Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide

the french laundry cookbook is one of my favorite books, but i thought id never be able to do most of the recipes in it when i first looked at it. after time, as my experience grew, and constantly referring back to the book, i find myself now able to do most of those dishes in it (though i havent tackled head-to-toe yet) and looked at the book more as a place to get ideas from. "under pressure" seems like the same type of book.when i opened this book i felt the same experience i felt opening the french laundry. the books pretty much even look the same. neither are designed with the home cook in mind.that said, most of the recipes can be replicated at home, given the right equipment. i seriously doubt anyone is going to buy a chamber vacuum sealer (costing up to or exceeding 5 grand) or an immersion circulator (costing over a grand) but there is hope for people on a budget, like myself.i, myself, have been doing some sous-vide cooking at home and at work for about a year now. i tested the way the technique can change the texture and taste of food. the results i got ranged from disasterious to sublime. i never had a real guide to sous vide cooking (not being able to spend over 200 bucks for the only book printed on the subject). but now i do. but i dont have the expensive hardware that this book calls for, but im pretty sure i can get the same results they get on MOST of these dishes.its true, food savers and chamber sealers are alot different. you cant get the results of a "compressed" watermelon (as in the steak tartare)using something you got at target, but you can get the same type of pork belly. with the old foodsavers, you werent able to seal food with a liquid (unless you froze it and then placed it with the food in the bag). the new ones, allow you to seal with liquids and marinades, so most of the recipes are do-able.and it is true, a sous vide magic wont give the same results as a immersion circulator will give you as far as the poached egg is concerned. but it will allow you to get pretty much the same reults you would get from the braised veal cheeks.i use a foodsaver V2860 and a Ranco temperature controller, with a plug-in electric burner at home (at work we got the Rational combi) and found it relatively easy to do the "glazed breast of pork with swiss chard, white wine poached granny smith apples and green mustard vinaigrette" at home.and as far as the "molecular chemicals" used in this book, you can easily get them online from the places they refer to on the sources page in reasonable quantities. you wont need to buy a 50 lb bucket of transglutaminase in order to do them.this book isnt for someone wanting to make a 30-minute meal. nor should it be. its for someone who takes food and cooking SERIOUSLY. as with the french laundry, this book is strictly dedicated with a serious hobbyist and the professional chef in mind.

After reading many of the reviews of this book, I must get one thing off my chest: Thomas Kelller's cooking isn't meant to be accessible. If you know anything about the man, his food and his restaurants, then this won't be a surprise. Also, sous-vide as a technique was never developed to be utilized in an average home kitchen. The recipes in this book are clear, concise and don't leave anything out. It assumes you are using extremely high quality ingredients and have the means to maintain a water bath at a precise temperature. Sous vide can be done at home with fantastic results if you put enough care into preparation, timing and temperature maintenance. A foodsaver can be used. However professional vacuum machines are able to extract much more air from the bags (and are able to "compress" food which a foodsaver cannot) and obviously a lab quality roner would give the most exacting results in terms of cooking times and temps. The photography in this book is stellar, as is all of Keller's book and to me the Bras-like plate presentations are much more creative and visually interesting than his previous books, French Laundry included. This would be more of a resource for professional chefs with the skill and equipment to able to replicate the doness of proteins and vegetables. The personal insights of the various sous-chefs of the Keller empire and Sabastien Rouxel, the executive pastry chef are also worth noting as they aren't long and derivative, yet give the reader a broad understanding of what it takes to work at such a high level as well as obvious insights into sous-vide techniques and their utilization in the kitchen for things other than low-temp cooking. To me this is the most approachable book on the subject of sous vide. Other books like Joan Roca's "Sous Vide" is not only very expensive, but is long on scientific explanation and very short on content (relative to the high price) and isn't very practical. Jordi Cruz's "Logical Cuisine" also delves into low temperature cooking using sous vide to infuse stocks with other flavors, but the book as a whole only partly covers the full possibilities of sous vide cooking and the section on the subject is quite short. This book does a terrific job of distilling the essence of sous-vide cooking to the basics and organizes it in a clear and easily read source, in my opinion it is the best book to read up on the subject of sous-vide cooking

N-a