nathanm

I ate at ElBulli two days ago, at the kitchen table. It was unbelievably good - an amazing combination of flavors with enormous creativity and flair. It was my first time, and I didn't know what to think about some of the criticisms one hears so often - that the food is strange, off-putting, hard to eat and so forth. While it is true that many of the courses do not look like food in a conventional way, it is clear convention is not what this place is about. There wasn't a single dish (out of 42 courses) that wasn't just stunning. I would write more, and post photos, but I am still in spain, with a flaky WiFi connection and I have to fly out to parts further afield tonight. You were all correct about no dress code. Indeed at Can Roca the day after ElBulli, there was a guy in jeans and a harley davidson t-shirt

Here is a silly question - is there a dress code at El Bulli ? I am eating there this week. Does one need a jacket and tie?

I'm leaving tomorrow. Eating at El Bulli, Can Fabes, and Can Roca.... Thanks for all the help

More PacoJet knowledge in detail would be good. It definitely requires some different techniques than standard equipment. I have progressed a bit on the savory ice cream front. I have collected a number of recipes from various sources. Some of the things that people use to get texture in a savory ice cream are: - Olive oil - Gelatin - Sugar, but in a reduced amount - Glucose, in a reduced amount - Salt - even a small amount of salt depresses the freezing point. One intriguing ingredient that I have experimented with is polydextrose, a sugar based polymer which the body digests as fiber. It is useful in low-carb ice cream. It has very low sweetness. However, since the molecule size is fairly large it does not depress freezing point, and thus is not a complete solution by itself. Small molecules depress the freezing point better than large ones, which is why salt works well. That said, I don't have the perfect solution yet. My experiments in sazory ice cream to date are more "interesting" than good. But that is what experimenting is all about...

I made the rich beef jus yesterday - we ate it tonight. YES it was very good. I also made the rich chicken jus. It is very concentrated - a stiff jelly when cold - so it only takes a little bit to achieve the right effect. To literally follow his recipe you would need to make a veal stock and and pot au feu stock and then make the beef jus, and then enrich it further with oxtail. If you have them all on hand all the time that would be great but I did not have the time to make them one after another so I did this pretty much in combination. It worked out very well. I have also recently made the pumpkin soup with ricotta gnocchi, and a verison of the broccoli soup. And also the wild salmon with arugula, artichokes and a saurce made from the salmon head... that was great too...

It is clearly a great book in many ways, but the copy editor should be shot. The typos are persistent throughout - "Prime Rip" of beef in one recipe, and tons of others. Ricotta gnocchi are translated as "Buttermilk gnocchi" and in some places buttermilk is misspelled. In the beef section it calls for "chicken steak". What cut of beef is that? In the southern US it would be chicken fried steak, but this is clearly not that! Anybody know? Presumably the French version must have the French name. The rich beef jus is interesting. It is somewhat counter intuitive to take a big beef brisket, throw it on the meat slicer and cut it into thin slices to roast, and turn into jus, but that is just what I did yesterday....

I will be traveling in the Barcelona area and the countryside evirons in mid May for about 5 days. I'd like recommendations as to the best restaurants to go to. My main interest is high end, cutting edge Spanish/Catlan gastronomy. In my definition this ranges from the extreme experimental end to the more modern classic. El Bulli would be the ultimate example, but that is probably not achievable at this point without a direct act of God (I'm praying !) From what I can tell from eGullet and elsewhere, I should visit El Celler de Can Roca, L'Esguard and Can Fabes. Can Fabes is less experimental perhaps than the others but from what I have heard I really want to go there. Abac and Alkimia are both recommended elsewhere on eGullet. Apparently Sergi Arola of La Broche in Madrid has opened a restaurant called Arola in the Hotel Arts Barcelona. Any comments on it? Some early comments on another thread were extremely negative. Are there other restaurants that I should consider? OK, now here is the more difficult question - if I can't do them all, are they are comments on which ones I should definitely not miss? Comments on any of these (either logistical, or cullinary) would be great. By logistics I mean if there are recommendations on places to stay nearby, or how to get there, or other information that is not otherwise obvious. I have traveled a lot in Spain and will be with fluent Spanish speakers.

