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(serge) wrote in message om>...
> Hi !
> I bought a FoodSaver machine (VAC1050) used generally for vacuum
> packaging.
> I would like to know if it's possible to do "sous vide cooking" with
> the FoodSaver bags.
> Thanks for the information !

Hi again every body !
Here is an article about sous-vide that I found in the usergroup
uk.food+drink.misc. It gives more information about sous vide and sous
vide cooking. It's from Taste, November 1988, written by Sarah Manser.

Several months ago I rashly suggested that Taste readers might be
interested to learn about a new cooking technique known as sous-vide.
Having sifted through mountains of paper and research records since, I
hope I may now be qualified to deliver Sous-vide Lesson Number One.
The system is still in its infancy, it's not a household item nor
likely to become one for many years, but it can significantly improve
the taste of what we eat in restaurants, hotels, hospitals and even on
trains.

A distinguished French chef called George's Pralus invented sous-vide
(the curious name translated literally means 'under vacuum'). It can
be seen as a natural progression from those traditional cooking
techniques in which offal such as bladders and intestines was used for
making sausages and haggis - from earth cooking to the haute cuisine
of the French en papillote method; they all use sealed, airtight
environments and slow cooking, below boiling point.

It started in the early Seventies, when Pralus was commissioned to
find a way of reducing the shrinkage of foie gras - an expensive
little item which lost nearly half its raw weight when cooked
conventionally. He experimented with sealed plastic pouches - some say
cling film! - to encase the foie gras, and found that not only was
shrinkage dramatically reduced but the process spectacularly enhanced
the flavour.

Pralus was unable to find an airtight, water-and-heat-resistant pouch
to develop his system further and approached the Cryovac Division of
WR Grace - a professional plastics company - to solve the problem.
They developed a series of multilayered impermeable plastic pouches
which are perfect for sous-vide use.

It is not 'cuisine boil-in-the-bag', although it was once very
unfairly called that, with the result that nobody would publicly admit
to using the sous-vide method for fear of losing all their customers.
The fundamental difference between the two techniques should be
understood. Boil-in-the-bag food is cooked conventionally, divided
into portions, bagged and then blast-chilled or frozen. With
sous-vide, the raw food is cooked in a sealed pouch, which may or may
not be blast-chilled and stored for later use.

The vacuum process is used in three ways - purely for storage of
uncooked food, secondly, for sous-vide food prepared and used
immediately, and thirdly, for sous-vide food that is to be used at a
later date.

The principles aren't tricky. Oxygen makes food deteriorate, so by
removing it the biological breakdown is considerably reduced. Many
restaurants who don't actually cook by the sous-vide method use the
vacuum process as a means of storage. Following the daily delivery,
food is divided and placed in special bags, from which the air is
removed by a vacuum machine before being stored. If handled properly,
the method is extremely hygienic, since the food isn't damaged further
by air, handling or refrigerator odours. No cross-contamination can
affect the sealed food, and the fresher the produce when vacuum-packed
the longer it will retain its quality.

Another plus for storage is that the vacuum process doesn't change the
cellular structure of food as does freezing and canning. The jagged
ice crystals that form in processes other than industrial
blast-freezing tear apart food cells, and the heat in canning bursts
them.

For sous-vide, the food is cooked directly in the pouch with some
marvellous results. Only the highest quality fresh ingredients can be
used because the process intensifies flavour and, as the food cooks in
its own, juices, none of that natural flavour nor any vital
nutritional goodness is lost in the water or burnt away by the oven.
Chefs have found (through trial and error) that far less seasoning and
herbs are needed since the vacuum process forces their natural oils
deep into the meat or fish. The results can be astonishing. Only the
pure flavour of the food is left and, because sous-vide requires a
lower temperature, there is little or no shrinkage, which means larger
and very tender
portions.

