Sous Vide

In a previous post about Dagoba Chocolate, I mentioned that the market I was at also had “sous vide” bags. This probably bears some elaboration, since, if you read what Amanda Hesser says in last Sunday's NY Times Magazine, sous vide is creating a pretty big stir in lots of professional kitchens. The term, which is French for “under vacuum,” refers to a process of cryovacing ingredients and then cooking them at unusually gentle temperatures. The sealed bags prevent loss of flavor, and the low and slow (often upwards of 36 hours) cooking creates new and unusual textures. Exposing a chunk of watermelon to 20 pounds of pressure per square centimeter has some interesting effects as well, apparently.
 

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