"Sous vide" for the boat - 8 March 2017

The long and cold 2017 winter is prone to long and dark evenings preparing for the coming sailing season. The ongoing Stockholm boat show this week is the signal here of the end of the hibernation. Still a long way to go when looking at the car this morning though...

Let me tel you about "sous vide " cooking technique to ensure good fresh food available on Belisama all season long.
Let's start with a nice fresh piece of cod, seasoned with salt and pepper, capers and slices of lemon...

Why "Sous vide"? 

Sous vide means "vacuumed". The piece of seasoned cod is put in a food plastic bag with a spoon of olive oil, vacuumed and sealed.

The bags are placed in the "sous vide" cooking pot, which is is a simple cheap plastic box filled with water.

The "sous vide machine" is a water heater that can be set at a precise temperature for a specified duration. It ensures that the water circulates in the container resulting in a homogeneous temperature all around the food. For a piece of cod, the water temperature should be set at 55°C and the cooking time set to 30 to 45 minutes.

Time to enjoy watching snow flakes falling around in the night. Forty-five minutes later, remove the bag, plunge it in cold water for a few minutes to stop the cooking process, stamp a date on it and store in the fridge.

 The fish can be eaten for at least a week after such cooking, if kept in the fridge. To prepare for eating, plunge the bag in hot water for a while, microwave it shortly, or heat it on a pan for a minute.

Sous vide principle
Much is available on the Internet to explain the beauty of sous vide cooking. It is basically the bain-marie technique made easy by using an "incubator". The first sous vide professional chefs were indeed using microbiology incubators for cooking as various bacteria require specific precise temperatures to grow. With the temperature set very precisely, the food will be perfectly cooked without damaging its structure. Cooking in the bag ensures that the food keeps its moisture, as nothing escapes during the cooking. The result is amazing...

What kind of food?
I have been testing sous vide cooking now for three months with various meats, chicken and duck, salmon and cod, potatoes and green beans. All were delicious, even though I had to practice a bit with fish to get it right. Salmon in particular requires some brining prior to cooking. Check on the Internet for recipes...

How long the cooking?
Another beauty of sous vide cooking is that, once the temperature is precisely set, the cooking time can vary greatly as it is impossible to overcook. Yet, if you leave it unreasonably long, you end-up damaging the food structure and loosing the moisture. Lots of resources are available on the internet for appropriate cooking time according to type of food and thickness of pieces to cook, such as the one at "sous vide supreme". Time requires 20 minutes for some thin fish pieces, 12 hours for duck leg confit, up to couple of days for more heavy pieces such as pork belly confit.

Pasteurisation and preservation
After certain time at certain temperatures, the food is "pasteurised", meaning that most bacteria were killed and the food can therefore be persevered for longer periods. The sous-vide wiki is a good source to find the right duration for the right temperature. The cod prepared as above is best cooked, but it would require 90 minutes at 55°C to achieve pasteurisation. If so, it could be a bit dryer after cooking, but it could be then preserved for a good month in the fridge while testing absolutely fresh upon reheating. Note that a fraction of a second at 80°C is sufficient to kill all surface bacteria.

On the boat...
Sous vide cooking with pasteurisation becomes then a very handy solution for filling the fridge on Belisama for the 5 week summer cruise. With a bunch of pre-clocked plastic bags packed in the fridge, a crew can get delicious fresh dishes within minutes, based on fish and meat, as well as vegetables.

Among the advantages of sous-vide cooking for sailors:

• Safely storing one month of pre-cooked ingredients that will taste very fresh.
• Very limited cooking time required for preparation as only reheating or searing is required at the time of serving. Big saving as well on gaz consumption.
• Possibility to offer "à la carte" diners on board for crew members. After all, most modern restaurants are using the technique, including notably most steak-houses as sous-vide is particularly appropriate for steaks. 
• Should you decide to embark a water heater on board, then sous-vide cooking is an unattended activity consuming very little power that can be done while relaxing in marinas.
• Alternatively, sous-vide cooking can even be done using hot water from the water heater, if set hot enough, meaning around 55 °C. Then, a cheap cool-box can be used for the 20 minute cooking required for thin pieces of fish. See a demo on SeriousEats.
• Finally, a vacuum machine is quite useful on board, even if not cooking sous-vide, as it allows preserving fresh food for a longer time in the fridge.

Let me know of any experience with sous-vide!