Food can be prepared in various ways. A breast of duck, for example,
may be cleaned as normal and placed inside a specially designed
impermeable plastic pouch with herbs and seasoning. The pouch is then
into a vacuum machine to remove the air and seal the pouch before
cooking in digitally controlled, pre-set steamer. Once cooked, the
duck skin may be browned under a hot grill and a sauce made from juice
left in the pouch. If it's not to be eaten immediately, once steamed
it must be rapidly chilled to below 3C - either by an ice bain-marie
or blast-chiller - and then date-stamped and stored at below 30C.

The delicate taste of seafood, particularly shellfish such as
scallops, lend themselves well to sous-vide. Alex Neil, food and
beverage manager of the Kensington Hilton and Patrick John, executive
chef of the Gatwick Hilton International, have found that fish,
especially fresh salmon, shows the most dramatic improvement both in
flavour and texture.

When Hilton International first introduced sous-vide, their executive
chef, Graham Cadman, experimented with pears and rosemary. He
accidentally removed the air too quickly for this delicate item, and a
flattened pear pancake resulted; most odd, but it had such a delicious
and unusual flavour that he tried again. He found that the pear lost
neither its texture nor colour, and that the flavour of the herb was a
wonderful complement to that of the fruit.

Some vegetables, particularly carrots, work very well. David
Dorricott, chef of the Portman Hotel, finds that sous-vide is by far
the best way to cook artichoke hearts - it greatly enhances the
flavour and lemon juice is no longer needed to prevent discoloration.
Without lemon juice the conventionally cooked artichokes turn brown,
and the additional sharp taste means they can't be used for delicate
mousses or soups.

It's possible for the food produced for room service and small
coffee-bar-type restaurants in hotels to be greatly improved - some
would say about time, too - and that the awful stodge served in many
hospitals and on planes could be a thing of the past.

Despite its many and various culinary advantages, sous-vide is not to
be undertaken carelessly, particularly when the food is to be stored.
Although by removing oxygen the deterioration process is slowed down,
it isn't halted completely, and the growth of anaerobes can occur.
This means hygiene must be paramount. If germs enter the pouch with
the food, they breed in the warm, moist atmosphere and, as with the
flavour, there is nowhere for them to escape. Jochem Schafheitle,
lecturer in catering at the Dorset Institute of Higher Education, has
studied sous-vide for the last five years and strongly believes that
nobody should consider it until they fully understand the hygiene
implications, the necessary refrigeration chain, the internal
core-temperature machines and the DHSS guidelines.

Hilton International set aside special production areas where the
temperature is controlled at below IOC /50F to limit bacterial growth
during the preparation process. An antibacterial cleaner is used in
the area. Foods are vacuum-packed by chefs wearing sterile surgical
gloves and masks.

Albert Roux undertook two years of extensive study of this type of
cookery before he set up a factory concerned with its production. He
worked with Pralus in France and obtained an honorary Doctorate of
Science Fellowship from the Dorset Institute for his work there. He
now supplies Roux restaurants and some caterers: British Airways (for
Concorde), Bass and the SNCF (French railways).

Since he is concerned with preparing food for storage and later
presentation, he does not agree with low temperature cooking, but
prefers a quick-cooking, quick-chilling method. The highly controlled,
clinical surroundings in which he works make sous-vide viable and
safe, but he believes that few restaurants can achieve these standards
of hygiene and should therefore only employ sous-vide for food to be
served immediately.

Sous-vide does not necessarily work well for everything, nor is it
likely to replace conventional methods, but it should be seen as a
valuable addition to any professional kitchen. It doesn't mean that
the creative skills of chefs are lost, since recipes have to be
adapted and tested before they are used and accepted by discerning
palates.

It's early days, but with further research to establish ideal cooking
times and temperatures, and balanced microbiological and nutritional
levels, it may well become an internationally available alternative to
canning, freezing and conventional cook-chill.

Plans are afoot to prepare sous-vide packages for shops, which would
allow us all to have perfect dinner parties where the only
requirements would be a pot of steaming water and scissors to cut the
pouches!

For more information about this technique, The Sous Vide Handbook,
edited by Julie Sheppard, is available from Convotherm, I Devonshire
Gardens, London W4 3TW. It was then £12.50 including postage and
packing.