Review: Sous Vide at Home: The Modern Technique for Perfectly Cooked Meals

Sous Vide at Home: The Modern Technique for Perfectly Cooked Meals by Lisa Q. Fetterman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In recent years the number of restaurants offering meats, poultry, seafood and even vegetables cooked sous vide style has noticeably increased. Sous vide ("under vacuum" as a method has been around for quite some time but it's becoming all the rage in upscale restaurants to mention the method that yields rich and never dry dishes. Now that thermal regulators can be purchased for home use for as little as $150, the method is starting to become more popular with home chefs, and my household is among them. One of the lures for those who are conscious of healthy eating is that sous vide cooks food at substantially lower temperatures than routine cooking methods. For instance, with temperatures substantially below 150 F, you can pasteurize an egg and still have a flowing yolk and egg white with which to make that cookie dough or caesar salad dressing you worry about getting salmonella from when using raw egg. Sous vide methods also allow you to cook protein at temperatures well below those at which glycation occurs. (If you want to know why glycation of protein is bad, be sure to read my review of Food Pharmacy .) With proteins slow-cooked under vacuum in a thermoregulated water bath for an hour or two and then only briefly seared to achieve Maillard browning, you cannot find a healthier way to still include protein, especially red meats, in your diet.

Fetterman explains the logic and benefits of the sous vide method and the book is packed full of delicious recipes. I haven't found a bad one in this cookbook yet! I strongly recommend it.

Sous vide prep with the thermoregulator heating the water bath. 

~ Fetterman's Nomiku Instagram

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