Books on Cooking Sous Vide

[nickrey]

This book is a very good advanced cookbook. Only available in Kindle format though.

 

Edited February 20, 2017 by nickrey (log)

[Anna N]

42 minutes ago, nickrey said:

This book is a very good advanced cookbook. Only available in Kindle format though.

 

 

 This is a British book and hence refers to British cuts of meat and uses the metric system to measure ingredients. It is also the product of a company that sells Sous Vide equipment, smoking guns, vacuum sealers etc.  I am not dissing the book as I don't own it and can't give an honest opinion but I am pointing out some things that might be of concern to North American readers.  

[rotuts]

I take the skin off for SV.  skin does poorly SV in my opinion.

 

the CkBr  come Skinless , Bonesless , @ about 1.77 / lbs    sometimes even 1.66    3 lbs min

 

when I have freezer space   (  Soon ! )  Ill do 3 - 4 packs at a time , 18 0r so packs  in the largest Beer Cooler w the SouVideMagic

 

Im sure the Anova would work , as add hot tap water to start it off

 

about some are SV'd plain  , for other dishes , some w seasonings  for sandwiches etc , and some butterflied and stuffed and tied.

 

you can take an inexpensive cut of meat w unremarkable flavor and turn in into something much nicer , in bulk and on sale.

[gfweb]

I will SV duck with skin on. Comes out looking foul, but then a few minutes in a hot pan crisps it right up.

Edited February 20, 2017 by gfweb (log)

[ElsieD]

32 minutes ago, gfweb said:

I will SV duck with skin on. Comes out looking foul, but then a few minutes in a hot par crisps it right up.

Do you score it first?

[gfweb]

3 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

Do you score it first?

Yes. liberally

[Anna N]

15 minutes ago, gfweb said:

Yes. liberally

I do it the same way. I have tried removing the skin and cooking the skin separately but I found it highly unsatisfactory. I felt both the flesh of the duck and the skin of the duck suffered.  I am certain other people find it works to their satisfaction.

[gfweb]

The fat is such a good insulator that the duck meat never sees the heat of the pan and stays at MR even with an aggressive sear.

Edited February 20, 2017 by gfweb (log)

[ElsieD]

I too tried separating the skin from the meat and cooking the meat sous vide and the skin in the pan.  I'd much rather leave the breast intact.  I just bought some breasts at Costco and will try scoring the breast meat before coking it sous vide a là @gfweb .  The "Sous Vide Books" topic reminded me that I have the book "Sous Vide - Help for the Busy Cook" by Jason Logsdon.  I checked what he had to say about duck breasts and he says that "This is one of the cases where I really like to sear the food without bringing it back to room temperature first.  This allows you to really get a great crust on the duck without over cooking it any, especially on the fat side."  I'll try this also.

[gfweb]

@ElsieD I score after SV, pre sear. Not sure that matters

[ElsieD]

7 minutes ago, gfweb said:

@ElsieD I score after SV, pre sear. Not sure that matters

 

Noted, thank you.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

14 hours ago, Anna N said:

 This is a British book and hence refers to British cuts of meat and uses the metric system to measure ingredients. It is also the product of a company that sells Sous Vide equipment, smoking guns, vacuum sealers etc.  I am not dissing the book as I don't own it and can't give an honest opinion but I am pointing out some things that might be of concern to North American readers.  

 

So when they call out "pints" (which they do) are those Imperial pints or US pints?

 

I must admit the amazon preview looks interesting.

 

[nickrey]

17 hours ago, Anna N said:

 This is a British book and hence refers to British cuts of meat and uses the metric system to measure ingredients. It is also the product of a company that sells Sous Vide equipment, smoking guns, vacuum sealers etc.  I am not dissing the book as I don't own it and can't give an honest opinion but I am pointing out some things that might be of concern to North American readers.  

I own it and have cooked from it. It is a good book, otherwise I wouldn't have recommended it.

 

I use US books all the time and have to convert your measurements: including cups, which are particularly inaccurate. It is not difficult to do so.

 

If you want recipes that are beyond beginner level, try the conversions and you will be surprised at what you can do.

[Anna N]

4 hours ago, nickrey said:

I own it and have cooked from it. It is a good book, otherwise I wouldn't have recommended it.

 

I use US books all the time and have to convert your measurements: including cups, which are particularly inaccurate. It is not difficult to do so.