Sorry for the delay. The reference book that I used - Los Secretos del Helado, calculates sugar equivalents and uses a 1.3X for invert sugar, but 0.70 for dextrose rather than 0.75. So that works out to be 108 grams of sucrose equivalent. I scaled the low-carb sweeteners accordingly. I used Carb Countdown. The subjective aspect is that it did NOT taste sweeter than the sugar version. This is somewhat personal I realize. I also made another batch of ice cream based on the recipe that Scott123 provided - more on that later...

My skepticism about LN2 ice cream being the best is that I wonder if the people who say that have had quality ice cream, made fresh by a great pastry chef. Ice cream that you get from a carton at the supermarket, or from an ice cream parlor, is just not the same thing.

One thing I forgot - any suggestions on good internet sources for liquid splenda / sucralose, isomalt, inulin ?

I just finished some experiments with low carb ice cream. I made three ice creams. High Carb ------------- This is conventional high carb, adapted from the book Los Secretos de Helado by Angelo Corvitto Milk 330 grams Cream 50 grams Non fat dry milk 30 grams Egg yolks 60 grams (3 yolks) Dextrose 90 grams Sucrose 30 grams Invert sugar 12 grams Stabilizer 3 grams Vanilla bean 1 Low Carb ------------ This is basically the high carb ice cream, with the sucrose sweetening equivalent of the sweetner mix recommended by Scott123 Low carb milk 330 grams Cream 50 grams Non fat dry milk 30 grams Egg yolks 60 grams (3 yolks) Polydextrose 110 grams Erythritol 16 grams Splenda 6 grams (0.2 cup sweetening equivalent) Xylitol 16 grams Stabilizer 3 grams Vanilla bean 1 ============== Note that the amounts are scaled to fit in a Pacojet beaker, which is about 600 grams total. In both cases I mixed in a Thermomix blender and heated to 85C / 185F. There was no problem with the PDX dissolving at that temp, but it was reluctant to dissolve at room temperature. Then I blended in the egg and brought pack to 85/185, then froze. All of these were frozen hard, then spun in a Pacojet. I didn't have liquid splenda - I used solid, so there is some malodextrin in there too, but that is not the end of the world. I'll order some liquid splenda shortly. The high carb ice cream was excellent - not much of a surprise there. The amazing thing (to me anyway, this was my first attempt) is that the low version was nearly identical. The texture was identical - no problem there at all. There was no issue at all with being chewy. In the aftertaste was a bit "blunter" than the high carb version - i.e. there was less of a finish, and the ice cream tasted less sweet at the end. However, that isn't a criticism it simply tasted like a recipe with slighly less sugar - but only at the end. The inital taste was just as sweet however. All in all this was a VERY successful test. Thanks to everybody on the thread. Frankly I had thought that low carb sweets would have to taste pretty bad - based mainly on the various low-carb bars which are not that great. However I was really won over. THANKS FOR THE SUGGESTIONS! Texture wise it is pretty clear that polydextrose is not going to be ideal for non-sweet savory ice cream - I tried an experiment in that direction too and the texture was too chewy / mealy - just as discussed in the thread. I clearly need a small molecule additive that will depress freezing point a bit. The Erythritol and Xylitol in the sweet versions really made a big difference in that regard. So, I need to find a low molecular weight non-sweet additive with a neutral flavor. Any suggestions?

