Sous Vide – My New Toy

For those of you who’ve been semi-conscious, Julia Child has been undergoing an extraordinary pop renaissance. Movie (Julie&Julia), book (Julie&Julia); newly super-selling book (Mastering the Art of French Cooking); honorary degree from Harvard, and other stuff I can’t think of and would be easily Googled if I weren’t feeling lazy.

I’m just old-enough to remember her show-not the very early black and white version-where she stood, hulk-like in her small kitchen (especially by today’s tv kitchen standards), engaged in an inelegant dance/wrestling match with various forms of poultry. She knocked about, cracking eggs and pots until the show’s end, when she moved to the table, glass of wine in hand, before the soufflé and chicken galantine. An elegant finish to a frenzied hour.

Julia has been heaped with (well-deserved) praise for inspiring Americans to cook and think about the food they cook. Whether she instructed her watchers and readers how to cook, is debatable. In her later years, aged and less nimble, she soldiered on, in a homey duet with her friend Jacques Pepin, who, to my mind, is our most valuable cooking teacher.

Pepin, who can debone a turkey with a butter knife while transforming a cucumber into an orchid, moved elegantly about his tiny set and its four-burner stove. You got the sense he could whip up a Chinese New Year’s feast in a closet. He makes today’s tv chefs look like manic thugs, with their crashing pans and flaming grills. Unfortunately, I fear people all over the country favor this undisciplined approach rather than the quiet exactitude of Pepin.

A chef once told me that, contrary to public opinion-and food tv programmers- cooking is a feminine art. It requires attention to detail, a soft, artistic eye, and a sensitive palate.

For Christmas, I got a sous vide machine. To cook something sous vide, you fill the machine with water, set the desired water temperature, vacuum-seal the food, and dunk it in the bath. I say bath because the water’s hot but not simmering, and as it’s relatively warm, the cooking time is quite long.

Attempt number one was duck breast and lamb loin chops. I left each in at 140 degrees for about 2 hours, stuck them in an ice bath and seared them later. The meat, as advertised, was superior. It was a perfect medium rare, and velvety in texture, with none of that tough graininess inevitable in even the most accurately cooked meat.

Octopus, which requires a long pot-braising, was successful but not extraordinary, the central benefit being that you could dunk it, go out, do stuff, and return home five hours later to a tender, vacuum-sealed mollusk. A fancy version of Ron Popeil’s famous “Set it and forget it” chicken roaster.

Because we don’t employ pot washers (though I’m trying to teach our 3-year-old that skill), sous vide is nice in that it doesn’t wreck the kitchen with encrusted pots and so on.

Unfussy, clean, relaxing, precise, quiet, artful, sous vide feels like cooking as it should be. I still enjoy pounding chickens and cranking up the stove to high, and sous vide isn’t a miracle maker. But to get its appeal, you also have to understand where we live: we step outside the door onto Broadway, with its crowds and Holland tunnel traffic. To produce a meal using little more than a warm bath is a nice thing.

If you don’t have a sous vide machine, the following recipes are (almost) as peaceful and flavorful: a simple gamy or mild protein paired with a fresh, bright condiment.

Duck Breast and Lamb Loin with Roasted Lemon Aioli

1 duck breast, skin scored in a crosshatch pattern
2 cloves garlic, peeled, crushed
3 cloves
4 sprigs thyme
½ cup plus two tablespoons olive oil
4 loin lamb chops, about 2 pounds total
3 juniper berries, crushed
salt and pepper
1 recipe Roasted Lemon Aioli (below)

1. If cooking sous vide, place duck in a vacuum bag along with one clove of the garlic, cloves, two of the thyme sprigs and ¼ cup of the olive oil. Seal. In a separate bag, combine the lamb with remaining garlic, thyme, ¼ cup of olive oil, and juniper. Cook at 140 degrees for a minimum of 2 hours. Can hold in the water for another hour or so. If using immediately, remove, drain, and sear (see following). If not, remove bags to an ice bath and refrigerate.
2. To finish, place a small pan on medium heat. Season duck on both sides with salt and pepper. Cook, skin side down until very crisp, draining fat as necessary. Flip and cook until lightly colored. Remove to a platter, rest for 5 minutes. Add the two tablespoons olive oil top a medium pan over medium high heat. Season lamb on both sides with salt and pepper. When oil shimmers, add lamb, sear until well colored. Flip, do the same on the other side, remove to a platter with the duck and rest a few minutes. Place a spoonful of aioli on four plates. Slice duck, divide slices among the plates along with the lamb and serve.
3. To cook without a sous vide. Cook the duck in a pan in the same manner. Add the cloves, garlic and thyme as the skin is lightly colored but not fully crisp. For the lamb, sear on both sides, adding the garlic, thyme and juniper halfway through the process. The cooking time will be longer, as the interior is not done, but with lamb and duck err on the side of medium rare rather than medium so be vigilant.

Roasted Lemon Aioli (adapted from Michael Psilakis’ book How to Roast a Lamb

4 lemons
1 tablespoon mustard
1 cup olive oil
salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 325
2. Place a lemon on a sheet of foil. Roll it up jelly-roll fashion and fold the ends over to form a seal Repeat with remaining lemons, place seal side down on a baking sheet and place in oven. Roast the lemons for about 1 ½ hours, remove.
3. When cool enough to handle, place lemons on a cutting board, quarter the lemons and scoop out the flesh into a bowl, removing the seeds. Flatten a lemon quarter and, scrape off as much of the white pith as possible. You may have to hold the knife parallel to the board and carefully slice it off. Chop the rind and add to bowl. We found that the chopped rind of two lemons adds enough flavor to the aioli, but you can use all of the lemons.
4. Add the pulp and chopped rind to the bowl of a blender (blender is a little tricky, as it’s tough to make mayo in a blendedr-thick) or food processor along with the mustard and pulse. Slowly add the oil until the aioli comes together. Season and reserve.

Charred Octopus with Roasted Lemon Aioli

1 Octopus, 2 1/2 to 3 pounds
1/4 cup olive oil
1 clove garlic
1 sprig rosemary
salt and pepper

To cook without sous vide (from Aliseo restaurant, The New Brooklyn Cookbook):

1/3 cup salt
1/2 cup cider or white vinegar
2 cups white wine
5 garlic cloves, peeled
7 bay leaves
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1 sprig rosemary
20 juniper berries
6 parsley stems

1. Have the fish seller clean the octopus. Slice off the tentacles, trimming the webbing. Dry and vacuum seal in a single layer with the olive oil, garlic, and rosemary. Cook at 170 for 5 hours.

2. Remove the pouch, drain, dry well and season with salt and pepper. Sear in a hot pan slicked with a film of oil (you may need two pans) until charred on both sides. Serve over the aioli.

3. To cook without sous vide: combine all the ingredients in a large pot with 6 quarts of water. Add the octopus, weigh down with a stainless steel colander to keep immersed in the cooking liquid. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat to medium and simmer for 30 minutes.

4. Remove the pot from the heat, remove colander, cover with a lid, and let the octopus sit in the liquid for 45 minutes.

5. To finish, sear in a hot pan (or two) as in Step 2.