DIY Sous Vide

I don’t know what Sous Vide tastes like – but I like the cut of this jib – apparently sous vide cooking is all the rage (using temperature controlled water to cook stuff). I think I’ve seen similar methods on MasterChef. Anyway, Sous Vide cookers will set you back lots of money. A better alternative is to use a beer cooler and little sealable baggies.

So says Kenji Lopez-Alt – the guy who reverse engineered Maccas fries. Here’s an appetite whetter:

“Here’s how it works: A beer cooler is designed to keep things cool. It accomplishes this with a two-walled plastic chamber with an air space in between. This airspace acts as an insulator, preventing thermal energy (a.k.a. heat) from outside to reach the cold food inside. Of course, insulators work both ways. Once you realize that a beer cooler is just as good at keeping hot things hot as it is at keeping cold things cold, then the rest is easy: Fill up your beer cooler with water just a couple degrees higher than the temperature you’d like to cook your food at (to account for temperature loss when you add cold food to it), seal your food in a plastic Ziplock bag*, drop it in, and close your beer cooler until your food is cooked. It’s as simple as that.”

Read the whole thing at Serious Eats.