Low temperature cooking. What is sous vide and how to choose it: understanding cooking at low temperatures

Prolonged heating of meat at a low temperature helps to soften the veins, ligaments, and films. Even quite coarse meat becomes exceptionally soft and tender. But what’s even more important is that with this cooking method you are guaranteed to get an excellent result even if you don’t have enough experience. The meat will never be overcooked and will be exceptionally juicy, fragrant and rosy.

Ingredients for Long Simmered Pork Knuckle:

Nutritional and energy value:

Recipe for “Long-simmered pork knuckle”:

A large, solid piece of fried meat on the table immediately gives you a feeling of celebration and celebration. Intriguingly appetizing appearance, fragrant meaty spirit, divine taste - there is something to please guests. And it’s not at all difficult.
So, we buy a large shank (even better - a neck, a ham). A day before cooking, in the morning, rub it with spices - pepper, garlic, marjoram, mustard. We rub it well, from the heart. It would be nice to lightly water the knuckle soy sauce, vegetable oil. But there is no need to salt it yet. Place the meat in the refrigerator. Of course, it needs to be covered somehow. Let it marinate in a cool place until the evening, but before going to bed, remove the meat and leave it at room temperature until the morning.

Early in the morning, rub the meat with salt and wrap it in cling film. You can also put it in a baking bag. The purpose of the film is to prevent the product from drying out during prolonged heating. No special sealing is required.

Place the meat packaged in this way into the oven. We set the regulator to the required air temperature in the oven. Let it be 70 degrees if you are cooking for the first time. In the future, as you gain experience, you can, if desired, reduce the temperature - down to 65 degrees (this is the lower limit of the sanitary readiness of pork). Turn on the oven and keep the meat in it for 8 hours. It takes so long to cook because the shank is very large and has a massive bone in it. In addition, we try to soften the veins and ligaments, which are abundant in the knuckle.

It takes a long time to prepare, but it’s simple - set it and forget it. You can do any household chores. The meat will not be overcooked. On the contrary, the longer it languishes in the oven, the better. At the right moment, take out the meat and remove the film. Basically, it's ready.

But you can add one more touch - the touch of an artist. Let's take a brush and grease the shank with some suitable sauce. For example: lingonberries + honey + pepper. Keep the meat in the oven under the top grill until the skin dries out a little and browns. Now the masterpiece is finally ready and you can serve it on the table. However, even here it would be good to pause for about 20 minutes. Gourmets know that this is important.

Like this, in the heat of the moment - all on the table

But even when cold, the shank remained surprisingly juicy and soft.

These nice pieces were cut from the shank the very next day after the feast. Delicious, isn't it? And what the most tender pink color! Marvelous. I often cook ham and have to add nitrite salt to get the red color of the meat. And here - without any chemicals. Just miracles in a sieve...

I really liked this method of cooking meat. Baked pork, ham, shank, ham, neck, suckling pig - now I’ll cook it this way only

P.s. Even meat in the “so-so” category with this cooking method falls into the “finger-licking” category. And if you take meat of the highest quality, then, of course, you won’t be able to find epithets to describe its taste...

Low temperature baking technology is the most advanced and economical method cooking.

Long-term simmering of products while maintaining a certain temperature makes them juicy and perfectly cooked. Modern ovens and devices designed for this allow you to cook using this approach.

What is sous vide?

The term " sous vide"translated from French as "in a vacuum." Thanks to this technology, cooking at low temperatures has become possible. The process takes longer than other heat treatment methods, but this method achieves several goals:

• Low temperature cooking modes maintain food integrity cell membranes, so the dishes are juicy.
• Right choice temperature and cooking time allows you to obtain soft products. Thanks to this, even the toughest meat will turn into a divine dish.
• If you bake or fry a piece of meat, the outer part becomes very hot and uneven heat distribution occurs. Sous-vide technology allows you to forget about burnt, dried out, undercooked foods.
• Cooking vegetables at low temperatures maintains their freshness and crispiness, which is not achieved by simply boiling them in water.

Benefits of technology

To understand why the method is remarkable, let’s get acquainted with the basics. The essence of the method is simple: the products are vacuum-sealed in a special plastic bag, after which they are cooked in water while maintaining a constant temperature, usually not exceeding 70 degrees (for vegetables the limit increases).

The most important thing is precise control of temperature and time. Sous vide provides results that cannot be achieved with traditional cooking. With it in the house there will always be delicious food that has retained all its beneficial properties.

