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Sous vide cooking presents an interesting paradox: it’s currently de rigueur in the kitchens of the world’s most advanced chefs—those helmed by wild prodigies like Keller, Adrià, Dufresne, Achatz—yet, fundamentally, it’s one of the simplest and most foolproof methods for cooking just about anything to its exact level of perfect doneness. But now, we non-pros have a new option—the Sous Vide Supreme, the first sous vide setup aimed at home cooks. Do you have to be Thomas Keller to pull off sous vide? I’ve been cooking with a Sous Vide Supreme for the last month to find out.

Cooking sous vide is easy: seal the food in a bag, stick it in a water bath held at the precise temperature of perfection, wait, then enjoy meats and vegetables of such exquisite tenderness you may be surprised to find you’re eating plain-old Earthly beef, and not a never-before-savored endangered species.

The technique also represents the most literal transformation of your kitchen into the science lab it’s always secretly wished it was, with a $1,000 immersion circulator straight from your chemistry professor’s supply catalog being the tool of choice for restaurant chefs. There’s a lot to love for someone who enjoys both cooking and science immensely.

I am fairly confident in the kitchen, but the great thing about sous vide is that the me of 10 years ago, in college making Lipton instant noodles and ramen for just about every meal, could probably have summoned equally mind-blowing results from the Sous Vide Supreme. This is, again, a product of the technique’s almost Puritanical simplicity. All you need is a plastic bag and a water bath held at a consistent, unchanging temperature of your choosing. That’s it.

So what’s all the fuss about then? Well, let’s use a beautiful piece of hanger steak as an example. You could sear that steak in a cast iron pan over high heat, then stick it in the oven to finish for a few more minutes, let it rest and, if you know your oven and have done this a few times, come out with a perfect medium rare piece of meat to enjoy. Medium rare in the middle that is—the outer layer, no matter how perfect your timing and technique, will be overdone compared to the center.

Now let’s take that same piece of hanger steak and cook it sous vide. Salt and pepper it and seal it in a Ziploc bag (vacuum sealers work great for sous vide, which is, after all, French for under vacuum but they’re not mandatory—as long as the bag doesn’t float, you’re good). Then toss it in your 55-degree Celsius water bath. If you’ve read your McGee, you know that cooking adheres strictly to the rules of science: muscle cells, fat cells, collagen and connective tissues all break down and tenderize at consistent and exact temperatures. As a result, we know that 55 degrees Celsius (no Fahrenheit! this is Science!) is the temperature of perfectly cooked medium rare beef. So toss it in, wait 45 minutes—or 4 hours, if that’s more convenient, as the meat won’t rise above 55 degrees—then pull it out. It may look gray and gross right now, but do not fear! We know that the entire piece of meat has cooked in nothing but its own delicious juices to the scientifically derived temperature of perfect medium rare beef. The antidote to the yucky grayness is a good hot sear afterwards: fire up your cast iron pan to a scary level of heat and blast it for just a minute on each side with a little butter or oil in the pan to add a tasty, crunchy crust. Or if you really want to please your inner mad scientist, use a blowtorch. Then eat the most insanely tender and perfectly cooked steak of your life.

And while proteins lend themselves beautifully to sous vide cooking, fruits and vegetables are similarly revelatory, with luxuriously even textures that still maintain essential, basic raw flavor. Delicious.

Because the technique is inherently so simple, a review of the Sous Vide Supreme is more a review of sous vide cooking in general, because the machine only has to do one easy job. And based on my experience, it does that job just fine.

Underneath the basin sits a PID heating element, one that delivers periodic heat of varying intensity, unlike the basic “on” or “off” of a thermostat. Having the heat element only on the bottom worried me, because the only way to screw up a sous vide water bath is with unevenly distributed heat. But the first thing I cooked—eggs—seemed to dispel this potential weakness. Placing them right on the removable porous metal grate that separates the bottom of the basin from the rest of the tank (cooked for 55 minutes at 63 degrees), the eggs came out evenly cooked. And a sous vide egg is pretty magical—unlike a poached egg, the yolk is actually thicker than the whites, retaining a custardy or pudding-like texture. Delicious in a bowl of noodle soup, cracked over some asparagus, or on toast.