LN2 ice cream is very good, but it is unclear that it is better than excellent freshly made ice cream right out of the machine (conventional or pacojet) which also has small crystals. LN2 is a great presentation for making ice cream if done as a demo, or done tableside - lots of drama, sort of like doing something flambe at the table just cold instead of hot. But I am skeptical that there is a reason to do it apart from the fact that it is a dramatic demonstration. As to huffing it.....well you ARE huffing it right now! About 78% of the atmosphere is N2. Nitrous oxide is a very different issue - that does cause euphoria (laughing gas), but that is a DIFFERENT gas altogether.

Who is cooking with liquid nitrogen? What are you doing with it? This is a topic that is at the cutting edge of culinary technique, but there is very little information out there about it. Liquid nitrogen is a clear liquid (looks just like water) but it is extremely cold - 320F / -196 C. It has been used scientifically for over 100 years, and has many industrial uses. Most people abbreviate it LN2, because N2 (with 2 as a subscript) is nitrogen molecule in the air. A number of chefs are using LN2 in various ways. LN2 ice cream has been around for many years as a science demonsration, and there are many web sites about it such as this one. If you search for "liquid nitrogen" and "ice cream" you get 16,000 hits on Google so this is not exactly unknown. Heston Blumenthal likes to point out that the first reference to LN2 ice cream was in the 19th century. However, apart from the cool presentation there are a lot of other (and probably better) ways to make ice cream. LN2 can be bought at welding and medical supply places. It is pretty cheap - $0.20 to $0.25 per liter. That is less than $1 a gallon - cheaper than milk, gasoline, or bottled water. The only expensive part is that you need a large thermos - called a Dewar to store it, and these can run $500 to $1000. However, they do exist on eBay for less. Because of the intense cold, LN2 is dangerous. However, we need to put that in perspective - boiling water is dangerous too, and a hot oil in a deep fryer is also dangerous. Realistically speaking, LN2 is no more dangerous than these. Heston Blumenthal serves an amuse bouche that is a small ball of foam frozen with liquid nitogen at tableside. Dani Garcia , until recently at Tragabuches in Ronda also cooks with it and has a short chapter in his cookbook on it (in Spanish). This web articlementions a couple other chefs using it. Ferran Adria of El Bulli has spoken publically about making an LN2 chilled version of a plancha - the cold version of a hot griddle. Instead of heating food in contact with the griddle it would be chilled. I will confess that I have not used LN2 yet for cooking myself, but did use it in graduate school scientifically. I'm about to gear up to trying some LN2 cusine, but I thought I'd canvas eGullet first to see who else is into it, and whether there are any practical ideas, tips etc out there.

I agree that you can approach these things cheaply - at some loss of convienence. Similar gas burners are sold in turkey frying kits. Continuing on the theme mentioned earlier, on Induction - you can get into this very cheaply. Induction burners are available as standalone hot plates - like $550 for 1800 watts, $750 for 2500 watts, $850 for 3500 watts. These are not quite as powerful as your big gas burners, but they are a LOT safer - no risk of CO, no risk of fire from the unit itself (stuff in the pan could burn).

