Cuisine Solutions - Adding Water Bath Instructions

[JBailey]

Cuisine Solutions is the founding company of sous-vide and as they say on their web site 'masters of sous-vide since 1971'. While shopping at Costco recently, I noticed there was a package of their Butter Chicken. Looking at the cookng instructions on the back of the item, they offer cooking instructions for microwave, conventional ovens - and now water baths! This may be the first time I have seen a mass market food product giving water bath instructions!

[Anna N]

Cuisine Solutions is the founding company of sous-vide and as they say on their web site 'masters of sous-vide since 1971'. While shopping at Costco recently, I noticed there was a package of their Butter Chicken. Looking at the cookng instructions on the back of the item, they offer cooking instructions for microwave, conventional ovens - and now water baths! This may be the first time I have seen a mass market food product giving water bath instructions!

That seems to be an indication of the growing popularity of sous-vide. Hope it continues and spreads. Thank you for sharing.

[Chris Hennes]

Did you happen to catch the temperature they recommend? I'd be fascinated to know what the mass-market sous vide chicken target core temp is.

[JBailey]

Cuisine Solutions also has instructions for several other products for those who wish to use a water bath. Some of their commercial products give instructions for combi ovens. For the Butter Chicken sold at Costco they offer the three following ways to heat the product:

Convention Oven:

1. Preheat your oven to 375°F.
   
2. Peel open the pouch and place the product into a shallow baking dish. Discard the plastic pouch. Cover product with aluminum foil.
   
3. Place the baking dish in the oven and bake for 17–22 minutes.
   
4. Carefully take the baking dish out of the oven and serve.
   

Microwave Oven:

1. Peel open pouch and place the product in the provided black tray or another shallow microwave-safe container. Discard the plastic pouch.
   
2. To avoid getting any product in your microwave, place a paper towel on top of the container covering, but not touching, the food.
   
3. Microwave on High for 3 minutes. Remove from microwave and stir.
   
4. Place back in microwave and cook for additional 2–3 minutes.
   
5. Carefully remove the container from the microwave and let stand for 1 minute before serving.
   

Water Bath:

1. Fill and preheat the water oven to 145°F (63°C).
   
2. Place the pouch(es) in the water oven for 35 minutes.
   
3. Carefully remove the pouch(es) from the water oven.
   
4. Peel open the pouch(es) and place the product on a serving dish.
   

Edited June 11, 2012 by JBailey (log)

[Chris Hennes]

Wow, 145°F is actually a respectable temperature to cook chicken to, it's what I use most of the time. I'm a little surprised, I would have thought that they would still have gone with 160°F or even 165°F.

[Shalmanese]

Is this cooked or raw chicken? 35 minutes at 145 doesn't strike me as enough time to properly pasteurize.

[Dexter]

Can't be raw, not if they are saying that 5 minutes in the microwave is "cooked." Still, really good to see that people are recognizing the expanding list of useful tools for the end consumer. Would love to see more of this.

[KennethT]

I'd imagine that it's already precooked/pasteurized in the bag and that the instructions given are reheating, not cooking instructions. Also, I'd imagine their thickness in the finished product is relatively consistent, so I'd imagine 35 minutes at 145F would be plenty of time to bring to temp.