets to the oven, he said.

Marrone said he, too, likes to use it for chicken. He’ll put a skin-on, split half-chicken in the bag with rosemary, olive oil, shallots, roasted garlic, thyme and some lemon slices.

“Sous vide it at 150 degrees for about an hour,” he said. “When I’m ready to eat, I’ll take it out, get a pan super-hot with a little oil in it, and crisp up the skin on that chicken. It’s already 150 degrees; by the time the skin is crisped, that temperature’s perfect,” which the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says is 165 degrees.

Which brings us to the subject of food safety. Mora said bacteria is killed by cooking food at a high temperature for a short amount of time, or a low temperature for a long amount of time.

“There are certain times that it’s required for food to cook to kill off the bacteria,” she said. “For an average 4- to 6-ounce chicken breast, an hour and 15 minutes. I cook it at 155.” Mora recommends “Sous Vide for the Home Cook” by Douglas Baldwin as a reference, or advises using the apps that come with home devices.

And back to those 68-hour short ribs. The recipe originally called for cooking them 72 hours, but Mora thought that made them too soft. So she experimented with 62, 64 and 68 hours.

“The taste was the same; for me the texture at 68 is right,” she said. “The only way you know about this stuff is to play with it.”

Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at Hrinella@reviewjournal.com. Find more of her stories at reviewjournal.com, and follow @HKRinella on Twitter.