Gallery: Cooking With the Sous Vide Supreme

An internal temperature of 71 deg C (160 deg F) is the recommended minimum on those "safe cooking" labels you see on packaged meat. This is intended to kill any bacteria on -- or in -- the meat.

While sous vide meat recipes almost always involve cooking temperatures lower than 71 deg C, some do include raising the surface of the meat to around that temperature for about a minute. Which doesn't kill bacteria "in the meat", only "on the meat".

So, for sous vide meats, it may well be an eat-at-your-own-risk situation. Like poorly-prepared blowfish (fugu) -- excellent, but deadly....

That's because if you love food enough to cook sous vide, then you probably love it enough to avoid cooking out all the flavor at 71 C.

http://greatgrub.com/reference/cooking_temperatures_for_beef

Rare:

• 120-130 °F (50-55 °C) Internal appearance very red; very moist with warm juices. Approximate cooking and resting time: 20-25 min./lb. plus 8-10 min. resting

Medium-rare:

• 130-140 °F (55-60 °C) Internal appearance lighter red; very moist with warm juices. Approximate cooking and resting time: 25-30 min./lb.. plus 8-10 min. resting

Medium (with a touch of pink):

• 140-150 °F (60-65 °C) Internal appearance pink red color; moist with clear pink juice. Approximate cooking and resting time: 30-35 min./lb. plus 8-10 min. resting

Well-done:

• 150-165 °F (65-75 °C) Internal appearance no pink or red, slightly moist with clear juices

Trichinosis is rather rare these days, and more and more people are cooking it at a lower temperature. I remember when pink pork was a taboo, now it is becoming the preference.

I am also unsure of how long trichinosis would persist at an elevated temperature for the suggested duration. I think some double blind studies should be done on both pure and intentionally infected meat.