If you learn to bake meat using low-temperature technology, you will forever remain an adherent of this method. The technology is especially relevant for fish. It must be borne in mind that it remains tender within very narrow temperature limits, so it is important to carefully monitor the time.

Creating a vacuum

The sous vide method is ideal for young housewives and experienced cooks who want to surprise their guests. When cooking meat at low temperatures, it must be placed in a vacuum. However, many people wonder whether such results can be achieved without special equipment.

Firstly, you can completely do without a vacuum sealer in the kitchen. Cling film comes to the rescue, with which you need to tightly wrap the food on all sides, leaving no gaps and squeezing out air. Another alternative is plastic ziplock bags. They are lowered into a large container of water so that top part with the clasp remaining above the liquid.

When cooking meat food in a water oven, excess air is released from the bag. But since the vacuum obtained by such methods is not complete, long-term storage of ready-made dishes is excluded.

Sous vide machine or oven

The operation of modern devices consists of a combination of three key elements: the presence of a thermostat, heating element, water containers. Thus, low-temperature cooking of meat without an oven becomes possible. What to do if the farm does not have such a device?

You can simulate low-temperature conditions when cooking meat. To do this, use any capacious container of water (for example, a saucepan) placed on the stove or in the oven. Therefore, if you like any beef recipe, you can always try it.

Special water ovens for sous vide have a number of advantages:

• temperature control with an accuracy of 0.5°C;
• uniform cooking of food;
• timer;
• large capacity.

Low temperature for cooking meat in the oven

The average temperature of cooked meat ranges from 55 to 70 degrees. If you lower the temperature for cooking to 56-70°C, you will be able to retain all the juices and unique taste in the food. Before you heat the oven to a low temperature, you need to make sure that it can maintain it, otherwise the food will remain soggy.

It is best to cook meat at low temperatures in an electric oven with top and bottom heating. First, the piece can be lightly fried in a frying pan, and then placed in a bag and left to bake for several hours. A special thermometer helps check the degree of readiness. In this way you can prepare delicious dishes with any type of meat - from chicken to lamb.

A gas oven heats up very quickly, so it is difficult to protect meat from extreme overheating. It does not need to be turned on in advance. The meat should be removed from the refrigerator an hour before cooking, and then placed in a shallow dish and turned on the oven.

Disadvantages of the method

Cooking food using the above technology is not easy, but it allows you to get ideal results. However, sous-vide has a number of minor disadvantages.

Low-temperature cooking of meat does not trigger the Maillard reaction, which is responsible for the formation of a golden brown crust. ready-made dish. It appears when the temperature exceeds 150°C, which is much higher than the technology requires. Therefore, to make the product appetizing appearance it must be fried before or after simmering.

If a temperature of less than 52 °C was chosen for low-temperature cooking in the oven, and it takes more than four hours, the chances of the growth of botulism pathogens increase. This danger can be avoided by setting a higher temperature for foods that are cooked for longer than 4 hours.

To achieve an ideal result and implement sous-vide in its original form, which is used in restaurants, you must have devices created for this: a vacuum sealer and a thermostat, a device for maintaining a constant temperature.

Sous-vide cooking and low-temperature cooking are just two of the many methods and processes that are revolutionizing modern preparation food. Despite its growing popularity, many still do not understand the difference between low-temperature cooking and sous vide cooking (including equipment manufacturers). Cooking at a low temperature is undoubtedly preferable.

Low temperature cooking does not mean cooking food at a lower internal temperature than traditional cooking. Low temperature cooking refers to the temperature of the environment in which the food is cooked, not the final temperature of the cooked food. Rare steak has the same internal temperature whether it is cooked low or traditionally. Low temperature cooking is defined as any cooking procedure in which the cooking temperature is equal to or close to the desired final internal temperature.

Sous-Vide - definition of the term

The simplest way to define the term sous vide is to refer to its French meaning, which means “under vacuum.” Everything about the vacuum machine is sous-vide. In restaurants, the sous-vide process usually (but not always) consists of:

Here's what's confusing: Sous vide methods are often used for low-temperature cooking, but not all sous vide cooking is low-temperature cooking. A classic example of this is food in a bag. The cooking medium is boiling water, not low temperature. Since there is a vacuum in this process, it is sous vide. Therefore, this method is very effective for low-temperature cooking because the food inside the bags does not dry out or lose flavor during long-term cooking as long as the proper temperature is maintained. Vacuum bags also eliminate evaporation and evaporative cooling. After some time, the surface temperature of the food becomes identical to the temperature of the aquatic environment.

