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"Sous Vide for the Home Cook" by Douglas Baldwin

MartinH

By MartinH
in Cookbooks & References

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DouglasBaldwin

DouglasBaldwin

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Another eagerly anticipated book is Douglas Baldwin's SV cookbook. Any news on when it is to be published?

That's an excellent question. I got the corrected proofs of my book last week; so I hope that it'll be headed to the printers very soon. It came out to be 271 pages and has a little over 200 recipes (not including variations). I'll post here what the official publication date is as soon as they tell me what it is.

My Guide: A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking, which Harold McGee described as "a wonderful contribution."

My Book: Sous Vide for the Home Cook US EU/UK

My YouTube channel — a new work in progress.

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  • 1 month later...
DouglasBaldwin

DouglasBaldwin

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Hello,

I just wanted to let everyone know that my cookbook, Sous Vide for the Home Cook, is finally out. At the moment, you can only get it through the SousVide Supreme site (for $24.95 plus shipping). It should be available on Amazon.com soon and Amazon.co.uk in about a month.

I spent a lot of time on it and am very happy with how it turned out. It has 272 pages with over 200 recipes (plus a giant table with sous vide cooking times and temperatures for everything I could think of).

I designed it for home cooks with straightforward recipes that don't call for any exotic ingredients or equipment (other than a temperature controlled water bath, of course :smile:). Indeed, after I sent off my manuscript, my father (who hadn't cooked anything in decades) started cooking my recipes for my mother and they've all worked great for him. My recipes aren't designed to be tasty works of art like those of Mr. Keller or Mr. Blumenthal or Dr. Myhrvold: but I think they're delicious and hope you'll think so too.

While the text is light on math and science, I used a lot of math and science in designing my recipes: I numerically solved the heat equation to compute the heating and pasteurization times; I used network theory and the volatile flavor compounds of the ingredients to design my sauce recipes; and I applied what I learned from the 350 or so academic food science journal articles I've read in the last two years.

I look forward to hearing what you think of my cookbook once you've cooked a few of its recipes.

As soon as I finish writing two chapters on sous vide and cook-chill processing for an academic text (intended for food scientists and industrial food processors), I'll get back to work on the next major revision of my (still and always) free web guide. (There's a lot of new material I want to add to my guide; but it'll take a while now that I'm back to working on my PhD thesis 60+ hr/wk :hmmm:.)

My Guide: A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking, which Harold McGee described as "a wonderful contribution."

My Book: Sous Vide for the Home Cook US EU/UK

My YouTube channel — a new work in progress.

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dougal

dougal

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... It should be available on Amazon.com soon and Amazon.co.uk in about a month.

...

If Amazon UK actually had it listed, you'd probably have a couple of pre-orders already!

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch ... you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan

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nickrey

nickrey

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Congratulations Douglas.

Can't wait to see the final product. As Pedro said those of us in more far flung places will have to wait until it appears on Amazon to get a copy.

Nick Reynolds, aka "nickrey"

"The Internet is full of false information." Plato
My eG Foodblog

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Paul Kierstead

Paul Kierstead

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That is great, Douglas! I look forward to helping pay back you for all the effort you've expended to enrich my knowledge.

Push comes to shove, I'll buy the physical book. But what I'd really like to buy is an e-book. Any plans in the near future? Hell if there is an upgrade path, I'll buy both....

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PedroG

PedroG

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That is great, Douglas! I look forward to helping pay back you for all the effort you've expended to enrich my knowledge.

Push comes to shove, I'll buy the physical book. But what I'd really like to buy is an e-book. Any plans in the near future? Hell if there is an upgrade path, I'll buy both....

$24.95 / 272 pages = 9.2¢/page, printing an e-book at home will cost you more.

Peter F. Gruber aka Pedro

eG Ethics Signatory

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mark28209

mark28209

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Heck, yes! I/we would never have come this far if it weren't for the guidance of Douglas' freebie contribution to the community. I look forward to getting the cookbook both as a resource and an act of appreciation. Thanks to Douglas, Pedro and other contributors to this community for stimulating my wander into the hot water. Cheers, Mark

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DouglasBaldwin

DouglasBaldwin

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Thank you for all your support and kind words; I really appreciate it.

Paul: I asked my publisher and they don't have any immediate plans to do an electronic version. (Besides, while I love my Kindle, I find the paper version to be much more convenient than the Kindle version I made for myself; but that's just my experience.)

My Guide: A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking, which Harold McGee described as "a wonderful contribution."

My Book: Sous Vide for the Home Cook US EU/UK

My YouTube channel — a new work in progress.

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Paul Kierstead

Paul Kierstead

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Douglas, alright, I settle for paper for now :) When using references sources such as cookbooks, the iPad works somewhat better then the kindle, having text search and very fast page turns (allowing 'flipping through'). I use mine already quite a bit for cooking, and also love to sit with my g/f while she watches dancing with the stars and I can have a library at my fingertips (well, ok working on the library). Most recently, I bought the ePub version of McGee and it is lovely to use. Veering back on topic, hope to see some results in the forum soon!

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jmolinari

jmolinari

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That is great, Douglas! I look forward to helping pay back you for all the effort you've expended to enrich my knowledge.

Push comes to shove, I'll buy the physical book. But what I'd really like to buy is an e-book. Any plans in the near future? Hell if there is an upgrade path, I'll buy both....