 

If you want recipes that are beyond beginner level, try the conversions and you will be surprised at what you can do.

As I said, I was not dissing the book by any means. Any book that avoids volume measurements gains stars in my mind. But I do know that it can be offputting to those who are accustomed to that method and that is all I was trying to say. I added it to my Wish list when you mentioned it.

[chromedome]

9 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

So when they call out "pints" (which they do) are those Imperial pints or US pints?

 

I must admit the amazon preview looks interesting.

 

I would guess it's a 20-oz imperial pint, given the context. 

 

IIRC a number of pubs in British Columbia got into trouble a couple of years ago for selling 16-oz American pints, rather than 20 oz pints. We're officially metric here too, but the 20-oz pint remains the standard for beer. 

[EnriqueB]

On ‎20‎/‎02‎/‎2017 at 1:53 PM, Anna N said:

 This is a British book and hence refers to British cuts of meat and uses the metric system to measure ingredients. It is also the product of a company that sells Sous Vide equipment, smoking guns, vacuum sealers etc.  I am not dissing the book as I don't own it and can't give an honest opinion but I am pointing out some things that might be of concern to North American readers.  

 

In fact I own the book and find it quite uninteresting. Barely any theory, and recipes that don't call my attention.

Edited February 21, 2017 by EnriqueB
Wrong spelling (log)

[EnriqueB]

Going back to the original question about SV books. I teach Sous-Vide classes and try to evaluate all new publications on the topic. Lately there are a lot of new books but most of them look disappointing. The ones I've finally bought were, in fact, quite disappointing. I personally find that any SV book needs to explain some theory, in fact more theory that for most other cooking techniques. Safety is quite different from other techniques and how it does differ must be explained minimally, in my opinion. It should also empower minimally the reader to be able to cook SV without a recipe, i.e. it should explain how to determine the time/temperature profile for most foods. It just happens that almost no book does this properly, in my opinion, except for Baldwin and Modernist Cuisine. My perfect starter book would do that, although at an easier level that those already-classics, then have appealing recipes. I'm still searching for such a book.

[rotuts]

@EnriqueB 

 

have you seen :

 

https://www.amazon.com/Sous-Vide-Home-Technique-Perfectly/dp/0399578064

 

it does a decent job , of the newer ' Picture ' Rx books addressing your concerns 

 

I have not seen 

 

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Sous-Vide-Cookbook-Techniques/dp/0778805239/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=K8XQW9RM9GVC1ZYR04SQ

 

yet.

 

what the first book does well is getting a novice interested in SV in the first place.  Very interested.

Edited February 21, 2017 by rotuts (log)

[JAZ]

3 hours ago, EnriqueB said:

Going back to the original question about SV books. I teach Sous-Vide classes and try to evaluate all new publications on the topic. Lately there are a lot of new books but most of them look disappointing. The ones I've finally bought were, in fact, quite disappointing. I personally find that any SV book needs to explain some theory, in fact more theory that for most other cooking techniques. Safety is quite different from other techniques and how it does differ must be explained minimally, in my opinion. It should also empower minimally the reader to be able to cook SV without a recipe, i.e. it should explain how to determine the time/temperature profile for most foods. It just happens that almost no book does this properly, in my opinion, except for Baldwin and Modernist Cuisine. My perfect starter book would do that, although at an easier level that those already-classics, then have appealing recipes. I'm still searching for such a book.

 

This book -- The Essential Sous Vide Cookbook -- starts with a couple of chapters of background and theory. It also contains comparison charts on various sous vide devices, and contains charts at the back with cooking times for various foods. You can read some of the introductory chapters on Amazon. (Disclaimer: I copy edited this book but didn't try any of the recipes. My task was editing for grammar and style.)

[Shalmanese]

On 2/19/2017 at 10:24 AM, TdeV said:

@Anna N, I never use Sous Vide as a way of cooking a whole meal. This is a very interesting idea!

For me I usually Sous Vide the meat portion (between 132F and 165F, depending on cut). Douglas Baldwin says dried beans, for example, should be done at 185F, though my recent experience would suggest 202F for 10+ hours. (Fresh dried beans, bought last summer from the Farmers' Market).

 

How many Sous Vide devices do you have?

 

 

Do NOT cook beans Sous Vide if you don't know what you're doing. Certain beans contain Phytohaemagglutinin which is mildly toxic to people and isn't destroyed at under boiling temperatures. Beans need to be boiled for at least 10 minutes and preferably 30 to inactivate the Phytohaemagglutinin.

