In the realm of gourmet cooking, a slow revolution has been taking hold and now seems poised to enter the mainstream. Once a process undertaken almost exclusively by those in the culinary industry, sous vide is a cooking method that anyone can use to make gourmet meals.

Principles of Sous vide

The phrase means "under vacuum" in French, and is a method of cooking food in a vacuum-sealed plastic bag and temperature-controlled water. This can work for virtually any food product from veggies to eggs to meat. Professional sous vide tubs control the temperature by circulate the water, ensuring that the water temperature remains even throughout the container. Sous vide sets up the environment to make sure your food is cooked evenly and through all the way, without losing flavor through exposure to oxygen or evaporation.

While manufacturers have created thousand-dollar machines to handle this for you, there are many simple and DIY ways to create your own sous vide kitchen. There are only two principles in sous vide that must be adhered to: the first is creating a hot, evenly-heated bath for your food where the water causes the food to slowly be cooked, evenly and all the way through. The second is that the food must be put in a bag, and all air must be pumped out. This is to ensure that air doesn't cause the food to float on top of the water or insulate the food from heat, thereby causing uneven cooking.

How the Food Sealer Helps

The less air there is in a bag, the better it is for the hot water to work its magic. Manual methods range from squeezing it out to using a handheld vacuum to sucking out the air by mouth! Whatever your chosen method, it doesn't matter as long as you get all the air out. This process is greatly facilitated if you have a vacuum food sealer. There are a few choices out there, but as a rule they pump air out with great efficiency. It becomes significantly more difficult to remove air from the bag if the food is moist, whether from sauce, marinade, or the nature of the food itself. There are not many good vacuum sealer on the market, let alone ones that can handle moisture fairly well, however there are one or two models that deal with moisture especially well. A food sealer will complete this essential step for you faster and more securely that any other tool you might think of using.

Sous Vide

Sous vide should not be confined to just cooking professionals. One of the reasons sous vide has been slow to take hold in the average household is because of concerns over meat contamination. Another reason is the supposed complicated steps involved. But sous vide really is not that complicated. With a food sealer at your side, you are ready to begin your next culinary adventure!

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