4 ms·

I mean the things you mentioned are deeply out of style in restaurant cooking right now. So we already do look back on this in a similar way. And they were neve

I mean the things you mentioned are deeply out of style in restaurant cooking right now. So we already do look back on this in a similar way. And they were never that common either. This trend had a short peak and the training, staffing, equipment, r&d costs were all sky high. The backlash was very disproportionate imo; it was never my kind of thing either but you weren't going to run into it unless you were specifically seeking it out. Sous vide is still used quietly because it's a very practical technique with good results for certain protein preparations, and there are plenty of other useful bits of craft through the book. Similarly I guess mayo didn't exactly disappear from american cooking.

mcphage 2y ago
> The backlash was very disproportionate imo; it was never my kind of thing either but you weren't going to run into it unless you were specifically seeking it out. I'm not sure what the backlash was (I'm nowhere near that scene), but as a tactic, it could be that the reason for the disproportionate backlash was to prevent this style of cooking from becoming more widespread, rather than in reaction to its presence.
scarby2 2y ago
> Sous vide is still used quietly because it's a very practical technique with good results for certain protein preparations, and there are plenty of other useful bits of craft through the book. Similarly I guess mayo didn't exactly disappear from american cooking. I was reading the first part of your response and my mind was immediately going "but sous-vide is everywhere" It's one of those things that's just really useful. However it has fallen off slightly, i didn't think anyone is cooking eggs sous vide anymore.
- alwa 2y ago
  Except, of course, for Starbucks! [0] And imitation salmon eggs still use that calcium/alginate technique the modernist cooks called "spherification"... [1] [0] https://www.starbucks.com/menu/product/2122116/single https://www.starbucks.com/menu/product/2122116/single [1] https://sushiuniversity.jp/sushiblog/today-you-will-learn-how-to-easily-identify-artificial-salmon-roe/ https://sushiuniversity.jp/sushiblog/today-you-will-learn-ho...
- jorvi 2y ago
  Plus, y'know, leaching plastic into your food is generally ill-advised. It won't matter much if you don't eat out all the time / don't do sous-vide at home, but otherwise, yeah.. best avoided. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3222987/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3222987/ > Results: Almost all commercially available plastic products we sampled—independent of the type of resin, product, or retail source—leached chemicals having reliably detectable EA, including those advertised as BPA free. In some cases, BPA-free products released chemicals having more EA than did BPA-containing products.
  - entropie 2y ago
    You can do sous vide without plastics. For example I infuse oil via sous vide with biomaterial in weck jars.
    - kjs3 2y ago
      Yeah...what a weird derail. My sous vide has a small maybe 3"x0.5" plastic cap at the end and rest is stainless steel. I could have gotten a different one without the plastic I'm sure (maybe more expensive?), but I can read the science and be reasonably sure I'm not going to die horribly from that much exposure. Stainless steel or aluminum[1] pot and you're blissfully plastic-death free. [1] I shouldn't have said that...the 'aluminum pots give you Alzheimers' crowd could descend at any moment.
      - Wistar 2y ago
        It’s not the SV circulator but the plastic vacuum bags folks are most worried about.
        kjs3 2y ago
        Which you don't have to use either, but that makes more sense.
        Wistar 2y ago
- tptacek 2y ago
  Circulator eggs never made a whole lot of sense, because you already have a reference temperature to work from and so cooking any number of them is just a matter of setting a timer (do what the Ideas in Food people do and steam them). I can't remember the last time I circulated a steak. But we did a rib roast for Christmas, and I did that in the circulator, in advance, "for insurance purposes", and then cooked it off in a ripping (toaster) oven on the day. There is no better way to prepare sausages. I would replace my Anova circulator immediately if it broke, simply so I can keep going to Paulina Market, buying a couple of every sausage, circulating them all, and keeping them in the fridge/freezer for ready-to-go meals.
  - mattmaroon 2y ago
    I still poach eggs in the shell in my Anova Precision Oven often. The 13 minute egg is pretty unbeatable. I think the decline in sous vide use in commercial kitchens is largely just because befuddled health regulators pushed everyone toward CVAPs, which do the same thing without the plastic. Now that I’ve got the APO, I cook nearly everything in it. I wish I could get a regular oven-sized version.
    - bbatha 2y ago
      Miele makes wall combi ovens that are standard sized. Well they lose some cooking volume for the steam components.
      - mattmaroon 2y ago
        Thank you, those are awesome. I'm stuck with freestanding at the moment but may build a house soon and I would for sure get these!
    - SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
      The APO is new to me. Looks interesting. Can it really “sous vide” a steak? Does it brown it too?
      - 2y ago
- chaorace 2y ago
  It's funny that you mention eggs because there's actually been a recent paper regarding sous vide, soft-boiling, and achieving the "ideal" egg texture through a novel boiling process (novel to me, anyway) which they've opted to call "periodic cooking": https://www.nature.com/articles/s44172-024-00334-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s44172-024-00334-w There's a lot of cool diagrams which I'd encourage skimming that link for, but here's the basic rundown: the goal of the described process is to achieve a creamy yolk like what would be produced via sous vide whilst eliminating the unpleasant jammy eggwhite texture characteristic of that process. The recipe involves 30 minutes of carefully transferring an egg back and forth between two vessels repeatedly: one boiling, one room-temperature. You do that 16 times in exact two-minute intervals in order to achieve the "perfect" egg -- very simple and convenient for the modern home-cook in a hurry! Anyway... you can watch this guy on youtube make it so that you may eat some other, more sufferable meal more vicariously: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahGGanfPDJw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahGGanfPDJw
blacklion 2y ago
> Sous vide is still used quietly because it's a very practical technique with good results for certain protein preparations Problem is, Sous vide is good for certain proteins. For example, I cannot stand chicken breast Sous vide, as it, yes, more tender than "classical" chicken breast, but has very specific unpleasant texture. And now it is everywhere. Last time I had dinner in Indian restaurant which was new to me (this specific venue, not Indian cuisine as whole) and I got chicken breast sous vide in a souse as a carry. Not braised or stewed or simmered in souse. It was BAD.

