Cooking Sous Vide (Vacuum Cooking)

[Quadlex]

I've always found Sous Vide cooking to be interesting, and want to try it myself.

One of the mega-cookbooks I own has instructions on doing so, and mentions that you can evacuate the air from a ziplock bag, if it's foodsafe when heated.

I have never seen a box of ziplock bags in Australia that specifically mentions that they're safe when heated. I'm also a poor student, so don't have cash floating around for a vacuum machine.

Any suggestions? Am I missing out if I can't cook Sous Vide, and if not, cheap emulation methods?

 

[GB]

Personally, I would not try sous vide cooking at home even though it does sound very tempting. The vacuum pumps that restaurants use to suck the air out do a complete job. The ones for home use, while close, do not usually get ALL the air out. While this may not be completely necessary, sous vide cooking seems to be something best left to a professional kitchen IMO.

 

[Katie H]

Without the proper equipment I'd stay away from it. Too much risk of botulism.

 

[cjs]

I've done it with my FoodSaver, but I would never use 'ziplock' or any grocery store food storage bags.

I'd wait till you were in your next phase of life and not a poor student and buy the correct equipment to play with this!!

 

[TATTRAT]

Personally, I would not try sous vide cooking at home even though it does sound very tempting. The vacuum pumps that restaurants use to suck the air out do a complete job. The ones for home use, while close, do not usually get ALL the air out. While this may not be completely necessary, sous vide cooking seems to be something best left to a professional kitchen IMO.

+1

...agreed

 

[Caine]

I've been operating in a vacuum for years. I don't have a problem with it.

 

[Snoop Puss]

I've been operating in a vacuum for years. I don't have a problem with it.

 

[BrazenAmateur]

I was going to make a thread about this myself, along the vein of what exactly one would have to buy to do all this at home.

I get the feeling that between the commercial vacuum sealer and the precisely-controllable thermal bath, it can get very expensive.


I don't generally like admitting that there are things that restaurants can do that I can't, but I guess this falls into that category for cost reasons. I'll lump it in with the two thousand degree steak ovens and the brick pizza furnaces that I'll probably never own....

 

[Quadlex]

Sadness. Oh well, I'll have to find something else to learn, techniquewise... Maybe it's picklin' time...