Sous-vide: the tips to perfectly make it at home

Born in the 70s in France, sous-vide allows you to serve genuine, light and tasty dishes on the table. Thanks to the low temperature, this cooking allows you to leave intact the flavors, aromas and properties of the food and it can also be easily experienced at home. Here's how to do it.

We see it more and more often in cooking tv shows, it is loved by all the greatest chefs but doing it at home is not so difficult: let's talk about the sous-vide for food, also known as "low temperature long time (LTLT) cooking".

Excellent especially for meat and fish, sous-vide was born in France in 1974, from an idea of ​​chef George Pralus and allows you to cook food many hours before leaving intact flavors and aromas. To make a good sous-vide it is important to check the temperature level that must settle between 60° C and 100° C, but this is certainly not the only rule: here is a simple guide to try at home this particular technique.

How sous-vide works

To proceed with sous-vide you need some tools:

Special plastic bags in which to place meat, fish and raw vegetables to cook.

Vacuum sealer: if you want to cook at home with this technique there is no need to buy a professional machine like that of restaurants, you can buy a cheaper and more common machine and it will be good.

A thermostatic bath: a machine consisting of a tank into which the vacuum-packed food and the water in which it is to be cooked are inserted and a resistance that allows the latter to keep a constant temperature (which must never exceed 100° C).

As an alternative to the thermostatic bath you can use a steam oven or opt for a more classic cooking in boiling water, in this case be careful to check, with a kitchen thermometer, that the temperature does not exceed 60° C.

Why choose sous-vide

The advantages of sous-vide are much more numerous than you think:

The food, which does not come into contact with the air, does not run the risk of oxidising, thus keeping intact flavor, aromas and nutritional properties. This means bringing a healthy and genuine dish to the table;

The "vacuum" effect allows the food to completely absorb the sauce or seasoning which becomes a real marinade;

Marinade, penetrating the food, makes it softer and juicier;

Prolonged cooking at moderate temperature allows food to be cooked all, thus obtaining homogeneous cooking;

Once cooked with the sous-vide technique, the food can be eaten immediately or served even after several hours, without losing its flavor and consistency;

Sous-vide is also recommended in low-calorie regimes and diets because it allows you to cook without adding fat;

What to cook with the sous-vide method

With the sous-vide method you can cook practically any ingredient: excellent for meat, fish, vegetables and even fruit, with this method you can bring genuine and tasty dishes to the table.

But what are the right temperatures and times for each food? For vegetables we recommend cooking about 20 minutes and a temperature that does not exceed 85° C, the chicken breast needs to cook for about 90 minutes at 70° C while for the cod it will only take 15 minutes at 60-65° C.