Low temperature in modern cooking

Low-temperature cooking also allows for some textures that were unattainable with traditional high-temperature cooking. Three examples:

Fish cooked at low temperatures. Fish heated to extremely low temperatures (around 50°C or an internal temperature of 42°C) has a dense, fudge-like consistency that cannot be achieved at high cooking temperatures. This type of cooking is controversial. Many cooks do not like the texture produced by these methods, and some scientists believe that these methods are unsafe. Other chefs believe that traditional way cooking overcooks the fish, and that the low-temperature method is best.


Low temperature extinguishing. In a typical stew, meat with big amount connective tissue is cooked at high temperature for several hours. High temperature and several hours are what is needed to break down the collagen in the jelly. This process digests the muscles and dries them out. Luckily, the gelatin rehydrates the overcooked meat to create a delicious stew. When meat is under-braised, it appears tough and dry because the collagen has not dissolved into the juicy, water-containing jelly. However, with low temperature cooking we can hold a tough piece of meat at a very precise temperature for a very long time. If a rack of lamb is kept at 60°C, it will retain a slightly pink cooked color for several days. The texture of the muscle fiber itself will also remain somewhat static. Connective tissue, on the other hand, will not break down for 3 or 4 hours at this temperature. It needs to be cooked for two full days. However, in the end you will have a completely pink, completely tender dish.

Creamy egg yolks. When you cook eggs in their shells to 63°C, the yolk becomes creamy—not runny, not set. One degree lower - runny yolk. One degree higher is a dense yolk. A 63°C egg is a delicious dish that traditional high-temperature cooking cannot achieve.

Modern ovens have made baking the most reliable way to cook guaranteed food. tasty dish with a minimum of hassle. You just put fish, vegetables or meat in a preheated oven, “forgot” about it for a period of time from 10 minutes to several hours - and voila, you have a full dinner ready without additional movements.

If you randomly open any recipe that involves baking in the oven, it will most likely indicate a temperature in the range of 180 to 220 degrees, or even higher. This method has both advantages and several disadvantages.

Pros and cons of baking in the oven

The main distinguishing feature of oven baking (let's call it traditional) is the temperature used, which significantly exceeds the product's readiness temperature, which we strive for.

It doesn’t matter whether you want to get Medium Rare roast beef oozing with juice (readiness temperature - 55 degrees) or, to be on the safe side, you prefer to fry the meat completely (readiness temperature - 70 degrees): both results are equally far from the range of 180- 220 degrees. Figuratively speaking, we use Hydraulic Press to hammer in a small nail. Why is this happening?

Baking at high temperatures has several advantages, the main ones:

• Time. The connecting link between the heat source and the products placed in the oven is air, and as you know (or don’t know) from your school physics course, air has extremely low thermal conductivity and low heat capacity. This means that it slowly heats itself and slowly heats what it comes into contact with. This is why we can steam in a sauna at a temperature of about 100 degrees, and the roast beef that comes out of the oven remains juicy and pink when cut. However, this also means that we need to set the temperature well above the desired done temperature, otherwise we will have to wait forever.
• Convenience. What does good, appetizing roast beef look like, since I took it as an example? Yes, it is juicy and pink inside - but its surface should be ruddy, crispy, and appetizing. This roastiness is a direct consequence of the Maillard reaction, during which caramelization of sugars occurs when temperatures reach 120 degrees or higher. By baking meat at high temperatures, we create suitable conditions for this reaction, which allows us to do without additional frying: everything happens right in the oven, without any extra effort on your part.

But the disadvantages of traditional baking are also too significant to turn a blind eye to:

• Supervision. I put the word “forgot” in quotation marks in the first paragraph of this article for a reason: you won’t be able to forget about chicken or fish baking in the oven. Otherwise, if you miss it by just half an hour, you risk getting an inedible dish, or even a whole pan full of coals. What’s most offensive is that this process is irreversible; minced meat, as the old song sang, cannot be reversed.

• Evaporation. Cooking over 100 degrees has another consequence, and you know exactly what I'm talking about even if you didn't get an A in physics. At this temperature, water evaporates, and if we are talking about water contained in the product itself, it will become drier as a result. It’s very easy to over-dry a piece of meat or fish; duck pans and molds with lids help - but they only help, and do not solve the problem completely.
• Temperature difference. It still exists, and heat capacity and thermal conductivity do not cancel this fact. While we use a meat thermometer to measure the temperature in the center of our roast, the outer layers are exposed to much more extreme heat and dry out quickly. In a well-cooked roast beef, this layer of dry meat will be thin and will not prevent us from happily eating our piece, but if we miss a little, that’s it, turn out the lights.