[EnriqueB]

14 hours ago, JAZ said:

 

This book -- The Essential Sous Vide Cookbook -- starts with a couple of chapters of background and theory. It also contains comparison charts on various sous vide devices, and contains charts at the back with cooking times for various foods. You can read some of the introductory chapters on Amazon. (Disclaimer: I copy edited this book but didn't try any of the recipes. My task was editing for grammar and style.)

 

I've read those chapters and this would be another example of what I said above. No mention whatsoever of how time (for tender cuts) depends on size and how it can be calculated. No safety details neither. Those two issues are "forgotten" by most books, whereas both topics can perfectly be covered at an introductory level, and they should be.

[EnriqueB]

17 hours ago, rotuts said:

@EnriqueB 

 

have you seen :

 

https://www.amazon.com/Sous-Vide-Home-Technique-Perfectly/dp/0399578064

 

it does a decent job , of the newer ' Picture ' Rx books addressing your concerns 

 

I have not seen 

 

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Sous-Vide-Cookbook-Techniques/dp/0778805239/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=K8XQW9RM9GVC1ZYR04SQ

 

yet.

 

what the first book does well is getting a novice interested in SV in the first place.  Very interested.

 

 

Thanks for the suggestions, rotuts. The second one looks terrible, just by looking at the pages available in amazon. It does not seem to include much theory/technique according to the table of contents, and the recipes are set for specific sizes (a 4-cm steak) without any explanation about how to adjust if your steak just happens to be 3 or 5 cm wide. Any serious book on SV must include a table on each recipe that includes core target temperature, water temperature (if different from target, i.e. when applicable), time (which, if it depends on width, should be explained or options given), safety level/indications, and conservation details. Also, it is a good approach to offer a variety of profiles for some recipes (such as a "long time / low temp" or "shorter time / higher temp" for tough meats). That's what I would expect from a book that includes the words "Complete" and "Techniques" on its name. Even introductory books can include this type of information without being overwhelming, for example the new book from Joan Roca for home low temperature cooking (only available in Spanish, as far as I know) does include this type of things (it is weak in other aspects, but still much better than most introductory-level books I've seen).

[nickrey]

Unfortunately Enrique, most people don't want to spend time learning theory. They want to cook.

 

Having helped Douglas with proof reading his book and being acknowledged for doing so, I understand the need for theory better than most. 

 

Sadly, your ideal book is unlikely to interest many cooks, particularly those who just want to follow recipes to the letter.

[EnriqueB]

7 minutes ago, nickrey said:

Unfortunately Enrique, most people don't want to spend time learning theory. They want to cook.

 

Having helped Douglas with proof reading his book and being acknowledged for doing so, I understand the need for theory better than most. 

 

Sadly, your ideal book is unlikely to interest many cooks, particularly those who just want to follow recipes to the letter.

 

I totally agree with you.

 

Some thoughts:

 

1) A book which is just about sous-vide recipes would be ok for me without much theory, but the thread seemed to be about good SV books to learn.

 

2) Many of the books suggested are not announced (or inferred by their names) as just recipe cookbooks, but as general books about SV, some of them even saying "Complete", "Techniques", etc. In those cases, ignoring the critical things I've mentioned above is an important flaw to me.

 

3) SV itself lends more to theory than to recipes when compared with most other cooking techniques (I'd put charcuterie and fermenting at the same level). Any serious author explaining the technique should take that into account. And in some points (times, temperatures, and safety) it differs so much from conventional techniques than I'd consider authors who ignore those issues (and don't just announce their books are recipe cookbooks) very unprofessional.

 

4) Whereas I understand that for entry-level books authors may fear that dealing with those types of issues may frighten cooks new to the technique, it is my contention that all of this can be explained even at beginner level without overwhelming. In fact I teach Sous Vide courses to all type of cooks, from professionals to home cooks and it has always been my challenge to explain those details to everyone. It can be done. I'm not pretending that all books be at the level of Baldwin or MC, but things can be explained in simple terms and summarized for everyone. As I said, the last book by Joan Roca does the job pretty well and is selling a lot in Spain.

 

 

 

 

[Martin Fisher]

A brand spankin' new copy of Chris McDonald's book arrived today from London, England in perfect condition!