Sous Vide at Home

It was in the Southwest of France that I first learned to cook in vacuum-sealed plastic bags—in effect, cooking food in its own juices. Chef Francis Garcia in Bordeaux showed me how to prepare fish using a enormously expensive Swiss-made professional vacuum sealer to retain flavor, juiciness, and nutrition.

I adapted his ideas to American products (parchment, plastic wrap, and boilable plastic pouches), wrapping food (chicken breasts, mussels, shrimps, salmon, and fruit) airtight before poaching. See the recipe for Steamed Salmon With Cooked Egg Sauce for an example. Suzanne Hamlin, a New York–based food journalist at the time of the writing of the first edition, called these experiments with water-immersion cooking “the gastronomic equivalent of stereophonic sound.”