All these disadvantages can be combined into one - “If you don’t look after what is being cooked in the oven, you can spoil the food” - and, of course, the advantages of traditional baking outweigh it in most cases. But there is also the opportunity to go the other way - reduce the temperature and increase the cooking time. Several cooking methods follow this principle.

Low temperature cooking

Low-temperature cooking, in all its diversity, usually operates at temperatures ranging from 50 (lower is no longer baking, but light heating) to 100 degrees, that is, not higher than the boiling point (and, what is much more important for us, active evaporation) of water. You probably know the main types of low-temperature baking:

Boiling and stewing

Cooking food in liquid allows you to not worry too much about drying out: for this, the liquid in which you boil or stew must first dry out or, more precisely, evaporate, and this is much easier to track than measuring the moisture content in a piece of meat.

Cooking in a water bath

The products (usually liquid or at least viscous) are transferred to a container, which is placed in another container filled with water. You don’t have to worry about overheating - the water that surrounds the container with food on all sides will not allow it to heat above 100 degrees until it evaporates completely. This is how desserts and pates are prepared, and read.

Steaming

Sous vide

The products are packaged in a plastic bag, immersed in water, the temperature of which is controlled to within a fraction of a degree, and cooked in this way for several hours, or even days. As a result, the dish receives uniform roasting throughout its thickness, retains its taste and remains incredibly juicy. Of course, the sous vide method cannot be described in a nutshell, so I recommend that you refer to my article for details.

Low temperature baking

Since I did not write a separate article about low-temperature baking, unlike other methods of low-temperature heat treatment, we will dwell on it in a little more detail. Low-temperature baking is still the same oven baking as we know it, but at a much lower temperature, in the same range of 50-100 degrees. It may seem like this method was invented recently as chefs began to move away from decades-old recipes and feel free to experiment, but in reality, low-temperature baking has a long tradition.

In the old days, when all food was cooked in one oven, it was thoroughly melted, and then, as it cooled, it was used to prepare various dishes. First, under the hot arches, they baked things that required high temperatures, but were cooked quite quickly - bread, flatbreads, and so on. Then came the turn of soups and dishes that were cooked at a slightly lower temperature, but still quite high. And at the very end, when the oven was no longer so hot, tough pieces of meat were sent into it, which simmered for many hours at a low temperature, softening and gaining flavor.

Today, low-temperature baking is used for approximately the same purposes: slow baking at a low temperature helps soften tough cuts, transform connective tissue into gelatin, and low temperature helps such meat retain more juices, because it is already not rich in them.

However, low-temperature baking also has its disadvantages - for example, the meat still dries out, because the evaporation of moisture occurs naturally one way or another. In order to slow down this process, the meat can be placed in a form to which a little water has been added (or not, depending on how juicy the meat itself is that we are preparing) and covered with foil. Another disadvantage is that meat prepared in this way is completely devoid of crust. For this reason, it is usually cooked at a higher temperature or fried, either at the very beginning or at the end, before serving. However, for those for whom fried foods are contraindicated, this disadvantage may well become an advantage, giving them the opportunity to try delicious meat baked in the oven.

Low Temperature Baking Recipes

In principle, you can bake any piece of meat this way - just reduce the temperature and increase the cooking time. Vegetables and fish can also be baked at low temperatures, but there is no point in doing so; they will not benefit much from this approach. To give you an idea of ​​the method, here are several ready-made recipes. Some of them use temperatures slightly higher than 100 degrees, so technically it's not low-temperature baking, but something in between, but they can also be cooked using this method.

Remove meat from the refrigerator at least one hour before cooking.

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Cut the peeled onions and carrots in half. Cut the garlic in half lengthwise, cut the celery into pieces 5-7 cm long. Place all the vegetables, parsley stems and thyme on the bottom of a large roasting pan or deep baking sheet. Place in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until brown marks and a characteristic aroma appear. Reduce oven temperature to 110 C.

Trim the meat from the ribs. Dry paper napkins. Heat in a large Dutch oven vegetable oil over moderate heat and fry the meat on all sides until golden brown. During this time, quite a lot of fat will be rendered from the meat. Drain it and either use it to make Yorkshire pudding or discard it.

Season the meat with salt and pepper, rubbing the spices into the surface of the meat. Use kitchen string to tie the meat to the rib bones. Place the structure in the Dutch oven on a bed of roasted vegetables, add water and place the Dutch oven in the oven. Bake the meat for 30 minutes per 450 g of weight, until the temperature inside the piece reaches 62 C. You can turn off the oven after 2 hours and leave the meat in the oven to cool.