To respond about induction. I think it is the best way to cook on top a stove - bar none. It has HUGE advantages. First, only the pan gets hot. When you have a huge gas burner (and I do have a few of them), most of the BTU goes up the hood as hot air. So, out of 110,000 BTU, the amount that is actually delivered to the pan or wok is only a fraction of that. This is both wasteful of energy, but it also drives having a big hood to suck all that hot air out of the room. Most of what the hood is doing is NOT related to the cooking it is related to the waste heat from the burner that is doing you no good. The kitchen also says cool. Second, the pan heats FAST. Normal cooking (gas, radiant, electric) applies heat to the bottom of a pan, and then it takes a while for the heat to conduct through the pan to the food. That is why copper and aluminum are used for the bottoms of pans - they conduct well. Cast iron conducts much more poorly which is why it tends only to be used for some kinds of pots and pan (Le Cruset notwithstanding). Induction heats the metal in the pan itself, so it heats much faster. There is no point in having copper in an induction pan - the pan itself is getting heated by the magnetic field generated by the "burner". This transmits leves of heat to the pan and food MUCH faster than the best copper pans. Third, it is very even. You get very uniform results because again it is the pan that is getting hot, and it does so very uniformly. Fourth, you get incredible control over the heat level. You can easily melt chocolate or do other delicate operations on induction that normally require a bain marie. Or, you can crank it up and melt the teflon coating off a pan in a matter of seconds (yes, I have done that). Because the pan heats so fast you can Fifth, the burner stays cold and is easy to clean. Right under the pan, it gets hot because the pan heat conducts a bit to the burner. However, you can put your hand down on the burner, right beside a pan (just don't touch the pan) and not feel a thing. A quick wipe and it is clean. Yes, you need a special pan. So what? Good performance on a regular stove requires good pans too. Nearly every major cookware company now produces induction pans. Gas is still useful if you want to do something like char the skin from a pepper with the open flame, but it is really not a very good way to do pan based cooking. Gas may be necessary in a mountain cabin or some other place without decent electrical supply. Meawhile electric (includnig radiant) isn't even good for peppers. There just isn't any area where electric is superior to induction. Many people already have gas and electric, and that is fine - nobody needs to switch if they don't want to. As somebody else said vive la difference. Subjectively you can do what you want. However objectively, induction is a fantastic technology. Note that ovens are an entirely different issue...this is just about stovetop range cooking.

Building inspectors like to claim they have final word, but in fact there is a well established procedure to escalate and appeal. It is not easy, but it can be done. Codes do have wiggle room. They also have mistakes (specifying things that are physically impossible), and inconsistencies. Large building projects have code consultants who get paid a lot just for dealing with the many weird issues. You can make a hood quiet - it does not have to sound like a tomcat taking off, but you need huge fans and ducts so you move the right CFM with lower velocity air.

Molteni is NOTHING like Aga. Molteni is a French professional stove - it is one of the premier European brands. Stylistically their classic range looks like a very old fashioned enameled stove (as do many other European high end professional stoves). It may look a bit like Aga in that regard, but that is skin deep only. Molteni is more than an equal for any US made commercial equipment. Their stoves are custom made and you can select which burners, flat tops, deep fryers, grills or other units to have in them. The other top European brands include Bonnet and Thirode. There are others too. However, at the same time I think that it is wrong to lump Aga in with other European stoves. Aga is just totally different. Better maybe, but certainly different. This isn't about the American market versus Europeans. I live in the US, for example. But, if you ask me US brands like Wolf, Garland and others have lagged way behind European manufacturers in almost every way. As an example, European stoves had induction long before anybody in the US had it. More recently the US manufacturers have caught up a bit and now offer induction. However, the guts of their induction units are all imported. The same thing is true for combi-ovens - the European brands are hugely superior to anything made in the US. Pacojet is another example. There are very few areas in professional kitchen equipment where a US company makes what is genuinely the best product. Dishwashers are probably a good example - the Hobart LX-40 is about as good as they get. Hobart mixers are also a sort of industry standard. Finally, I'll put in a plug that for most cooking needs, induction is the way to go - there really is nothing else remotely like it.

