Momofuku Ko (Part 1)

[Mayur]

Second, Reichl refers to "An egg (cooked sous vide)." So was the egg placed in a vacuum pouch ("sous vide" = "under gas") or was it really just slow-cooked in a water bath? The "sous-vide egg" misnomer probably shouldn't be perpetuated by a source at the level of Gourmet.

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I can't imagine that they wouldn't have used a vacuum sealer if they're actually calling the thing "sous vide." Chang is pretty big on honoring traditional culinary terminology; his entire operation is practically a siren song to the line guys.

[Fat Guy]

I'm not necessarily pinning it on Chang. It could just be what Reichl wrote. I mean, look at the fourth photo in post #19 above. That to me looks like an egg coddled in its shell at 63 degrees Celsius for 45 minutes (or whatever) in a low-temperature water bath, not an egg cooked in a vacuum pouch. I will, however, say that at least one cook at Noodle Bar has called the eggs there, which are coddled in their shells and not cooked in sealed pouches, "sous-vide eggs."

[Jesikka]

Second, Reichl refers to "An egg (cooked sous vide)." So was the egg placed in a vacuum pouch ("sous vide" = "under gas") or was it really just slow-cooked in a water bath? The "sous-vide egg" misnomer probably shouldn't be perpetuated by a source at the level of Gourmet.

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I can't imagine that they wouldn't have used a vacuum sealer if they're actually calling the thing "sous vide." Chang is pretty big on honoring traditional culinary terminology; his entire operation is practically a siren song to the line guys.

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I think she just misheard egg and onion soubise.

[tupac17616]

the day I start going restaurants looking for new paradigms someone needs to put me out of my misery.

amen

[Fat Guy]

Nobody is going to restaurants looking for new paradigms. How would one do that? With one of those metal detectors people use to look for coins on the beach? We're talking about the fact that Momofuku Ssam Bar shattered the old restaurant paradigm. It simply happened, but some folks are slow to realize it. I'd be happy to explain, again, why the doubters are wrong. On the new-paradigm topic. Not here.

[weinoo]

I'm not necessarily pinning it on Chang. It could just be what Reichl wrote. I mean, look at the fourth photo in post #19 above. That to me looks like an egg coddled in its shell at 63 degrees Celsius for 45 minutes (or whatever) in a low-temperature water bath, not an egg cooked in a vacuum pouch. I will, however, say that at least one cook at Noodle Bar has called the eggs there, which are coddled in their shells and not cooked in sealed pouches, "sous-vide eggs."

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Isn't the shell a "sealed pouch?"

[Fat Guy]

Not on my home planet.

[weinoo]

Well, maybe we're talking semantics and technicalities here, but a chef calling the egg sous-vide isn't that far off base...

Eggs are one of the easiest places to start with sous-vide cooking. Since they already come in a convenient cooking shell you don’t need to worry about vacuum sealing them (so technically this isn’t exactly ’sous-vide’).

and from the NY Times

Goussault instructed the chef in the kitchen to drop an egg into a thermal circulator, sous vide's ''oven'' -- a circulating water bath whose temperature can be adjusted to within a tenth of a degree. It was set at 64.5 degrees Celsius (about 148 degrees Fahrenheit), which he calculated as the perfect egg-cooking temperature.

Chefs, Goussault said, ''need people like me to regulate and to push the creativity to the next place.'' He quantifies what chefs aim to do intuitively. Some need less help than others. ''I was in Joël's kitchen,'' Goussault said, referring to Joël Robuchon, one of France's most revered chefs, ''and he was cooking eggs, so I tested the temperature; I put in my probe, and it was 64.5. I asked him how he knew this, and he just said that was how he liked it best.''

After 45 minutes, the chef removed the egg from the water and Goussault cracked it over his plate. I had never seen an egg like this: the whites and yolk, cooked to precisely the same consistency, spilled out like a wobbly custard, and Goussault, using a spoon, began pulling the whites from the yolk. The yolk was bright and creamy and stood up like a marshmallow. ''You see, you see!'' Goussault said. ''It's all about the temperature.''

So, while indeed the dictionary definition of sous-vide may be "under vacuum," many chefs, including Robuchon, would consider the cooking of eggs, in a thermal circulator, sous-vide for their purposes.

[Fat Guy]

The first quote specifically says it's not sous vide, and the second one doesn't say it is. Because it isn't.

[slkinsey]

Yes, technically "sous vide" requires cooking vacuum. But a cursory glance at the sous vide thread on this site, as well as the things that have been written about it elsewhere, will reveal that this has come to be a catch-all phrase describing the range of techniques available with sous vide technology. This includes mostly precise temperature control of ingredients vacuum-sealed in a pouch, but also is informally used to describe cooking techniques such as precise temperature control via a precision water bath heater but without a vacuum pouch (e.g., cooking vegetables at a specific temperature in an open container) and also various effects possible with vacuum equipment (e.g., "pressure cooking," compressed fruit, cucumbers vacuum-infused with gin, etc.).

Getting back to the example of an egg. . . no, the shell of an egg is not 100% airtight. But it is certainly airtight enough that it's not entirely inappropriate to describe an egg long-cooked to precise temperature inside the shell as "sous vide." As a matter of practical chemistry, the eggs are likely exposed to less oxygen using this method than they would be if they were cracked into a plastic bag which was then vacuumed and sealed. Also as a matter of practical chemistry, quite a bit of sous vide cooking isn't really done under vacuum.

