Ideas & Inspiration

The summer grilling season officially begins, in the US at any rate, with Memorial Day weekend. For folks who love to picnic or dine al fresco, it’s a red letter day when the covers come off the grill and patio furniture and living moves outdoors.

Whether your favorite main dish is steaks, baby backs, tender pulled pork, chicken, or the great American cheeseburger, adding sous vide cooking to your routine can make it simple and foolproof to put a perfect barbecue on the table.

• No more sweating over the grill while your guests party–you can do most of the cooking in advance, quick chill, bring back to temperature and sear on the barbee when you’re ready to serve
• No more worries about undercooked hamburger making someone ill.
• No more risk of chicken charred on the surface and still bloody at the bone.
• No more need to perfectly time everything and, as often happens, miss and find yourself apologizing when the charred results of the medium rare steaks your guests requested shows nary a trace of pink when it’s cut. Oops. Sorry.

First, step away from the grill. At least as the instrument of cooking the feast. Instead, turn that duty over to the little silver box and go chill out with a brew. With the SousVide Supreme as your ally, your barbecue can be cooked to perfection ahead of time–beef, chicken, pork, veggies, even ice cream bases. The meats will need at most just a short finishing sear on the grill, when you and your guests are ready to eat. Check out this sous vide barbecue video series in which Master Chef’s Sharone Hakman does just that for tips on how to cook like a rock star chef in your own back yard.

To get you started thinking along those lines, here’s is a recipe for a kicked up burger that will put a little sweetness and spice into this year’s Memorial Day celebration. Pair it with sous vide cooked Corn on the Cob, a big tossed salad, and some cold beer or iced tea and you’re sure to not only be the hit of the party, but actually even have time to enjoy it yourself.

From the first card you made for her in kindergarten (the one with the heart snipped out of construction paper with your blunt-nosed scissors and glued on with Elmer’s school paste) nothing says ‘I Love You, Mom!’ quite like something you make yourself. Anyone, after all, can phone the florist or make a brunch reservation, but those can’t hold a candle to something you hand-crafted with love especially for her.

So this year, treat Mom to something delightful, delicious, and delovely. The gift that keeps on giving: a hand-crafted sous-vide-infused cordial or syrup.

The method is simplicity itself.

How to make sous vide infusions:

1) Fill and preheat the SousVide Supreme. (135F/57C  in the case of limoncello)
2) Put alcohol (e.g. vodka, brandy, or tequila) or simple syrup (1:1 ratio of sugar to water dissolved over stove top) , or both, into a large SousVide Supreme Zip Pouch
3) Add the flavoring agent(s) of choice — this could be fresh fruit, herbs, spices, even tea leaves or coffee beans — whatever her favorites might be.
4) Remove most of the air (using the displacement principle) and zip the pouch closed; submerge and cook in the water oven for the prescribed time, which usually ranges from a few minutes to a couple of hours.
5) Quick chill in an ice water bath, then strain into a clean, bottle with a cap or stopper.

The possible combinations are endless, the process is quick and easy, and the result is nothing short of amazing. Instead of weeks or months to make limoncello, for instance, you can do it in 3 hours, tops. You can even glue the cut out construction paper heart to the front of the bottle, if you like!

Or, if lemon isn’t Mom’s thing, try this Raspberry Syrup that you can use to make a pretty in pink Clover Club cocktail or splash into a flute of champagne (or sparkling cider) to toast her on her day.

Need more ideas? Check out this blog post on sous vide infusions or the SousVide Cocktails cookbook, which is filled with intriguing infusion combinations and the tasty adult libations you can concoct with them.

Oh, and you might want to make several bottles while you’re at it. In addition to making Mom beam with love and pride, a bottle of hand-crafted cordial makes an impressive hostess gift that will ensure you’ll earn a spot right at the top of any guest list.

All of us at SousVide Supreme have found that sous vide cooking has become an integral part of our kitchen repertoire – not just because we work here, but because the SousVide Supreme really has changed the way we cook. If you’re still wondering what a SousVide Supreme can do that your conventional appliances can’t, here are ten reasons the SousVide Supreme can and should be your go-to kitchen appliance.

