adventures in sous vide

hey everyone!

i've been studying up on sous vide (thanks renita!) and found an extremely helpful white paper online which includes charts with cooking times and temps based on the thickness of the protein, an evaluation of equipment, and a discussion of safety and pasteurization. i'll check the website of the guy who wrote it and see if he's okay with my reposting it. (i can't remember his name right now - i found him on eGullet.com where there's an exhaustive discussion.)

last night i bought some chicken breasts, a pound of fresh asian veggie mix, and a szechuan sauce. per eGullet discussion i put some sauce in an ice cube tray to freeze, since the vacuum sealer will inevitably suck both air and liquid out when i seal the chicken. as of this morning, it hadn't frozen, so i'm hoping that means that it's thick enough to stay in the bag during the seal. tonight is my first attempt at sous vide at home - szechuan chicken with vegetables. according to the chart, i need to maintain 146 degrees F for about 52 minutes for a thickness of 25-30 mms. will be interesting to see how PITA (pain-in-the-ass) that will be. if it comes out well, and is something i'm going to be doing a lot of in the future, DH will build me a sous vide cooker-type thingy that will self-regulate precise water temperatures using a hotplate and some sort of heat sensor. GOD i love that man. he's absolutely tremendous. i won't ask for that though until we've established that this is the way to go, and i can do it, and the food tastes good on the other end post-freezer and microwave.

here's what i've been able to establish so far:

• sous vide is really just a gentle way to poach
• 140 degrees F meat is generally considered the minimum "safe" temperature to avoid anaerobic culture growth (like e. coli and botulism) but there's some arguments from the culinary world that that number depends on post-cooking treatment and how long until you actually serve it
• most chefs cook fish at a lower temperature (between 105 - 130 degrees F)
• freezing after sous vide seems generally safer than chilling for a few hours

i'm also guessing that microwaving something after freezing leaves you on pretty safe ground. all this food safety stuff explains why all the bistro packages are explicit about NOT defrosting prior to reheating, and not to keep it after it's thawed. mystery solved, huh? i'm also proud of myself for picking up on the whole idea of freezing your sauce PRIOR to sealing. not doing that would have 1) made a mess, in addition to messing up my calorie estimates and 2) compromised the airtight seal on the baggies. good to know!

UPDATE: on the jambalaya, which DH had for lunch yesterday. he reported that he prefers it to the bistro version (huzzah!) because it's more tomato-ey and richer, and the rice's consistency was fine, not mushy at all. yay! maybe tomorrow i'll try it myself. :)