I understand that "sous vide" means more or less "under vacuum." But one has to understand that there are plenty of terms that come to have a somewhat different meaning when they are imported into another language or become part of the technical jargon of a certain field. A good example might be the musical term "rubato," which is an Italian past participle adjective meaning "robbed." The full phrase would be "tempo rubato" meaning "robbed time." Employed in music this implies a certain accelleration and relaxation of the tempo within a musical phrase such that time is "robbed" from one part of the phrase and "paid back" in another part of the phrase. In English usage, however, we use this adjective as a noun. For example, "I am going to do a rubato here." Strictly speaking, this sentence doesn't make any sense -- but any classical musician in America would know what you meant if you said that. This is because the strict meaning of the word changed when it was imported into English and became part of the classical musician's technical jargon. I would suggest that some of the same things are at work with "sous vide."

[donbert]

$100 or a dinner at Ko says Chang doesn't care what the technique is called and thinks we're all ridiculous for still arguing about it.

[weinoo]

I have to go along with Sam here...I think cooking is jazzy enough that anyone who has actually cooked is more concerned with the final product then whether one is strictly adhering to the literal translation of a foreign cooking term.

Can we get Chang to weigh in on this, donbert?

[Jesikka]

I have to go along with Sam here...I think cooking is jazzy enough that anyone who has actually cooked is more concerned with the final product then whether one is strictly adhering to the literal translation of a foreign cooking term.

Can we get Chang to weigh in on this, donbert?

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Doesn't anyone care that what they actually said was soubise??

[spaetzle_maker]

I think a bunch of us misheard the word soubise as sous-vide.

[Fat Guy]

I can't imagine that they wouldn't have used a vacuum sealer if they're actually calling the thing "sous vide."

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Still having trouble imagining it, Mayur?

The "misheard as sous vide" theory seems valid, however even if that's what happened we still have people saying that egg was cooked sous vide even though it wasn't!

Look, low-temperature cooking does not necessarily equal sous vide. It's as simple as that. There are hundreds of articles, books, classes and papers out there that make the distinction clear, and also plenty that get it wrong. But just because a lot of people get it wrong doesn't make it right, and Ruth Reichl's job is to be in the group that gets it right. Sam, I'm surprised you'd argue it the other way around given what a stickler you are for accuracy. It's hard to reconcile that approach with, for example, all your posts correcting people's use of the term "saute," your oeuvre of posts on cookware design and materials, etc.

[slkinsey]

I'm not saying I think it's okay or entirely correct -- I'm just pointing out how it is.

At some point, it seems a bit of a quibble (as indeed this fork of the discussion is) to try to figure out how much vide equals enough vide. My semi-pro vacuum sealer at home doesn't pull a vacuum nearly as well as an expensive professional chamber machine. Does that mean that my cooking isn't "sous vide"? What about if you seal the bag while there is still plenty of air in there? Is that "sous vide"? After all, it isn't called "sous un sachet en plastique."

Eggs are a bit of a special case, IMO. Eggs come with the food part already sealed in a reasonably airtight package created by nature. If one were to put whole eggs together with water into a plastic bag, suck out some of the air and seal the bag, and then cook the bag at XYZ degrees for ABC length of time -- I suppose that might satisfy some more strict definition of "sous vide." But the reality is that (a) the eggs wouldn't turn out any differently, and (b) it would be a silly distinction. For all intents and purposes, cooking eggs in the shell is sous more vide than plenty of home and professional implementations of this technology.

Personally, if I were writing a menu, I would probably call them "long cooked " or "slow poached" or something like that. But if you say "sous vide" I think everyone in the know understands that they're being cooked in the shell to a very precise temperature -- and "sous vide" does convey that information better than those other descriptions.

(Edited to fix missing words.)

Edited March 6, 2008 by slkinsey (log)

[Fat Guy]

I'm not saying I think it's okay or entirely correct -- I'm just pointing out how it is.

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I had read your posts as saying it is okay, but now that you've explained otherwise I agree with you.

Happy to discuss this issue of sous-vide nomenclature further on another topic.

[anthonybishopric]

The site momofukuko.com just started redirecting people to momofuku.com.

Is something afoot?

[johnder]

Indeed. They did say it was going to go live sometime before Saturday.

I am sure their traffic is going through the roof with people hitting reload.

[Nathan]

its up and reservations are currently available for every night through the next week besides Tuesday. (yes, I beat Eater to the punch)

reservations.momofuku.com

hurry.

edit: reservations are only available for parties of 1, 2 and 4.

Edited March 7, 2008 by Nathan (log)

[Fat Guy]

Eater posted the link at 3:29pm.

There are still plenty of reservations available.

It's a fairly obnoxious system, requiring a credit card number before you're even allowed to log in. Hope the food is good enough to justify it.

[Nathan]

I don't see a link on eater.

and seats are available across the board (watch them all go in the next 10 minutes)

[Fat Guy]

Comment #9 at 3:29pm: http://eater.com/archives/2008/03/koboom_1.php

[Nathan]

Comment #9 at 3:29pm: http://eater.com/archives/2008/03/koboom_1.php

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an anonymous comment is hardly "posted by eater"...but anyhow, it's all good.

[johnder]

It will be interesting when the link gets posted on the homepage of eater. The server will probably be crushed.