I think people are talking past each other. Here is my perspective. True restaurant ranges have two sets of issues associated with them - one is the set of things functionally required in order to install them, or else they are not going to be safe or work well. The second is what the local building code people think are required. The two in theory should be related but in practice they are not. Any stove used for a lot of serious cooking needs to have a hood. A true restaurant stove needs a powerful hood because the high heat burners cause a lot of hot air to rise, and you really want to draw it off. Also, when you sear something and create clouds of smoke or steam, you want it to go away. Most residential kitchens have pathetic hoods - even for the heat output of their fairly weak burners. This is a chronic weakness among most residential kitchen designers, and appliance makers. Anybody serious about cooking should consider having a great hood and ventilation, and some kind of fire supression system, and appropriate heat proofing in adjacent walls. These truly fuctional and safety issues should be addressed. The building code is quite another matter. In principle large parts of the world (the US, Canada, Europe) each have a single building code - called UBC in US and there are similar European codes. However, the application of the code is entirely up to local inspectors and they basically have random requirements. Any conclusion drawn from one person's experience in one part of the country cannot be reliably applied to another part of the country because the local inspector ultimately rules. So, those of you in posts on this thread who are stating somethnig is legal, or illlegal or possible or impossible, well, you are ALL correct - at least someplace! And you are probably not correct someplace else. I don't think that it is worth arguing about because the standards are applied so inconsistently. Once a building inspector takes a position, you are often stuck with it. You can sometimes talk them out of their positions, but my experience is that very few inspectors know what the code actually says. They only get annoyed if you try to refer to the actual code. Instead, they have their own habits. Nevertheless, when anybody tells you "you can't do this, it is against code", or "against the law", or "illegal", the thing you should always ask is "OK, show me the section". In almost all cases the actual code says something quite different than they are claiming. Note that SOME of the UBC requirements make sense because they are functional (i.e. the hood issue, having fire suppression) and plenty of other requirements do not make any practical sense. Another point is that, technically speaking, the UBC has requirements on commercial kitchens, and on residential kitchens. UBC does NOT actually have requirements on putting commerical equipment in a residential kitchen - the definition of the code is by class of building and use, not by the equipment. Some building inspectors will make you comply with the commercial code if you have commercial equipment. However, this is their own private opinion - technically there is no actual code requirement to do so. Others don't care, or don't know. Some will, as one post says, flat out refuse. They are not on good grounds to do that, but they certainly can try. Generally the fire marshal is only concerned with the fire supression system and hood, not the stoves. There are also insulation requirements for certain kinds of restaurant equipment. However, the key fire marshall requirement is the hood - it should have grease traps, and a fire supression system. Imported foreign stoves and other equipment can be tricky because of UL listing requirements. Some European equipment is not UL listed. That will freak out a US inspector because they will act like it is an untested death trap, when in actual fact it may be higher quality and have been more completely tested than any US made equipment. This too can be overcome with some effort. However, all of the above is about TRUE restaurant stoves. Because of the popularity of restaurant-style stoves, most of the manufacturers - including Garland, Wolf, Viking and others make "restaurant-style" stoves that conform more to residential kitchens. These range from versions of restaurant equipment with similar performance, to other stoves that are functionally no different from conventional kitchen stoves - they just have lots of stainless and heavy gauge pot grids, so they LOOK like a profesisonal stove. This later category of equipment may look like the real thing, but the performance is often not there. Because there are a range of models and a range of manufacturers, you really have to check the the actual specs. For example, residential stoves are frequently limited to 14,000 to 15,000 BTU burners. A big restaurant burner could be 110,000 BTU, up to 350,000 BTU. Whether you actually need a burner like that depends on what you are doing with it. High heat is important for some things, but frankly in other aspects of cooking it is not really relevant. In my opinion the best range to cook with is induction - and although you can get a lot of heat from induction, the control of the heat is far more important to me. So obsessing about who has the most powerful burners is a bit of a red herring. Now, then we come to the issue of the Aga. I'll stick my neck out and give an opinion here. Aga is often described as a "professional" piece of equipment for home, as in one post. However, no professional kitchen that I have ever heard of uses an Aga, or anything remotely similar to one. It is a unique product, which has a cult-like following that is entirely drawn from wealthy amatuers, not professional chefs. This is not to say that it is bad, but people who have them carry on so much about how they love them and how "professional" they are that it is hard to get objective information. In case you have not figured it out, I do NOT have Aga. However, I have seen them demoed and had people lobby me about them. Aga appears to be an almost religious issue - sort of like a cult. I don't mean that to sound negative, if Aga owners are happy, hey, who am I to argue with their happiness with their stove? The Aga has a very unique design that has NONE of the features that are important in a conventional range. You get neither power, nor lots of heat, nor much (some would say any) control. Aga owners have elaborate theories as to why this is a good thing - that is is good not to have temperature control, that it is good that the temperature drops quickly when you use the burners or stove (because the actual gas burners are on 7 x 24 and are very weak). These theories strike me as being rationalizations rather than scientifically based. But again, if they are happy, great. Hopefully some real Aga owners will opine here more specifically about what they think is good about it.