10. SousVide Supreme Looks Great On Your Counter.
Maybe it’s a little shallow, but let’s be honest: the rounded edges, the sleek lines, the brushed chrome of the original water oven or the glossy colors of the Demi … unless you’re using a replica of Bird In Space as a paper towel holder, a SousVide Supreme is the closest thing to cooking with a work of art.

9. SousVide Supreme Makes Bad Cooks Great.
Confession: the witticist responsible for writing this blog entry was, until recently, a remarkably terrible cook. Steaks were harmed in the making of dinner, eggs were brutally mistreated, and chicken was avoided entirely for fear of undercooking it, overcooking it, or finding some way to accomplish both simultaneously. But this story has a happy ending, as so many of our stories do: acquiring a SousVide Supreme opened a world of culinary possibilities. The other night, I cooked salmon. Delicious, tender, flaky Honey Glazed Sous Vide Salmon. Before that, Chinn Chinn’s Asian Short Ribs. The SousVide Supreme has done the unthinkable: brought delicious home-cooked meals to my kitchen.

8. SousVide Supreme Means Easy Cleanup.
Sous vide cooking means a meal without a sink full of pans. Try this Sous Vide Pork Tenderloin recipe, courtesy of the blog Nom Nom Paleo, then finish it with our new kitchen torch for an easy meal with no cleanup. Silverware and plates can be used at your discretion.

7. Sous Vide Supreme Saves You Money.
To cut dinner costs, opt for a tough cut of red meat such as a flank steak. Cooking it sous vide for eight to twenty four hours results in a steak that’s as tender as young love. Other affordable palate-pleasers include sous vide short ribs (such as these short rib recipes from Jason Wilson and Sharone Hakman) and sous vide eye round steak.

6. SousVide Supreme Makes Chicken Exciting.
Even the best home cooks may find themselves dreading yet another evening of chicken – dry, rubbery, bland chicken. The thought alone sends a cold chill up our spines. Fortunately, another night of subpar chicken can be avoided by simply cooking it sous vide. Try Lemon Chicken Sous Vide for a light chicken dish that’s anything but bland.

5. SousVide Supreme Keeps Veggies Nutritious.
Cooking vegetables in water – for instance, boiling – can lead to a significant loss of vitamins. On the other hand, cooking vegetables with water is a great way to keep them nutritious and flavorful. Lock in beta-carotene with our recipe for Basic Sous Vide Carrots. Give your plate some color by preparing Buttered Baby Beets and be secure in the knowledge that even kids will love them; they taste like candy! Whether you’re cooking a side dish or the main course, sous vide veggies are a revelation.

4. SousVide Supreme Lets You Cook Like A Gourmet Chef.
For years, sous vide cooking was limited to restaurant kitchens (save for the few who tried to create their own). Now that the SousVide Supreme has brought sous vide cooking out of the prep kitchen and into homes, restaurant-quality dishes are easier than ever to achieve. Our new Sous Vide Gourmet Cookbook features recipes from four world-class chefs that will have even novice cooks whipping up a fine-dining experience in the comfort of their own kitchens.

3. SousVide Supreme Makes Entertaining Easier.
Cooking for a dinner party can be tricky. All it takes is a particularly engrossing story or one glass of wine too many, and suddenly your roast is overcooked. Or worse, dinner is ready, and your chronically late friends have been “5 minutes away” for the last half hour. With the SousVide Supreme, dinner is ready when you are – whether that’s at 7:30 on the dot or when that last friend staggers through the door. Feed guests on your clock, not your meal’s, with a Sous Vide Leg of Lamb with Brussel Sprouts.

