Sous Vide – An Introduction
Fundamentally, sous vide refers to cooking vacuum packaged food. It’s different from traditional cooking since the food is cooked while it is inside the plastic package, and that too in a water bath!
For those who are still unconvinced, here’s a much simpler example to understand the concept – an egg. Yes, the contents of an egg already come pre-packed inside a shell. The simple fact here is that if you can ensure the right temperature of water (using a thermometer) and leave the egg immersed for a set time, you’ll get a perfectly boiled egg each time.
Now, let’s look at traditional cooking techniques. For starters, certain cooking processes need to be done at specific temperatures. Then, there is the aspect of adding the right set of ingredients at different stages. Finally, there is the time constraint to be considered. Not accounting for any one of these parameters can result in food being under or over cooked.