Besides temperature, you need to consider time at temperature. Tougness comes largely from collagen, which converts to gelatin. This takes time. Roasted or braised meat held at 140F/60C for a while will be more tender than one that is just brought to that temperature and then served.

Thanks very much for the info. I use a Pacojet and make ice cream to order so scoopability is not as much an issue. I use stabilizers in some conventional ice creams already. Sure, I would like the recipe if you don't mind. It is great to learn principles, but starting somewhere can be a big help!

I tried blind taste tests a few years ago, of creme anglais and vanilla ice cream using beans from Tahiti, Madagascar, Indonesia and Mexico. The test was designed both to see if people could tell the difference as well as what they prefer. Everything else was held constant. Nobody did better than random guessing at telling the difference between Tahiti, Madagascar and Indonesia. Some people would label two samples as different even if they were identical, for example. Mexican vanilla was definitely different. A few people preferred it, most did not prefer it although it was not bad. My conclusion is that most of the talk about differences in vanilla bean origin is pretty suspect, at least between Tahiti, Madagascar and Indonesia. I think there is a lot more variation between fresh and old beans than there is between fresh beans from these different places. Any such test depends on the samples of course. The differences from batch to batch can vary. I ordered fresh beans for the test, but still it could just have been the batches I had. I'm curious to see what people think of the cheap beans from the site....

I have a couple questions for the quite impressive sugar expertise on this thread. I am the one that posted the savory sorbet thread mentioned above, and that one interest. In that context I want the texture attributes of sugar without the sweet taste. I am also interested in low-carb ice cream and sorbet, where I DO want the sweet taste. Obviously, to be truly low-carb, the main flavoring ingredient would have to be low-carb too. Raspberry would work, honey or caramel would not. Also, if you are really concerned about it, the lactose in milk might be an issue, but probably not for reasonable serving sizes. 1. Any issues with freezing PDX? Presumably it will lower the freezing point in a manner similar to other sugars, but I'd like to ask. 2. From what is said in the thread, it sounds like PDX is best incorporated into warm or hot liquid. 3. More generally, what would you recommend for low-carb ice cream or sorbet ? Will the blend of PDX, Xylitol, Erythritol, Stevia, Splenda discussed in the thread work or is it mainly for hot baked items? 4. Any particular flavors that work well with low carb ice cream or sorbet? I would guess that strong flavors, or those complimentary to the aftertaste from the sweeteners would be best...

I posted this recently on the cooking board, but it was suggested that I post it here, which is probably correct since pastry chefs tend to use high-tech gelling agents and emulsifiers even more I just got a sample of Micri - a starchy substance invented and promoted by the Spanish chef (and medical doctor) Miguel Sanchez Romera. It has been mentioned in the past on eGullet, but with very few details. Micri is promoted as a miracle emuslifying agent, used for hot or cold sauces, sorbets and ice creams. The main Micri site is here, complete with recipiesrecipies. These include a number of dessert recipes - including Micri based ice cream and sorbet, cake and sauces. Micri is a fresh, moist product (a thick paste) based on manioc, a tropical tuber from South America that is also the basis for tapioca. In use, it appears that you generally stick an immersion blender into the tub or jar of Micri, whip it from a thick paste into a smoother consitency, then mix with other ingredients. The short shelf life is a bit of a bother - gelatine, agar agar, arrowroot and other gelling or emuslifying agents are powders that keep well. On the other hand it may be convienent to use out of the container. Personally, I don't use starch thickened sauces - hot or cold - very much. However, I thought that I would give it a try. I have 800 grams of it and it only lasts 3 weeks in the refridgerator so time for some experiments! Earlier eGullet threads were mostly about speculating what it was, and repeating breathless press articles stating that it was a miracle product. Does anybody have any experience with it? Any suggestions?

