We are talking only about cooking, not food preservation, here.

Of course, without a vacuum machine it is not possible to get a perfect vacuum in a plastic bag or bag; but it is possible to have a partial “sous vide”, enough to carry out this cooking method.
This method can be adapted for home cooking or small restaurants.

Why prepare food this way? What are the benefits of this method?

– You can prepare food a day or two, or more, in advance. You can keep food in the fridge, or even freeze the preparations, store for a few weeks or a month, then reheat and serve as needed.

Imagine having a party next week with 10 people coming home. What a huge amount of food to store and handle on the last day! You may feel overwhelmed by such a task. With this method, a large part of the work can already be done before the day of the party.

You can prepare food when you have enough time and you don’t need to rush to be ready when your guests arrive. You seem calm, and you will certainly handle the situation much more easily.)

– By preparing it like this, the food is more delicious because the food is cooked in its own juice, the flavor does not disappear into the air. Remember when you walk into a kitchen and smell all the wonderful perfumes that hit your nose. This is the taste of food that disappears into the air. With this method, tastes stay inside.

– Another benefit of this method is that it gives you the opportunity and the simplicity of cooking at a low temperature, 70 ° C / 158 ° F.

Let me explain this point about temperature: when you cook in the “normal” way, it is above 70 ° C / 158 ° F. In fact, boiling water is 100 ° C / 212 ° F; When roasting an average temperature of 200 ° C / 392 ° F is used, this is certainly much higher than 70 ° C / 158 ° F.

Here, speaking of temperatures, we are reaching a crucial point. Meat, also fish, but less, when cooked at high temperatures, it becomes hard. This is because collagen (fibrous protein that makes up a good portion of meat) shrinks and hardens above 158 ° F / 70 ° C. Therefore, the advice is to cook below this temperature to keep meat tender. (Since the use of “sous vide” technology, the food industry has prepared roast meat with parts of the animal that would never have been roasted in the past because these parts are normally too tough. This is only possible due to the low temperature).

(Low temperature cooking can be done by different means, but you will not have all the benefits of the “sous vide” technique, nor all the benefits of my method.

You can cook at low temperatures with a normal pot. On the market there are electric slow cookers, available for all kinds of recipes)

How to prepare “sous vide”, or sous vide cooking, without a vacuum machine.

I give you first, here, mainly for those who already know how to prepare “sous vide” food, a brief description of the process, then more details that you can read if you are interested in trying this method:

Instead of putting your cooking food in a plastic bag and vacuuming it up, simply wrap or roll the food in at least 5 to 6 layers of plastic wrap. Make sure to secure the plastic, then proceed in the same way as you would with normal sous-vide cooking. Of course, how long you can preserve food with this process has nothing to do with actual sous vide cooking, as there is no control over the percentage of vacuum in the package that you have prepared with this method. I recommend that you follow the same rules that you follow for non-aspirated food.

Detailed process
Start with this very basic recipe if you want to try “sous vide”, as it is very easy to make. Then you can adapt my method to different meats, poultry or fish or find a recipe in which we propose you on this website.

Chicken breast prepared in plastic wrap (“sous vide” style)

Use chicken breast with or without skin, stuffed or not, marinated or not according to the recipe or your choice. Use it on its own or brown it in a skillet before wrapping for a more roasted flavor. The meat when serving after cooking, of course, will no longer be crispy; but you can place it in a skillet for 2-3 minutes to get its crisp back just before you put it on the plates.

1- Put the seasoned chicken breast pieces, already stuffed, on plastic paper.

2- Roll the chicken breast tightly in the plastic wrap, making sure to press hard against the meat while rolling so that the maximum amount of air comes out of the package. (We are not trying to compete with a vacuum machine here, but we are trying to have the minimum of air inside, mainly because if there is too much air left inside, the package will float to the surface of the water during poaching and hunting. cooking will be slower. bad).
Make at least 5-6 loops around the meat to get a firm and strong enough package.

3- Make a knot on each side of the package with a rope or with the plastic itself if you have enough. Now the chicken breast is ready to cook.

4- Put the package in a pot with water at 70 ° C / 158 ° F. Use a thermometer to make sure you have the right temperature.

5- Keep cooking for about 20 minutes, making sure the temperature stays at 70 ° C / 158 ° F, checking from time to time. Cooking time depends on the size of the chicken breast. This example is for a 6 oz / 180g piece and should not last longer than 20 minutes.

Make sure to cook a stuffed chicken breast to adjust the cooking time to the size and also to the stuffing. (If you fill with cooked mushrooms, the cook size will be shorter than a filling made with raw meat, for example.)
6- When ready, serve immediately with the sauce of your choice. (Cut the chicken breast for a better presentation)

Notes
If you have chosen to prepare the chicken breast ahead of time, do not cook it, put it in the fridge for up to a day. If you want to serve the chicken breasts later, freeze them. Stay that way for a few weeks. (It is best not to store food for long in the freezer as it will start to dry out and “burn” from the cold after a few months. Be sure to defrost meat before starting to cook.

If you have a slow cooker at home, you can use it to make this recipe. Fill it with water and set the thermometer (if available) to 70 ° C / 158 ° F.

Jean-Louis Vosgien

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