Me too...just waiting for it to come to Amazon! Thanks Douglas.

See what I'm cooking on Instagram  |  Curedmeats.blogspot.com  

 

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MartinH

MartinH

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Having received a copy of Douglas Baldwin's Sous Vide for the Home Cook yesterday, I must say how impressed I am with it. (Thumbs up as well to the Sous Vide Supreme people for sending it out so promptly.) We would expect there to be plenty of meat recipes, but beyond that there's also much more. For instance, there are ice cream recipes, a dish that hasn't featured much on this thread. There is not just advice on cooking various meats and fishes, but also lots of sauce recipes to accompany them. But best of all there's a considerable amount of reference material and useful food science. It is much more than just a recipe book.

Thanks Douglas, its a great success, and it deserves to sell well. It will expand the repertoire of existing sous viders as well as bring more people into the sous vide world.

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DouglasBaldwin

DouglasBaldwin

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adey73: Yes, that's what MartinH means. It really is very convenient to making custard ice cream bases sous vide.

MartinH: Thank you for your very nice comments, I'm very glad to hear that you like my book.

My Guide: A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking, which Harold McGee described as "a wonderful contribution."

My Book: Sous Vide for the Home Cook US EU/UK

My YouTube channel — a new work in progress.

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DouglasBaldwin

DouglasBaldwin

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You discuss chocolate tempering too?

I don't. It was on my to-do list, but I never got around to it. I do include vegetables and dried beans though.

My Guide: A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking, which Harold McGee described as "a wonderful contribution."

My Book: Sous Vide for the Home Cook US EU/UK

My YouTube channel — a new work in progress.

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  • 1 month later...
Doc-G

Doc-G

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Hello Douglas,

I've tried purchasing your book from Amazon but it doesn't seem to want to ship to Australia. Do you know any any such restrictions? If so are there any ways that I can get a copy sent to me?

Regards,

G

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PedroG

PedroG

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Hello Douglas,

I've tried purchasing your book from Amazon but it doesn't seem to want to ship to Australia. Do you know any any such restrictions? If so are there any ways that I can get a copy sent to me?

Regards,

G

Although it is listed in Amazon.com, it is not sold by Amazon but by Eades Appliance Technology LLC which is in fact http://www.sousvidesupreme.com/shop/cookbook who obviously do not sell anything outside America. Douglas was so kind to send me a copy directly (thanks a lot, Douglas, for all your work you have done for our community!).

Regards

Pedro

Peter F. Gruber aka Pedro

eG Ethics Signatory

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jmolinari

jmolinari

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I finally got tired of waiting for this book to get to Amazon, and just bought it.

I have a question Douglas. Throughout the book you discuss the temperature and time to pasteurization, but you never discuss the item thickness, which would have a direct impact on cooking time, since pasteurization is based on the time the core is at temperature.

How did you derive your cooking times? Certainly a 1/2" pork chop will take much less time to pasteurize than a 1.5" pork chop would. I have to assume that the times you specify are for "worse case" meat thicknesses? How exactly did you arrive at your times?

Also, i was wondering why you specify a 6-8hr time for a ribeye steak, but only a couple hour for a NY strip? Isn't the ribeye a tender cut already? So why the long cook time?

thanks!

See what I'm cooking on Instagram  |  Curedmeats.blogspot.com  

 

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DouglasBaldwin

DouglasBaldwin

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I did indeed pick worst-case pasteurization times for my recipes. (I did include pasteurization tables based on thickness on pages 256 to 258.) For the recipes, I tried to determine what the worst-case time would be for a given piece of meat constrained by weight; I was more explicit on steaks and usually give a thickness range to assure pasteurization.

Being for home cooks, I implicitly assumed that they'd be buying their beef at the supermarket. When doing my testing for my book, I found supermarket rib-eyes to be fairly tough and so specified 6--8 hours in my cookbook. If you're buying well-aged, prime-grade rib-eye steaks, then 6--8 hours is going to be too long and you'll want to cut the cooking time down to 1--1.5 hours.

I apologize for not responding sooner, but I usually don't check the "Cookbooks & References" board. If anyone has a urgent question, emailing me is your best bet.

I finally got tired of waiting for this book to get to Amazon, and just bought it.

I have a question Douglas. Throughout the book you discuss the temperature and time to pasteurization, but you never discuss the item thickness, which would have a direct impact on cooking time, since pasteurization is based on the time the core is at temperature.

How did you derive your cooking times? Certainly a 1/2" pork chop will take much less time to pasteurize than a 1.5" pork chop would. I have to assume that the times you specify are for "worse case" meat thicknesses? How exactly did you arrive at your times?

Also, i was wondering why you specify a 6-8hr time for a ribeye steak, but only a couple hour for a NY strip? Isn't the ribeye a tender cut already? So why the long cook time?

thanks!

My Guide: A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking, which Harold McGee described as "a wonderful contribution."

My Book: Sous Vide for the Home Cook US EU/UK

My YouTube channel — a new work in progress.

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OliverB

OliverB

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just added to my amazon wish list! Have to wait until next year as I'll be gone over xmas/nye, but I can't wait to cook from it! And learn, just spent some time on Douglas' site and learned quite a bit already! Looking forward to the book.

"And don't forget music - music in the kitchen is an essential ingredient!"

- Thomas Keller

Diablo Kitchen, my food blog

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