The original post was about cooking meat slowly, at low tempertaure, so that the collagen turns to gelatine, but the meat is still medium rare. It works really well- at least for me. However, you need the right circumstances. As a previous post discusses, first you need the meat interior to reach the desired temperature. That takes some time. 130F /54C to 140F / 60C is a fine range - I have done pretty much all of this. You do not want to go lower than 130F / 54C for two reasons - food safety gets dodgy, and also the collagen-gelatine conversion slows down the lower you go. Then you need to hold the meat at that temperature for enough time for the collagen to convert. A chart of time and temperature would be great, but alas i don't have one. I have a few results of my own and have collected a few more. Heston Blumenthal says somewhere that 136F /58C is the best temperature for lamb, and suggests that no more than 10 hours. There are two ways that I do it. One is to roast the meat in a Rational Combi Oven, with a special low temperature roasting program. First it browns the exterior at high temperature (392F / 200C), then the oven cools down, then it roasts at 150F / 66 C and slowly drops this down over time. Once the interior is the right temperature it then holds the meat at the interior setting for as long as you like (up to 24 hours). The collagen to gelatine conversion requires water, so the exterior does NOT convert, but inside the meat it is plenty wet. You could do this in a conventional oven but it is not easy because you can't wait until the interior hits the right temperature - it will overshoot on you. The other way that I do this is sous vide. That is easy, you put the meat - usually with some liquid (stock, or oil / fat) and seal it in a vacuum bag. Then you put it in either a Rational combi oven on steam mode, or a laboratory water bath at the interior temperature. Again, once the interior reaches the right temperature you leave it fo sit for the conversion time. I've done the roasting method up to 14 hours. I've done the sous vide method for up to 48 hours. The result is tender meat that looks medium rare (is red inside), but is as tender as you want. I have done lots of very tough meat cuts this way - it works great.

This is a very important point. Many of the health department concerns about sous vide have to do with preparation followed by storage - eithre selling food retail to be reheated later, or preparing food in a central kitchen/factory and shipping to multiple places to be reheated. That is VERY different than cooking for food to be served immediately. The main reason is botulism. Botulism is the most severe form of food poisioning. It is generally NOT relevant to immediatly served food. Botulism bacteria are quickly killed by heat - the guidelines discussed above will certainly get rid of it. However, the bacteria produce spores which are very resiliant - they require MUCH higher temperatures to kill them. This is why the procedures for home canning often involve using a pressure cooker. Botulism generally does not affect fresh foods because it is anerobic - it can't grow in the presence of oxygen. However the spores are often present. The primary concern with sous vide food that is kept for storage is that the initial cooking and heat treatment leaves the spores intact, then while the food is stored the spores germinate into bacteria which produce toxin which can kill people who eat it. This requires storage for a period of time - typically days. This is a real issue for sous vide intended to be stored for a long time. The food saftey issues for that form of sous vide are quite serious - it is basically food manufacturing, and you really better know what you are doing. The longer that the food is stored after cooking the more this is an issue. You need to be extremely careful about hygene, and in cases of long storage typically want to adjust the recipe accordingly - adding something acidic to help stop the bacteria growing. Sous vide has been used this way in Europe for over 20 years so it certainly can be done. However, be aware that cooking and then storing before serving is fundamentally different and has greater potential for danger. Generally speaking the concerns about botulism and other anerobic bacteria are not an issue with sous vide used immediately, so long as the food safety guidelines dissused above are used - i.e. 140F/60C for 12 minutes, or keeping the total time in the danger zone less than the time in the tables.