I was so inspired while watching Mike Bassett from Ginja demonstrating how to cook dishes the sous vide* way at the Good Food & Wine Show last month, that I looked into the cooking concept a bit more.

I have seen a few dishes on our local menus but more so on the international ones. Mikes apples were intensely perfumed and his veal was ultimately tender, full of flavour, slow cooked and beautifully pink throughout.

International superstars like Thomas Keller from Per Se in New York and Heston Blumenthal from the Fat Duck in the UK have been experimenting with ingredients for some time.

Sous vide is a way of cooking food at low temperatures in a vacuum pack. This slow way of cooking allows the meat to become meltingly tender and the colour of fruit and veggies is bright and intense.

Look out for this softer side of cooking food on some of our restaurants menus and let me know, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Happy eating,

Abigail

*Wikipedia says: Sous-vide (French for under vacuum), is a method of cooking that is intended to maintain the integrity of ingredients by heating them for an extended period of time at relatively low temperatures.

Food is cooked for a long time, sometimes well over 24 hours. But unlike a slow cooker, sous-vide cooking uses airtight plastic bags placed in hot water well below boiling point (usually around 60°C = 140°F).

The method was developed by Georges Pralus in the mid-1970s for the Restaurant Troisgros (of Pierre and Michel Troigros) in Roanne, France. He discovered that when cooking foie gras in this manner, it kept its original appearance, did not lose excess amounts of fat and even improved the texture. The method is used in a number of top-end restaurants under Thomas Keller, Paul Bocuse, Joel Robuchon and Charlie Trotter and other chefs.

Sous vide cooking must be performed under carefully controlled conditions to avoid botulism poisoning.