2. SousVide Supreme Means Dinner is Ready in Fifteen Hours … or 15 Minutes.

When talking about cooking sous vide, the focus tends to be on dishes that take hours to cook. And with good reason: after 24 hours, Sous Vide Pulled Pork is so tender it practically pulls itself. But there’s another side to sous vide cooking that’s often overlooked: many dishes can be ready in less than an hour. Salmon with Lemon and Dill only takes 20 minutes to cook. Your Sous Vide Ribeye Steak will be ready in 45 minutes. Sure, there are plenty of dishes that you can start cooking in the morning and have waiting for you when you get home from work, but there are just as many which are perfect for throwing in your SousVide Supreme when you get home late and just want a quick meal. And you can even cook in advance, quick chill, refrigerate, and reheat in the water bath when you get home!

1. SousVide Supreme Brings Out Your Creative Genius.
Whether you’re trying a new recipe or making your own, sous vide cooking is a great way to unleash your culinary creativity. Without the fear of overcooking, you can put all your focus on creating a delicious, unique meal. Over the past few years, all of us at SousVide Supreme have enjoyed seeing an online community of like-minded chefs develop. Whether it’s through Facebook, Twitter, or our monthly Sous Vide Recipe Contest, we love to see the culinary adventures you take with your SousVide Supreme, so don’t forget to share!

Did we miss any reasons? Let us know with a comment, a tweet, or a post on our Facebook wall!

Truly romantic moments are few and far between these days. We’re not suggesting that romance is dead. In fact, we firmly believe that romance is alive and well.

The problem is that a romantic gesture involves effort, and modern conveniences have done a remarkable job of simplifying our lives. Text messages are sent in lieu of love letters, the perfect gift can be found via Amazon wishlists, and it’s hard to pine for someone when their every thought is posted on Twitter.

This Valentine’s Day, branch out beyond the table for two at an expensive restaurant. Anyone can make reservations at a restaurant. Instead, try something different, a little adventurous, and very romantic: prepare a gourmet, restaurant-quality meal at home.  We suggest this delicious  Halibut Beurre Rouge with Shaved Asparagus, Morels, and Heirloom Potatoes, recipe courtesy of Chef Phillip Foss of Chicago’s EL Ideas restaurant. Don’t worry, you won’t have to prepare the whole recipe on your own. Just turn to the best sous chef a gourmet cook could ask for: your SousVide Supreme.

Put in that little bit of extra effort to make an unforgettable romantic gesture. In this case, “that little bit” is the key. Chef Phillip Foss’ recipe may be an ambitious dish to attempt, but it’s infinitely easier to perfect thanks to sous vide cooking.  Since you don’t have to keep an eye on the halibut, you’re free to prepare the rest of your plating as the halibut cooks to perfection in 20 minutes. Your SousVide Supreme is a modern convenience that actually makes romantic gestures easier.

Finish the meal with an elegant Classic Crème Brûlée for dessert. Made in advance with the help of your SousVide Supreme, the light custard is a sweet compliment to the complex flavors of the Halibut Beurre Rouge.

If you have a special Valentine’s Day dinner menu, or if you plan on using ours, let us know! Share your Valentine’s Day successes with us on Twitter or our Facebook page.

Keeping in line with our September meal planning theme, we thought it would be a perfect fit to get a busy working mom’s perspective on how she uses SousVide Supreme to make her meal planning easier and healthier. For more on Michelle, you can read her blog Nom Nom Paleo.

I wear many hats as a wife, mom, full-time night shift worker, and daily Paleo food blogger. But no matter how hectic life gets, we always eat a healthy and tasty home-cooked dinner together as a family.

This wasn’t always the case; just a few years ago, I made a habit of bringing home greasy take-out or throwing together a batch of spaghetti with jarred tomato sauce for dinner. What changed? I bought a SousVide Supreme!

Sous vide cooking has vastly improved how and what my family eats. It’s amazing how despite juggling a crazy work schedule and parenting duties (I have two young boys), I’m still able to whip up delicious, restaurant-quality meals most nights of the week with minimal preparation. It’s been almost a full year since we bought a SousVide Supreme, and it’s been my go-to kitchen appliance ever since.

