[Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment (Part 1)]

Thanks for the chicken information.

Although I said that I wanted "recipes" the main thing I am looking for is some authoritative information on time and temperature.

In the few sous vide recipes that I have seen, there seems to be a pretty wide range of temperatures. They are all cooler than boiling, but they range from 190 degrees F at the high down to much lower - like the 120 degrees.

Last night I made salmon - I had two different sources - one saying that I MUST cook it no higher than 104 degrees F. The other said 113 degrees F. So, I tried both ways. There was a clear difference, but each worked.

The cooking times vary a lot - all are long, but the question is how long. I found a sous vide lamb shank recipe on the internet which called for 4 hours at 180. That is the same time as many conventional recipes at higher tempertatures. I tried it, and it clearly was not enough, the shank was not tender. So I tried 6 hours - that was better, but again clearly not enough. My guess is that the shanks really needed 8 or possibly more hours - which is a 2X difference from the recipe.

I am told that Daniel Boulud does short ribs sous vide for 36 hours - I don't know at what temperature however.

So, bottom line is that some reliable time and temperature information would be very useful.

[Halvah]

There is a restaurant in Banglore, India that serves carrot halwa hot, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top - it is very good that way

[Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment (Part 1)]

I am wondering if anybody has sources for recipes for sous-vide cooking - which is to say, cooking done in sealed vacuum bags.

It started out in Europe as a means to do large scale cooking - like airline catering - where food is cooked in a factory and reheated elsewhere. the idea was the cooking was done centrally, and reheating done elsewhere/later.

Some chefs in the US use it that way - for example for late night food at Las Vegas restaurants so a minimal kitchen staff can prepare it. However, there is a clear trend toward high end chefs using it as a tool in its own right rather than simply a means to centralize cooking. Charlie Trotter gave an interview in a restaurant trade magazine saying that 50% of his plates have at least one component made this way. Daniel Boulud and a number of other chefs are using it.

Typically the ingredients are sealed in a plastic bag under vacuum (similar to various home vacuum sealer machines). The bag is then cooked at low temperature - typically at less than boiling (150 degrees), and sometimes even lower. Typical cooking times are long - hours. It is basically a very gentle form of poaching.

I have a vacuum sealer machine, and I got some heat proof sealing bags. So I have been experimenting. However, there are very few recipes out there. This is a bit surprising because it is pretty widely used in Europe. So, one would expect there to be more recipes or even information of a general nature.

There is one book on the topic from Amazon - it is very expensive, and utterly worthless - it is more about industrial processes and gives few if any details.

Art Cullinaire had an issue with several recipes in it in Spring 2002 - for example: http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0JAW/2...457/print.jhtml

On eGullet, the only references seem to be to restaurants that use it - like Trio near Chicago.

My questions are does anybody:

- Have any recipes themselves?

- Know of other sources (books, magazines, web sites)?