With this initial worry out of the way, I proceeded to throw just about everything I could into the machine. Sirloin steaks, pork loin, shell steaks, Arctic char, fennel, apples, pork belly, short ribs, lamb shanks—all were delicious and in some way transformed from conventional cooking. For pornographic photos of every food I cooked sous vide (and a guide to times and temperatures and my thoughts on cooking each dish), see the gallery here.

For more food porn as well as a guide to times and temperatures used, <a href="https://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2010-01/sous-vide-supreme-review-cooking/">see the gallery here</a>.

Sous Vide Egg

For more food porn as well as a guide to times and temperatures used, see the gallery here.

The beautiful thing is that the cooking is exceedingly easy: to cook something sous vide, all you really need to know is what temperature and how long. Sous vide has a reputation for being incredibly time-intensive, but tender cuts of meat and most vegetables and fruits can be cooked through in an hour or less. Fish can cook even more briefly, depending on the portion size. Only tougher cuts of meat that one would normally braise (like short ribs or lamb shanks) require the long haul—I kept my short ribs in for 48 hours, for example.

Knowing those two variables, you can cook anything sous vide. But the Internet—normally a bountiful font of foodie information—is currently pretty light on practical sous vide info. Which is due, of course, to the technique still being used only by professionals. But thankfully, one of sous vide cooking’s all-stars and one of America’s most lauded chefs, Thomas Keller, has written Under Pressure, an abundantly useful book. Even if you call your pork belly “pork belly” and not “breast of pork” and skip the two or three complex purees that accompany each wildly technical recipe, the book is an excellent guide for times and temperatures of over 100 ingredient preparations, ranging from veal kidneys and duck gizzards to eggs, apples and sirloin of beef. It’s $75, but it’s the only definitive guide to sous vide cooking available in English right now.

Other invaluable references are Harold McGee’s aforementioned On Food and Cooking, which is the Bible of the science and history of food and really a must for anyone with an interest in cooking or even just eating. And available online is University of Colorado mathematics Ph. D. candidate Douglas Baldwin’s detailed sous vide guide, derived clearly from much experimentation.

I’ve enjoyed cooking with the Sous Vide Supreme immensely—anyone who loves food and cooking is always delighted by new tastes and textures, and the cooking sous vide is a constant source of both. But at $450 (available from the company’s Web site and in most Sur La Table stores) , it’s probably too expensive for all but the most serious home cooks. Less than half the price of a PolyScience immersion circulator, yes, but still priced beyond those who just want to experiment. Thankfully, it’s easy to create your own DIY sous vide setup for much, much less—here’s our guide on how to do just that.

But if you’re looking for an easy all-in-one sous vide setup and can stand the price, the Sous Vide Supreme gets the job done, deliciously.

Launch the gallery for some tasty food porn, as well as thoughts, times and temperatures for everything I cooked

Also check our good friend Wilson’s review over at Gizmodo for his thoughts, and even more delectable food-based pornography

<strong>82°C, 12 hours</strong><br />
Pork belly, something that normally requires a long braise or several hours in the oven to tenderize, was the first long-cooked product I tried. I love roasting pork belly with David Chang's method of an hour at high temperature in the oven followed by an hour at reduced heat, but the non-fat portions of the belly are often too tough. Cooked sous vide after a short cure with a salt and sugar rub, the flesh was almost as tender as the succulent fat, which didn't render as much as it would in the oven. More pork belly fat = good.