It’s amazing how sous vide cooking:

1. Saves me money;
2. Fools people into thinking I’m a fantastic chef; and
3. Offers me the gift of time.

Money Saver
The SousVide Supreme has saved me money in more ways than one. First and foremost, we rarely go out to eat nowadays because it’s so easy to crank out delicious meals at home. I’ve also saved on my grocery bills because, when cooked sous vide, tough, cheaper cuts of meat (e.g. grass fed beef tongue, oxtail, short ribs, etc.) are magically transformed into tender, succulent entrees. On the rare occasion when I buy an expensive steak, I don’t need to worry about spending money on a back-up dinner plan because it always turns out fantastic.

Makes Me Look Good
Although I’m a die-hard foodie and maintain a food blog, I’m — at best — an enthusiastic home cook. In fact, if a recipe looks too involved or complex, I’m not making it! Who wants to be disappointed by the result after feverishly cooking for hours? Fortunately, sous vide cooking allows me to prepare a wide variety of proteins PERFECTLY! All I do is season the meat, vacuum-seal, and drop the packets in the water oven for the specified time and temp. In fact, I’ve become much bolder in my kitchen experiments (e.g. sous vide beef tongue, sous vide beef cheeks, etc.) because I know tastiness awaits in the water oven. It’s so easy, I feel like I’m cheating!

Time Saver

With the SousVide Supreme, I can pre-cook a mess of meat once a week so it’s ready to reheat when I want to eat it. The trick to meal planning with the water oven is finding and grouping items that can cook at the same temperature. For example, if you like all your red meat cooked to 130º F (medium rare), just plan to make all of them at the same time and remove each individual item as they finish cooking.

The beauty of sous vide is that you can cook lots of things ahead and then you’ve got tons of ready-to-eat meat in your fridge (where it’s good for ~4 days) or freezer (where it’s good for 6+ months). You can eat the meat cold (e.g. chicken breast) or just reheat it for 30 minutes in the water bath set to the final serving temp, dry it off, and sear. Given that I don’t need to stress out about my proteins anymore, I can focus my energies on cooking up tasty vegetable side dishes – and who doesn’t need to eat more veggies?

I’m not an aspiring Master Chef — just a working mom who wants an affordable, perfectly cooked meal for my family. Since prep time and clean-up is minimal when I use my SousVide, I’m able to spend more time enjoying dinner with the family instead of slaving away in the kitchen.

One of my favorite dishes is sous vide pork tenderloin. Not only is it easy to make and budget friendly, but using the dry rub makes the pork so flavorful!

Sous Vide Pork Tenderloins
(feeds 4-6 people)

Ingredients:
2 pork tenderloins, about a pound each
1.5 tablespoons (22.5 ml) of Tabil seasoning (or your favorite dry rub)
1.5 tablespoons (22.5 ml) of Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 Tablespoons (28 g) of butter

Here’s how make it:

1. Dry off the meat.

2. Season with salt, pepper, and your favorite dry rub. Don’t be afraid of salt.

3. Add a pat of butter to each tenderloin and vacuum seal it.
4. Stick the packet in the SousVide Supreme set at 135-140 F (I prefer 135F) for a minimum of 2 hours.

(If you aren’t serving them right away, dunk them in an ice bath for an hour and store in the fridge and freezer.)

5. Take the pork out of the packet, dry it off.
6. Sear in a hot pan with your favorite fat or torch it.
That’s it!

Read more about Michelle’s balancing act (and delicious sous vide recipes) at NomNomPaleo.com.

Every family has its favorite recipe.  In fact, every person in a family will have an opinion.  Some prefer fresh Cranberry Relish (uncooked); others want cooked sauce, but from scratch; still others (inexplicably, but honestly) prefer the jellied stuff from a can.

If you are in the camp who wants a made-from-fresh-cranberries sauce with a tart flavor and pleasing texture, take a tip from Salty Seattle, who compared a traditional stove top cooked cranberry sauce to a sous vide cooked cranberry sauce (and for good measure with a commercial slice it up canned cranberry sauce as her control.)  Which was superior?  Click here for all the details and the recipes.

For more recipes for holiday favorites, check out the new Sous Vide Holiday cookbook.

Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving…

Here are some fantastic recipes to try in your SousVide Supreme. SVKitchen is all about sous vide cooking and the recipes they create are fantastic!! Become a fan! http://svkitchen.com/

Easter is this weekend and all eyes will be on the egg – which is one of the coolest foods you can cook sous vide. The egg is full of complex proteins which firm up at different temperatures, so because of the precise temperature control you get with sous vide, you can create textures you just can’t replicate with any other technique. You can even set the yolk before the whites – some calls this a “reverse boiled egg” – for an amazing thick custard-like middle, with velvety whites on the outside.

Scrambled, soft boiled, dipping in toast – with sous vide you get a complete range, and one degree difference can change the entire texture. Hours of experimental fun!

So, in honor of the egg this holiday weekend, we’ve rounded up some of the best-of-the best sous vide egg photos from our friends online using the SousVide Supreme. Don’t miss our own little unofficial scientific experiment at the end for a cooking play-be-play.

Awesome creamy results by Steamy Kitchen.

Perfect soft boiled atop seasoned potatoes. Shout out to Serious Eats.

Quail eggs too! Topped with truffle oil and black lava sea salt, no less. Fancy stuff, Sleepless Foodie!

Well Preserved said this is the “the best egg he’s ever had.” Looks delish.

Wilson Rothman notes this egg achieved perfect custard consistency. Check out his post at You Make It You Eat It.

Salty Seattle always impresses with her dishes. Here, sous vide egg paired with Meyer lemon hollandaise.

Classic egg on toast by Popular Science.

Gorgeous photo from The Foodie Forkful.

Another good one by Salty Seattle. Goose egg done right.

…and from our own Dr. Mary Dan Eades, creamy French-custard style eggs!

Now, for our own informal experiment – see results at left at two degree increments, all cooked for 45 minutes in the SousVide Supreme. We found the perfect egg to be right at the 143 mark. People who follow sous vide cooking closely will note the SousVide Supreme does not circulate water, as most other water baths do. We often hear the “perfect sous vide egg” is 146, but due to the difference in water circulation, 143 seems to be the sweet spot for the SousVide Supreme. And yes, three degrees does make a huge difference…that is the beauty of sous vide!

Our own Chef Richard Blais cites 143 for the perfect SousVide Supreme egg. So tell us, what temp is perfect for you?

Apart from slaving over a hot bain Marie, stirring constantly for twenty minutes or more, there simply used to be no other way to produce scrambled eggs in the French style.  You know the ones I mean–those with the delicate consistency of a velvety custard.  And that kind of hands-on time commitment meant that for all but the most dedicated cook, these fabulous eggs were a treat to be had on special weekends.

All that changed with the arrival of the SousVide Supreme.  Now it’s something so easy and foolproof that anyone can do it…for one or two or ten.  And requires so little hands-on time that you might decide to make them any old morning before going to work or school.  Like these eggs above, made on a busy Tuesday morning.

Here’s how simple it is:

Eggs Scrambled in the French Manner

Makes 2 servings

INGREDIENTS

• 5 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons half-and-half cream
• 1 generous tablespoon unsalted butter
• pinch of truffle salt (if you have it) or sea salt

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the SousVide Supreme to 167F/75C.
2. Beat the eggs, cream and butter well and pour into a food-grade, plastic vacuum pouch, suitable for cooking.Let the bag hang over the edge of your counter, holding it securely, so that gravity helps keep the liquid in the bottom of the bag.  Vacuum as much air from the bag as is possible (which with a typical home suction system won’t be much) and before the liquid escapes into the vac chamber, seal it. (Conversely, just express as much air as you can manually and seal the bag, sans vacuum.)
3. Drop the bag into the SousVide Supreme water bath.
4. Set the timer for 10 minutes and at that point, pull the p0uch out, massage the egg mixture through the plastic for a moment and return it to the bath.
5. Set the timer for 5 more minutes.
6. Pull the pouch from the SousVide Supreme and gently massage the pouch.
7. Divide the cooked eggs between two bowls, sprinkle a bit more truffle salt on top, grind a bit of black pepper over them, and enjoy the most delectable scrambled eggs imaginable.