"sous vide" news and stories

• "Going once, going twice ..." Many of the treasures from the iconic Tavern on the Green restaurant will be auctioned off next month to the highest bidder.
• With Hanukkah starting Dec. 11, non-Jewish chefs with Jewish spouses embrace, interpret and refresh traditional Hanukkah recipes.
• Move over, Ferran Adrià: The first sous-vide machine for home cooks, the SousVide Supreme, is on the market for $449.
• Sam Sifton admits Midtown's Korean barbecue restaurant, Madangsui, may not be much to look at "but jiminy crickets, is the dining fine."

A few of the best stories spied elsewhere on the Web this week:

Bravo announces that "Top Chef Masters'" will be renewed for a second season, this time with the addition of Food & Wine's Gail Simmons to the judges' table.

Chicago pizza lover Craig Scharoff takes a bet to eat only sausage pizza for one month and, with a little over a week left, Scharoff has actually lost a few pounds, owing to the fact that he no longer eats his kids' leftovers.

We know you'll be lining up for the Heston Blumenthal-endorsed SousVide Supreme, the first to market sous vide machine for the ambitious home cook who can't live without the tender texture and flavor the cooking method yields.

In surprising and annoying study news, researchers found that in addition to red wine, prolonged contact with white wine erodes tooth enamel -- making teeth more sensitive to cold, hot and sweet food, as well as staining. Even more surprising is that brushing teeth after drinking white wine worsens the damage.

The new edition of classic cooking tome "Larousse Gastronomique" arrives in stores with a thud, weighing in at eight pounds and 1,206 pages, with updates from avant-garde chefs such as Ferran Adria and Thomas Keller along with recipes for traditional French dishes like crepes suzettes.

For your ever-so-gently-surreal Thanksgiving viewing pleasure, Alinea's Grant Achatz breaks down and sous vides a turkey -- just like Grandma used to. No vacuum sealer or immersion circulator needed. Sadly, there's no nitrogen-blasted green bean casserole or marshmallow and yam alginate spheres on the menu this time, but hey -- there's always Christmas.

Watch Part 2 -- Sous Vide Stuffing and Deep-Fried Bourbon Pumpkin Pie on a Flaming Cinnamon Stick on YouTube and sign up for free recipes at alinea-mosaic.com.

The New York City campaign against sous vide cooking continues, but with a little bit of new light shed on the subject. As expected, it is not the practices of all chefs who use the technique that are under fire, but the practices of some who are risking the use of the cooking method for all. According to this week's New York Times, the cooking technique that locks in moisture and flavor by keeping the food sealed in a vacuum might also lock in bacteria because some sous vide chefs also store their food in vacuum sealed packages.

Contrary to popular belief, vacuum sealing a food is not enough to prevent the growth of bacteria and cooks who store and cook their food in the same container are risking the health of their customers. In France, where the technique originated, chefs are required to cook food immediately after it has been sealed and cooked to an internal temperature of at least 132.8 degrees F, at which point most of the potential bacteria in the food will have been killed.

The health department's new guidelines will not be released until the summer, and until then chefs who use sous vide in New York risk facing charges of a misdemeanor, with a possibility of imprisonment.

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Sous vide is a cooking method that involves packing food, usually meat, in a vacuum-sealed bag and poaching it in water for a long time over low temperatures. It was first developed in France in the late 1960s and it is a popular technique with chefs at high end restaurants because the food prepared in this way is more tender, juicy and flavorful than as it is in some other methods of cooking.

The water temperatures used to cook the meat are often much lower than boiling, though, which raised concerns from the New York City Health Department. The department feels that the risk of bacteria breeding in sous vide food is very high, especially if the bag is improperly sealed. Though there have not, as yet, been any health problems tied to sous vide cooking, the health department has imposed fines on chefs using the method until a city health code that specifically governs the use of the technique has been drawn up. Chefs have been forced to dispose of thousands of dollars of vacuum packed food, both cooked and uncooked, by city inspectors and have complained that not only is the city's move unwarranted, but that they were not given any notice of the change in policy prior to their regular inspections.

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