mcphage 2y ago

> The backlash was very disproportionate imo; it was never my kind of thing either but you weren't going to run into it unless you were specifically seeking it out. I'm not sure what the backlash was (I'm nowhere near that scene), but as a tactic, it could be that the reason for the disproportionate backlash was to prevent this style of cooking from becoming more widespread, rather than in reaction to its presence.

scarby2 2y ago

> Sous vide is still used quietly because it's a very practical technique with good results for certain protein preparations, and there are plenty of other useful bits of craft through the book. Similarly I guess mayo didn't exactly disappear from american cooking. I was reading the first part of your response and my mind was immediately going "but sous-vide is everywhere" It's one of those things that's just really useful. However it has fallen off slightly, i didn't think anyone is cooking eggs sous vide anymore.

alwa 2y ago
Except, of course, for Starbucks! [0] And imitation salmon eggs still use that calcium/alginate technique the modernist cooks called "spherification"... [1] [0] https://www.starbucks.com/menu/product/2122116/single https://www.starbucks.com/menu/product/2122116/single [1] https://sushiuniversity.jp/sushiblog/today-you-will-learn-how-to-easily-identify-artificial-salmon-roe/ https://sushiuniversity.jp/sushiblog/today-you-will-learn-ho...
jorvi 2y ago
Plus, y'know, leaching plastic into your food is generally ill-advised. It won't matter much if you don't eat out all the time / don't do sous-vide at home, but otherwise, yeah.. best avoided. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3222987/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3222987/ > Results: Almost all commercially available plastic products we sampled—independent of the type of resin, product, or retail source—leached chemicals having reliably detectable EA, including those advertised as BPA free. In some cases, BPA-free products released chemicals having more EA than did BPA-containing products.
- entropie 2y ago
  You can do sous vide without plastics. For example I infuse oil via sous vide with biomaterial in weck jars.
  - kjs3 2y ago
    Yeah...what a weird derail. My sous vide has a small maybe 3"x0.5" plastic cap at the end and rest is stainless steel. I could have gotten a different one without the plastic I'm sure (maybe more expensive?), but I can read the science and be reasonably sure I'm not going to die horribly from that much exposure. Stainless steel or aluminum[1] pot and you're blissfully plastic-death free. [1] I shouldn't have said that...the 'aluminum pots give you Alzheimers' crowd could descend at any moment.
    - Wistar 2y ago
      It’s not the SV circulator but the plastic vacuum bags folks are most worried about.
      - kjs3 2y ago
        Which you don't have to use either, but that makes more sense.
        Wistar 2y ago
tptacek 2y ago
Circulator eggs never made a whole lot of sense, because you already have a reference temperature to work from and so cooking any number of them is just a matter of setting a timer (do what the Ideas in Food people do and steam them). I can't remember the last time I circulated a steak. But we did a rib roast for Christmas, and I did that in the circulator, in advance, "for insurance purposes", and then cooked it off in a ripping (toaster) oven on the day. There is no better way to prepare sausages. I would replace my Anova circulator immediately if it broke, simply so I can keep going to Paulina Market, buying a couple of every sausage, circulating them all, and keeping them in the fridge/freezer for ready-to-go meals.
- mattmaroon 2y ago
  I still poach eggs in the shell in my Anova Precision Oven often. The 13 minute egg is pretty unbeatable. I think the decline in sous vide use in commercial kitchens is largely just because befuddled health regulators pushed everyone toward CVAPs, which do the same thing without the plastic. Now that I’ve got the APO, I cook nearly everything in it. I wish I could get a regular oven-sized version.
  - bbatha 2y ago
    Miele makes wall combi ovens that are standard sized. Well they lose some cooking volume for the steam components.
    - mattmaroon 2y ago
      Thank you, those are awesome. I'm stuck with freestanding at the moment but may build a house soon and I would for sure get these!
  - SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
    The APO is new to me. Looks interesting. Can it really “sous vide” a steak? Does it brown it too?
    - 2y ago
chaorace 2y ago
It's funny that you mention eggs because there's actually been a recent paper regarding sous vide, soft-boiling, and achieving the "ideal" egg texture through a novel boiling process (novel to me, anyway) which they've opted to call "periodic cooking": https://www.nature.com/articles/s44172-024-00334-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s44172-024-00334-w There's a lot of cool diagrams which I'd encourage skimming that link for, but here's the basic rundown: the goal of the described process is to achieve a creamy yolk like what would be produced via sous vide whilst eliminating the unpleasant jammy eggwhite texture characteristic of that process. The recipe involves 30 minutes of carefully transferring an egg back and forth between two vessels repeatedly: one boiling, one room-temperature. You do that 16 times in exact two-minute intervals in order to achieve the "perfect" egg -- very simple and convenient for the modern home-cook in a hurry! Anyway... you can watch this guy on youtube make it so that you may eat some other, more sufferable meal more vicariously: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahGGanfPDJw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahGGanfPDJw

blacklion 2y ago

> Sous vide is still used quietly because it's a very practical technique with good results for certain protein preparations Problem is, Sous vide is good for certain proteins. For example, I cannot stand chicken breast Sous vide, as it, yes, more tender than "classical" chicken breast, but has very specific unpleasant texture. And now it is everywhere. Last time I had dinner in Indian restaurant which was new to me (this specific venue, not Indian cuisine as whole) and I got chicken breast sous vide in a souse as a carry. Not braised or stewed or simmered in souse. It was BAD.