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Sous vide (; French for 'under vacuum'), also known as low-temperature, long-time (LTLT) cooking, is a method of cooking invented by the French chef Georges Pralus in 1974, in which food is placed in a plastic pouch or a glass jar and cooked in a water bath for longer than usual cooking times (usually one to seven hours, and more than three days in some cases) at a precisely regulated temperature. The temperature is much lower than usually used for cooking, typically around 55 to 60 °C (130 to 140 °F) for red meat, 66 to 71 °C (150 to 160 °F) for poultry, and higher for vegetables. The intent is to cook the item evenly, ensuring that the inside is properly cooked without overcooking the outside, and to retain moisture. History Sous vide cooking is characterized by low-temperature cooking, a longer period of cooking than conventional cooking, a container (such as a plastic bag) that separates the food from its heating environment, and pressurized enclosure using full or partial vacuum. Low-temperature cooking was first described by Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford in 1799. He used air as the heat-transfer medium in his experiments while attempting to see if he could roast meat in a machine which he had created to dry potatoes. In Thompson's own words, the meat was: "Not merely eatable, but perfectly done, and most singularly well-tasted." Preparation of food under pressure, with or without heat, was developed by American and French engineers in the mid-1960s as an industrial food preservation method. As with Rumford, the researchers learned that the food showed distinctive improvements in flavor and texture. As this method was pioneered, applying pressure to food through vacuum sealing was sometimes called "cryovacking". The pressure notably concentrated the flavors of fruits, even without cooking. The method was adopted by Georges Pralus, a French chef, in 1974 for the Restaurant Troisgros (of Pierre and Michel Troisgros) in Roanne, France. He discovered that when foie gras was cooked in this manner, it kept its original appearance, did not lose excess amounts of fat, and had better texture. Another pioneer in sous vide is Bruno Goussault, the French chief scientist of Sterling, Virginia-based food manufacturer Cuisine Solutions. In 1991, he established Centre de Recherche et d'Études pour l'Alimentation (CREA) as the service arm of its parent company, Cuisine Solutions. Due to his research into the effects of temperature on various foods, through CREA, he became well known for training top chefs in the method. He developed the parameters of cooking times and temperatures for various foods. Goussault and Pralus independently worked on development of sous vide in the 1970s and eventually became collaborators. Goussault pioneered the marriage of vacuum sealing with low-temperature cooking. Pralus, considered the father of modern sous vide, cooked at higher temperatures. Essential features Sealing the food in sturdy plastic bags retains juices and aroma that otherwise would be lost in the process. Placing the packaged food in a water bath, with the temperature set at the desired final cooking temperature of the food, prevents overcooking, because the food cannot get hotter than the bath it is in, as in bain-marie. As a result of precise temperature control of the bath and the fact that the bath temperature is the same as the target cooking temperature, very precise control of cooking can be achieved. Additionally, temperature, and thus cooking, can be very even throughout the food in sous vide cooking, even with irregularly shaped and very thick items, given enough time. By contrast, in conventional high-heat cooking, such as oven roasting or grilling, the food is exposed to heat levels that are much higher than the desired internal cooking temperature, and it must be removed from the high heat prior to reaching the desired cooking temperature. If the food is removed from the heat too late, it becomes overcooked, and if it is removed too early, it is undercooked. The use of temperatures much lower than those used for conventional cooking is an essential feature of sous vide. When cooking meat, tough collagen in connective tissue can be denatured into gelatin, without heating the meat's proteins high enough that they denature to a degree that the texture toughens and moisture is exuded from the meat. In contrast, soft vegetables when boiled are often considered overcooked. Low-temperature cooking allows plant matter to remain more succulent, as the cell walls do not burst. Cooking vegetables at temperatures below the boiling point of water allows them to be thoroughly cooked (and pasteurized, if necessary) while maintaining a firm or somewhat crisp texture. While the cell walls will generally not burst, the depolymerization of the pectic polysaccharides that connect the vegetable cells together and the gelatinisation of starch in the vegetable can be achieved without overcooking. From a culinary viewpoint, the exclusion of air is secondary, but this has practical importance. It allows cooked food to be stored, still sealed and refrigerated, for considerable times, which is especially useful for the catering industry, and it excludes oxygen from food that requires long cooking and is susceptible to oxidation, e.g., fat on meat, which may become rancid with prolonged exposure to air. It also improves the transfer of heat between the water bath and food, without the thermal insulating properties of any trapped air in the bag. Apart from ensuring uniform cooking, sous vide cooking facilitates development of desired organoleptic flavors and limits off flavors due to oxidation. Temperature The degree of accuracy and constancy of cooking temperature required varies with the food cooked. In some cases, it is not critical. A 15 millimetres (0.59 in)-thick piece of fish will cook in 17 to 18 minutes at any temperature from 44 °C (111 °F) to 61 °C (142 °F). Such food can be cooked in a switched-off slow cooker filled with hot water and a thermometer. For an egg, though, which has proteins that denature at different temperatures, maintaining precise, constant temperature is more critical. Confit egg yolks are usually cooked at 63 °C (145 °F), which is hot enough to cook the white without setting the yolk. The temperature of the bath is set to 64 °C (147 °F). Regular cooking times are determined by when the center of the cooked item reaches a few degrees below the targeted temperature. Then heating should be stopped immediately. While the food rests, residual heat will continue to cook it for a while. If the heating continues, the food will be overcooked. The time taken for the center of food to reach the target temperature depends on the initial temperature, the thickness and shape of the food, and the temperature of the bath. Limitations One limitation of sous vide cooking is that browning (Maillard reactions) happens at temperatures above the boiling point of water. The fl.... Discover the Douglas J Rumford popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Douglas J Rumford books.