Sous Vide: Better Home Cooking

Acheson writes with such charm that he can make warm water interesting—an invaluable trait for this survey of sous vide recipes and methods. Similar to his approach toward another single appliance (in The Chef and the Slow Cooker), here seafood, fowl, meats, soup stocks, fruits, and vegetables all have their turn getting sealed in plastic bags and dropped into a heated bath. Some 90 dishes include pickled oysters, rabbit stew, and spiced red wine–poached pears. Acheson shows his Canadian roots by adding a touch of maple syrup to the brine in his corned beef recipe, and his taste for Southern cuisine is represented with a relatively tame Nashville hot chicken. The consistent cooking temperature allows for such delicacies as a 63.5°C egg, the exact amount of heat needed to yield a yolk that is “soft and oozing” with a white that is “like a custard.” The process nearly eliminates the risk of overcooking, though foods that require browning or a char get some quality time with fire. Ground beef in the classic cheeseburger, for example, reaches medium-rare perfection after a half-hour soak, then gets a quick sear in a scalding cast-iron skillet. High-end cooking comes to the home kitchen in this fun, clear approach to a gourmet technique. (Oct.)