Sous Vide: Help for the Busy Cook

This past week I was sitting there, watching Guy Fieri smiling like an idiot with some guy that invited him into his restaurant for DDD. Seriously, there are 3 hour marathons of this tool when Good Eats is only on once at noon? I decided to watch Lord of the Rings and sous vide some steak. Unfortunately it was 7:45 PM and I'd have to run to the store, pay a lot for a cheap steak at my local college-town grocery store and then wait at least and hour for my steak to cook. Sous vide cooking is anything but intimidating; you vacuum pack some food and put it in some hot water for an extended period of time...easy, right? Absolutely, it's easy. However, The difficulty of sous vide cooking doesn't come from performing the actual technique, it comes from adapting your tastes, preferences, time frame and favorite dishes to the cooking method, which sounds TOTES exhilarating, right? This is why I purchased Help For the Busy Cook (HFTBC); for its claim that it teaches you how to adapt and harness the power of sous vide cooking to help your busy schedule. I'm a full-time college student working part time so I'm plenty busy. I've been cooking sous vide for 6+ months so I'd say that I have some good experience with the technique. What this book does best is teach you to plan, which is absolutely necessary when cooking sous vide but ultimately HFTBC lacks imagination and substance. The magic of sous vide cooking comes in the ability to keep proteins and vegetables at lower temperatures than normal for longer periods of time than you normally would. This gives you amazing control and even more amazing results. A few weeks ago I cooked a couple of sirloin steaks at 133 degrees F for 10 hours and they came out like tender ribeye steaks. HFTBC teaches you what you need to do before, during and after you cook a protein sous vide and how to effectively make it work around your busy schedule. The first few pages run you through the basic know-how of the cooking technique along with the inherent danger of low temperature cooking. The following pages run you through their own categories of cooking times that range from a few hours to as long as 3 days. It does a great job explaining to the beginner how and what sous vide cooking can do for a "busy" person. What I was hoping to get out of this book was variety, but not in the aspect you would think of when you hear a cookbook has "variety". The book uses a very good amalgamation of proteins and each dish has it's own side or sauce to accompany the protein. Where it stumbles is in the variety of cooking times. There are basically 2 different cooking times: day of and multiple days. When I say "day of" I mean put it in the water in the morning and take it out when you get home. It basically comes down to you prepare your meat the night before or the morning of, put in it your water bath before you leave for the day and finish the meat/prepare your side when you get home. Each recipe has a general statement that goes like this, "(insert protein here) is best when cooked 3-5 hours but is still great when cooked beyond that". So each recipe calls for a cooking time of your work day. I would have liked to see different uses of different times and how to utilize the actual ingredient of "time" in my sous vide cooking; at least some innovative uses to cook the proteins in their optimal ranges. If the best cooking time for chicken thighs is 3-5 hours, how can I make those 3-5 hours work for my busy schedule? The book basically resorts to "it's okay to leave it in the water bath all day" which works, but you can find that type of information for free at the author's website, www.cookingsousvide.com, which doesn't cost $15. It does have a chapter on "Cook, chill, reheat" but it's not what I wanted out of the book. The later section of multiple day meals are great in their recommendations but the "day of" section makes up the bulk of the book and I really was hoping for some more inspiration in that regard. At the end of the recipes there is a "fast cookers" section that simply tells you to get thinner protein and refer to the author's "cooking by thickness" charts in the back with an included plug for their .99 cent ruler app for your smartphone. Go sign up for their newsletter and you get the PDF printable of their ruler (gratis) and you can keep your iphone away from raw meat. I don't know which is more unsettling, raw meat touching my phone or my man-handled phone touching my steak, just avoid that noise. As for the recipes themselves there is a large selection but when it comes down to it they are uninspiring. Those that I have tried are tasty but there's nothing in this book that's going to get you to get out of your box and start thinking for yourself as a cook. A lot of the recipes use the same flavor profiles and are a great start for those looking for a launching pad into cooking protein sous vide. Another place for improvement is the lack of vegetarian recipes. Dont get me wrong, meat and I have a long-standing love affair and I completely agree that the most dramatic results of sous vide cooking come from the transformations that proteins make,(cook some spare ribs for 3 days and you can rip the meat apart with your gums, no teeth required, grandmas) but when I cook sous vide almost every day, straight meat can get overwhelming. Vegetables can really shine when cooked sous vide and I was hoping for more in that regard. Overall this is a good book for those adventuring into sous vide cooking for the first time and would like some ideas as how to use it to cook some great meals within a busy schedule. The best parts are those explaining how you need to make a plan for your dinner. While you're at it just learn to make a timeline for your meals (honestly, no one does this and once you do, you won't go back)The recipes are good, but could use some more variety. If you're a more experienced sous vide cook check out their website www.cookingsousvide.com. Their app is very much worth the 1 or 2 dollars that it costs. For those looking to be more adventurous or just want to learn the science aspect of sous vide cooking check out www.chefsteps.com, it is run by the award winning chefs behind Modernist Cuisine and the forums are busy with professional chefs and amateur cooks alike.I give it a "Russel Crowe in Les Mis". You tried real hard but just weren't quite up to par.