Pork Belly

82°C, 12 hours
Pork belly, something that normally requires a long braise or several hours in the oven to tenderize, was the first long-cooked product I tried. I love roasting pork belly with David Chang’s method of an hour at high temperature in the oven followed by an hour at reduced heat, but the non-fat portions of the belly are often too tough. Cooked sous vide after a short cure with a salt and sugar rub, the flesh was almost as tender as the succulent fat, which didn’t render as much as it would in the oven. More pork belly fat = good.
Mmmm.

Cooked Pork Belly

Mmmm.
<strong>52°C, 40 minutes</strong><br />
Fish is one of the few things you can't just forget about in your water bath for hours--too much time at temperature, and the flesh starts to break down and get too mushy. So for fatty fish like char and its cousin, salmon, you can cook it at its ideal medium rare temperature (or higher or lower, depending on how you like your fish) for 40-60 minutes depending on the thickness of your piece. Or you can do like chef Brendan McHale at Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar, one of my favorite restaurants in New York, who showed me how he cooks his single-serving portions of cod and char in a hotter 83°C bath for just a few minutes. To go that route, prepare for some experimentation.

Arctic Char Filet

52°C, 40 minutes
Fish is one of the few things you can’t just forget about in your water bath for hours–too much time at temperature, and the flesh starts to break down and get too mushy. So for fatty fish like char and its cousin, salmon, you can cook it at its ideal medium rare temperature (or higher or lower, depending on how you like your fish) for 40-60 minutes depending on the thickness of your piece. Or you can do like chef Brendan McHale at Jack’s Luxury Oyster Bar, one of my favorite restaurants in New York, who showed me how he cooks his single-serving portions of cod and char in a hotter 83°C bath for just a few minutes. To go that route, prepare for some experimentation.
There it is. Don't forget to remove the skin and fry it up separately--some crispy fish bacon to contrast the pillowy soft sous vide flesh.

Cooked Arctic Char

There it is. Don’t forget to remove the skin and fry it up separately–some crispy fish bacon to contrast the pillowy soft sous vide flesh.
<strong>85°C, 40 minutes</strong><br />
To cook sous vide successfully, you want as little air in the bag as possible--so it doesn't insulate the food, and so your bags don't float to the surface as gasses are released during cooking. The Sous Vide Supreme doesn't come with a vacuum sealer, but they sent a Reynolds Handi-Vac hand-held pump that worked fairly well, creating a tight seal inside its own special bags. You can also use a Food Saver, or follow Momofuku chef David Chang's advice and simply force the air out of the bag by dipping it almost entirely into the water, sealing it when the enough air has been removed to keep it from floating. Always use high quality bags to prevent ruptures, and to minimize the risk of nasty plastic chemicals leaching into your food. Most vegetables cook through at 85 degrees in just under an hour. Some will probably vary, but I followed Thomas Keller's recipe (omitting a few purees) to make delicious caramelized fennel seasoned with fines herbs and some white wine in the bag.

Fennel

85°C, 40 minutes
To cook sous vide successfully, you want as little air in the bag as possible–so it doesn’t insulate the food, and so your bags don’t float to the surface as gasses are released during cooking. The Sous Vide Supreme doesn’t come with a vacuum sealer, but they sent a Reynolds Handi-Vac hand-held pump that worked fairly well, creating a tight seal inside its own special bags. You can also use a Food Saver, or follow Momofuku chef David Chang’s advice and simply force the air out of the bag by dipping it almost entirely into the water, sealing it when the enough air has been removed to keep it from floating. Always use high quality bags to prevent ruptures, and to minimize the risk of nasty plastic chemicals leaching into your food. Most vegetables cook through at 85 degrees in just under an hour. Some will probably vary, but I followed Thomas Keller’s recipe (omitting a few purees) to make delicious caramelized fennel seasoned with fines herbs and some white wine in the bag.
<strong>56°C, 90 minutes</strong><br />
The machine comes with a cookbook with some times and temperatures for various cuts, and for the pork tenderloin--one of the more underrated cuts if you ask me--I followed their lead, and it turned out beautifully. Seasoned with some garlic, chives and miso, it was probably the most tender pork I've ever eaten. Oh, and the pink color? Don't be alarmed--sous vide meats turn a deeper red hue when sliced, even when cooked correctly.

