Culinary Technology: Sous-Vide Intensive, Part 2

By Mindy Lvoff, French Culinary Institute

Sous-vide short rib during the French Culinary Institute's Sous-Vide courseNils Noren, vice president of culinary and pastry arts at the French Culinary Institute (FCI), and Dave Arnold, director of culinary technology, teach three Advanced Studies courses at the FCI: Hydrocolloids, Harold McGee Lecture Series, and the first class of 2009 -- Sous-Vide.

The two-day Sous-Vide Intensive covers the “what” and history of low temperature and sous-vide cooking, and then spends the majority of the class on the “why” and “how.” After an intro and a demonstration of sous-vide using eggs, the class examines the effects of low-temperature and sous-vide cooking on different types and cuts of proteins.

Sous-Vide Meat

Someone once asked me which I preferred: a sous-vided short rib or a slow braised short rib. If you have to ask that question, then you have obviously never had a two-day, sous-vided 57°C short rib! It’s the difference between dry well-done meat and a beautifully tender, juicy, medium-rare bite of short rib.

That’s the beauty -- the sous-vided shortrib is cooked for two days, dissolving tough connective tissue, yet can still be served medium rare. In the class, students get to see and taste the difference. Nils serves up Swedish Meatballs composed of ground beef, pork and lamb that have been flash-fried in beef fat, packed in beef fat in a ziplock bag with as much air removed as possible, and circulated. Once out of the bag, they are flash-fried in beef fat one more time. At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the perfect, tender texture and juiciness of the sous-vided meatball. Then, I tasted a traditional meatball expecting to prefer its harder, denser texture. Still delicious, but now I know what I’m missing…

Meat Glue

Class also includes a primer on Transglutaminase, or meat glue as it’s affectionately nicknamed by chefs. No, it’s not glue, but an enzyme that bonds proteins together. To quote Dave, you can use it to “glue chicken to cow to pig to donkey to horse to fish to scallop to anything.” (Please don’t post comments on animal cruelty; we’re not gluing donkeys to horses—I promise.) Nils continues, “You can glue chicken to salmon if you wanted, but it’s the worst idea in the world.”

To demonstrate what a good transglutaminase idea is, they glued chicken skin to skirt steak and then deep-fried it to make the best damn Chicken-Fried Steak that you’ll ever have. The class is also lucky enough to get a lesson on rolling chicken or salmon into tubes from the tube expert himself, Nils. Tubes allow for perfect portioning (discs of equal weight and size) of whatever protein you’re cooking.

The Pressure Builds

“The sitting portion of this class is now over!” Dave commands in order to get everyone out of his or her seat to get a closer look at the vacuum. Dave explains the vacuum chamber and how pressure and air are removed, then reintroduced, and what effect that has on what’s inside the chamber, i.e., porous items in a liquid bath or bag or whatever else. Students get to witness texture modification and vacuum infusion, and see elements of that afternoon’s dishes and cocktails being prepared.

Apple cubes are placed in a container of chilled, bright yellow curry-infused oil and vacuumed. Students watch as air from tiny pores within the apple escape out of the chilled oil, bubbling its surface. The apples are allowed to sit under vacuum until it appears that most of the air has escaped, i.e. the bubbles have stopped. When air and pressure are reintroduced into the chamber, the curry oil is forced into the empty voids in the apple created by the vacuum, and the cubes become bright yellow and translucent.

Pressure cookers (aptly named) are another great example of how pressure is used in cooking. We used it to trigger the alkaline reaction in Hamine Eggs in about 30 minutes, not the traditional preparation which requires eggs to sit overnight. Our eggs are then used to turn a classic into a modern masterpiece: Deviled Hamine Eggs. I can take down a whole tray of these treats, but luckily there are never that many left over for me to do so.

Chilling Out

As always with a Nils and Dave class, a cocktail is served at the end of class… and it’s always served in a liquid nitrogen-chilled glass (have liquid nitrogen, will use). It’s a reward to students and staff alike for making it to the end of an information-packed day. It’s not a bad way to help wash down an afternoon’s worth of meat tasting, either. Delicious, infused, carbonated liquors garnished with texture modified fruits (or flash-pickled watermelon rinds—my favorite), also seem to be a great way to coax students into asking questions that may have not come up yet during the class.

I can’t stress enough that the best part of this—and all of Nils and Dave’s classes—is the interactive environment. I’ve been asked so many times what it’s like to work closely with Nils and Dave—this is probably one of the best ways to get that experience yourself. There’s no better opportunity to observe how they work, what their thought process is, or to ask them questions about your own cooking techniques. The goal of the class is to provide the foundation necessary to start using low temperature and sous-vide (if you are HACCP-ly able) techniques on your own. Nils and Dave try and stay as long as possible to answer any lingering questions, especially since questions emailed to Dave later “might as well be sent to a trash can.” He would love to be able to answer them, but email is just one of those things our resident-genius can’t seem to get a handle on.

For information about this and other food technology classes offered by the FCI, please contact the French Culinary Institute and inquire about their Advanced Studies courses. Upcoming courses include Magic Potions: Hydrocolloids, High-Tech Cocktails, and the Harold McGee Lecture Series.

This article is part two of a series on food technology courses, courtesy of the French Culinary Institute's Cooking Issues blog.