Benefits of sous vide for restaurants
Sous vide is a cooking technique that has been used in professional kitchens since the mid-1970s. Remarkably enough Sous vide has only really been on the rise in recent years. In more and more catering kitchens, (chef) chefs are discovering the possibilities of vacuum cooking. This article is about the benefits of sous vide for restaurant and catering kitchens.
Sous vide in the restaurants
Sous vide is also known as 'rounding'. That is another verb derived from the name of a device that has been used in the professional kitchen for a long time; the Roner. The creators of the Roner and therefore also the sous vide were the star chefs Joan Roca and Nora Caner of the restaurants 'El Celler de Can Roca' and 'La Fonda Caner', both in Girona, Spain. The name of the device is a combination of the surnames of these two chefs, Roca and Caner.
This cooking technique involves cooking in a bain-marie. This involves keeping a water bath in motion at a controlled temperature. The water will therefore reach the same temperature everywhere, which ensures perfect cooking of meat, fish and vegetables.
The difference between sous vide and rounding
Sous vide literally means 'without air'. The product to be cooked is vacuum packed, just like when cooking, and cooked in a water bath at a constant temperature. Roning is done in a roner: a large, cumbersome and fairly expensive device. Sous vide sticks, on the other hand, are handy and also reasonably priced. Buying multiple sous-vide devices therefore does not require large investments and the compact shape makes them easy to store when not in use.
The benefits of sous vide for the restaurant
More and more chefs, both professionals and amateurs, use sous vide to cook meat, fish, poultry and vegetables. Heston Blumenthal, chef and restaurant owner In fact,The Fat Duck , famous for molecular cooking and awarded three Michelin stars, believes that sous vide is the biggest development in cooking techniques in decades. Since the 1990s, more and more restaurants have started using sous vide. There are some very good reasons for this:
Taste
One thing counts for every chef: the taste of the dish. If you cook in the classic way, taste and tenderness can be lost during preparation. Leave that beautiful steak in the pan a little too long and it may be overcooked. By vacuum-sealing the meat together with any seasonings, all flavors and juices are retained in the meat during preparation. All flavors are sealed in the vacuum bag and that piece of meat or fish cooks in its own liquid. The taste of the final product will be phenomenal!
Precision
In the professional kitchen there is little room for error and things must always be done the right way. Fortunately, precision and sous vide can go hand in hand. As a chef, vacuum cooking gives you ultimate control over the dishes you prepare. When you use the grill or oven, the temperature will always differ by a few degrees. The difference between a perfectly juicy steak or a piece of meat that has been cooked too far.
That's why restaurants prefer sous vide. First vacuum-sealing a steak and then cooking it in the sous-vide at 58 degrees Celsius for at least an hour would have produced a perfect medium or pink steak. With sous vide there is utmost control. The water temperature can be set accurately to within 0.5 ºC. This ensures that the ingredient reaches the perfect core temperature. Perfect cooking for every piece of meat, poultry or fish.
Ease
In the professional kitchen, with many orders and fast service, you prefer to spend as little time as possible preparing the dishes. And although the preparation time with sous vide can be quite long - several hours in a hot water bath is not unusual - sous vide preparation actually requires no attention from the chef at all. It takes no more than a few minutes to prepare and vacuum seal the piece of meat or fish.
Afterwards, not much more needs to be done than heating the water to the desired temperature and allowing the piece of meat, fish, poultry or even vegetables to float long enough to ensure that the desired core temperature and doneness is reached. Nothing needs to be checked, stirred or turned in between. Once the core of the ingredient has reached the right temperature, the vacuum bag can continue to float in the sous vide. Burning or burning through is not possible. Sous vide is therefore a breeze for the chef, even when he is alone in the kitchen. It is therefore no wonder that restaurants are embracing sous vide en masse.
Healthier
Taste and presentation are still important when delivering a good dish. But don't forget that guests are becoming increasingly aware of healthy food and that they also want to make more or less responsible choices in the restaurant. With traditional cooking at high temperatures, meat dries out and vitamins and antioxidants are lost. When fatty substances are heated at high temperatures, carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) can also be formed. With sous vide, none of this plays a role. Flavour, juices and vitamins and minerals all remain in the ingredient during cooking. They are not lost and ensure that the quality of that piece of meat, poultry or fish is maintained.
Presentation
With sous vide cooking, the cooking is always as desired. But because there is no Maillard reaction during cooking, the outside of the meat remains somewhat pale and that looks a bit unappealing. Everything revolves around presentation, especially in the professional kitchen. Fortunately, this does not have to be a problem when you use sous vide in the restaurant.
After opening the vacuum bag, you can briefly heat the meat in the pan or use a gas burner to ensure that tasty crust and typical aromas. Meat cooked sous vide then looks the same as meat fried in fat, but with the difference that the meat is always perfectly cooked, tender and juicy. Actually exactly how you would expect it on your plate.
Are you a professional chef and want to be in your restaurant sous vide going to use? Then take a look at our range of professional sous vide kitchen equipment.