Pork Tenderloin

56°C, 90 minutes
The machine comes with a cookbook with some times and temperatures for various cuts, and for the pork tenderloin–one of the more underrated cuts if you ask me–I followed their lead, and it turned out beautifully. Seasoned with some garlic, chives and miso, it was probably the most tender pork I’ve ever eaten. Oh, and the pink color? Don’t be alarmed–sous vide meats turn a deeper red hue when sliced, even when cooked correctly.
<strong>62.5°C, 50 minutes</strong><br />
Sous vide eggs are excellent--with runnier whites and a custardy yolk. Be sure to pour off the whites that are too runny to cling to the yolk.

Eggs

62.5°C, 50 minutes
Sous vide eggs are excellent–with runnier whites and a custardy yolk. Be sure to pour off the whites that are too runny to cling to the yolk.
<strong>85°C, 30 minutes</strong><br />
Sous vide apples have the texture of a baked apple you may eat inside a pie, but still retain all the flavor and juiciness of one that's raw. In the bag, throw some cinnamon, nutmeg, butter, booze--anything that goes with apples--and you're set.

Apples

85°C, 30 minutes
Sous vide apples have the texture of a baked apple you may eat inside a pie, but still retain all the flavor and juiciness of one that’s raw. In the bag, throw some cinnamon, nutmeg, butter, booze–anything that goes with apples–and you’re set.
<strong>55°C, 70 minutes</strong><br />
I love a bit of fat on my steaks, and while a lot of this got trimmed off, the heavy marbling in these shell steaks was pretty unbelievably after a little over an hour in the bath. Seasoned only with salt and pepper.

Shell Steaks

55°C, 70 minutes
I love a bit of fat on my steaks, and while a lot of this got trimmed off, the heavy marbling in these shell steaks was pretty unbelievably after a little over an hour in the bath. Seasoned only with salt and pepper.
Yeah.

Steaks Cooked and Sliced

Yeah.
<strong>60°C, 48 hours</strong><br />
That's right, <em>48 hours</em>. You may ask "is it worth it," then you remember that it only takes about 15 minutes of active time to prepare them for the bath. Then kiss them goodbye and two days later, welcome them back into your life once they've acquired an ungodly tenderness. I used David Chang's sweet soy short rib marinade <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Momofuku-David-Chang/dp/030745195X">from Momofuku Ko</a>, which I will wholeheartedly recommend.

Short Ribs

60°C, 48 hours
That’s right, 48 hours. You may ask “is it worth it,” then you remember that it only takes about 15 minutes of active time to prepare them for the bath. Then kiss them goodbye and two days later, welcome them back into your life once they’ve acquired an ungodly tenderness. I used David Chang’s sweet soy short rib marinade from Momofuku Ko, which I will wholeheartedly recommend.
<strong>60°C, 24 hours</strong><br />
After the short ribs had stewed for a day, they were joined in the bath by two lamb shanks that cooked with them the additional 24 hours. A lamb shank is a pretty sinewy piece of meat that normally requires a long braise, but after 24 hours sous vide, it was just as tender and with the essential flavor of only the lamb and a bit of rosemary and olive oil. The cooked short ribs, seen post-deep-fry, are at right.

Lamb Shank

60°C, 24 hours
After the short ribs had stewed for a day, they were joined in the bath by two lamb shanks that cooked with them the additional 24 hours. A lamb shank is a pretty sinewy piece of meat that normally requires a long braise, but after 24 hours sous vide, it was just as tender and with the essential flavor of only the lamb and a bit of rosemary and olive oil. The cooked short ribs, seen post-deep-fry, are at right.