If you're considering buying this book, it's a safe bet you have not tried sous vide ("under vacuum") cooking before, and you want to know if it's a good method, how do you do it and what equipment do you need.While this book is a good place to start, there is more info you should know even before buying it. Most importantly: you need at least a sous vide controller for use with a slow cooker. This is necessary in order to keep the temperature constant at the appropriate setting. The book doesn't say that directly, it directs you to the author's web site, cookingsousvide.com. There, he recommends a specific controller, which I have not tried. There's another controller on Amazon, the Dork Food DSV Temperature Controller, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0088OTON4. This is a good machine that works very well, it has some very minor issues (looks clunky and it makes clicking noises) and it's about $100; at least it's not very big. You use it with a slow cooker (must be manual, not digital). Or, you can be a real sous vide machine, which is much more expensive. You should also have a vacuum sealer. It's possible to use zipper-seal bags and squeeze the air out manually, but some bags fall apart at the seams which can be a problem. You might consider the Seal-a-Meal VS108-P http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009EQJTFS.Is sous vide a good method? It's wonderful. It produces meats that are fully cooked through, exactly the way you like, very tender, and yet very juicy and not dried out. For example, chicken cacciatore comes out much better with sous vide than the typical method. And, you can leave the machine running for hours, without needing to worry about exactly how long your food is cooking. To make meat look like its conventionally cooked you will likely want to briefly brown it after sous video cooking. Sous vide can be great time saver - think of it as slow cooking done right, not what a slow cooker does on its own.Back to the book: It gives you a very good introduction to sous vide, cooking guidelines directed at food safety and doneness to your preference, and a number of recipes. The recipes may serve as guidelines for some other recipe you wanted to cook. The time and temperature guidelines are essential, and in the form of compact charts. Once you get started with sous vide, you may want to get a more extensive cookbook. Or, you could just start with the equipment and a more extensive book right away.

I am new to sous vide cooking and needed some help to get going. this book and others by the same author go over the theory in an accessible way and provide helpful charts. The way it is written and printed make everything easy to follow.The recipes are clear and easy to follow. I will by this authors books again.

As a newcomer to Sous Vide & not a chef I need a book which sets out clearly the times & temperatures for English cuts of meat. The time spent searching the Internet only to find other people with the same problem, leaves me to think, when busy, cooks want precise information at their fingertips. This book like all others is aimed at the American market.

A really good and simple to follow book. Although not as comprehensive as others it is easy to understand the basic principles of sousvide cooking by following the different stages.Written in simple language this book has lots of suggestions for saving time and still creating superb meals. Great as an introduction to sousvide cooking.

This has to be the worst cookbook I've ever bought. The first four recipes I tried in it all had inaccurate timings or ingredient quantities - I haven't tried any more! Its all in American quantities, descriptions, meat cuts etc. Any its really poorly laid out. You'll get more useful information from websites without wasting money on this

Useful info that is ideal when being creative. Some margins for error but overall this book gives a great push in the right direction