Food for Thought

CHEFTALK

Food for thought

This heading does not really sound like something a chef would have in mind. Chefs have food for your stomach in mind and they should, after all it’s their job to provide food for stomachs. 

So why come with a topic like this, well I've been advocating home cooked food as the right path to healthier living for some time now and thought that it would be interesting to have a look at the differences between cooking at home and restaurant cooking.

One out three or four people in the US are obese, may be with an exception here and there, but all these people became overweight for a reason and that reason is not because they eat healthy food.

Supermarket prices rise by 6% per year while restaurant prices remain somewhat flat. These facts provide the perception that eating out is cheaper than cooking and eating at home.

Americans are spending more and more of every paycheck on dining out; presently this is about 4.5% out of every paycheck, while the spending on groceries stays flat.

When the prices of groceries rise for you, obviously they rise for restaurants also, but restaurants buy in bulk you may argue. True, but so can you! 

Portion your bulk purchase, buddy shop, share, vacuum your portioned bulk purchases.

You can find a quality vacuum sealer here:  www.vacupack.com  for USA and www.vacupack.ca for Canada. 

Is it less expensive to cook at home

I research a bit for this article and found two articles that made clear how we, consumers, are misguided by the media. Let me share the stories.

The first part was a study conducted by a financial website Gobankingrates, I found it on MSN Money, with the heading “Eating out is Cheaper than cooking at home”, they compared a number of restaurant meals to the purchase of the same ingredients of that particular meal in a supermarket and claimed that the restaurant meals were $2.00 to $3.00 cheaper compared to the home cooked version.

Jane Dornbusch of the Boston Globe raised her eyebrows, like I did when she saw the article and investigated.

The study forgot, as I suspected, that you cannot calculate food cost apple to apple. 

One of the meals in question was a rib-eye steak with soup, asparagus and a salad for $17.99, cooking the meal at home costs according to the study $20.52

Jane made a trip to the restaurant and found that in reality $17.99 was the base price for the rib-eye steak, soup added $2.99, the asparagus added another $1.00 and at the end the bill eventually came up to $22.93  

A few days later she purchased the ingredients to duplicate the meal. The grocery bill was close to the restaurant bill but, and here is the whole misconception created, you do not use all ingredients for that one meal only! You use some of the soup and the salad for example. When she calculated exactly what she had used, the cost of the home cooked meal was $11.84.

Quite an amusing twist to the study, but also an eye-opener how we are made to believe that cooking at home is expensive, and therefore it seems better to eat out, this brings me back to the rising cost of supermarket prices. Restaurants and other food offering establishment also need to cover the rise in ingredient prices.

They cut wages by hiring less knowledgeable staff and compromise on quality of food, hard to detect compromises are made to maintain profits and your health pays the price in many cases, whereas you are in control when you cook at home.

Cooking at Home is (in most cases) healthier

The home cooked meal gives you the ability to control, calories, nutrients, quality of ingredients, salt levels, portioning and taste.

Whatever leftovers you have can innovatively be re-used for other dishes when you teach yourself a bit how and your vacuum sealer gives you the ability to keep your food in good condition. A little effort can easily save up to $100.00 per month or more.

Eating out is fine and good for all. It is good to be served and pampered once and a while. Just buying food to eat and out of so-called convenience leads in many cases to obesity, bad health and series of medical issues.

Enjoy a regular trip to your favorite restaurant, but keep in mind that your health is yours, keep it under your control.

By: Marinus Hoogendoorn   

Sous-Vide Cooking for beginners and Other Home Chefs

CHEFTALK

Sous-vide cooking for beginners and other home chefs

If you, like me, cook regularly at home and are not too afraid to try something different, sous-vide cooking is something you must lay your hands on one day.

If you believe that sous-vide is a mysterious way of cooking, exclusively reserved for well-trained chefs in Gourmet restaurants, something you need a lot of expensive equipment for, an investment you are not willing to spend your hard earned dollars on. Read on… 

Sous vide does not change or replace traditional cooking, sous-vide complements traditional cooking.  If you are a bit innovative you do not need to spend a lot on this amazing cooking method.

What it is?

Sous-vide literally means ‘under vacuum’. To explain the method in the simplest way, it means cooking vacuum packed food in a water bath under low, very precise temperatures.

What it does?

Cooking food at low temperatures is a technique known to give great results. Braising a big roast in the oven for a couple of hours is a good example.

Cooking vacuum packed food under low temperatures in a water bath ensures an even setting of protein in the product from edge to edge without over or under cooking, this creates a super tender texture of meat and fish and results in super tender vegetables. No thermometer, no guessing if the steak is medium or rare, trust your timer and you cannot go wrong.  

How do you do it?

The idea of going through a scary process of learning how to go about sous-vide puts a lot of people off, looking for a special temperature controlled water bath sounds like a hassle also.

Well here is what you need:

A good quality vacuum sealer

You can find your vacuum sealer and vacuum bags here:

 www.vacupack.com  for USA and www.vacupack.ca for Canada

A Rice cooker (one of those where you press a button and your rice is cooked automatic), as long as there is rice and water inside of course.  

A sous –vide magic, or a temperature control devise.

You can find SVM temperature controllers on-line under that name.

Most likely you can find your rice cooker in your cupboard  

What is the purpose?

The art of perfect cooking is mastering the dish, to have it perfectly right every time you make a particular dish. The problem is that contrary to a restaurant, you do not cook the same dish very often at home like chefs do in a restaurant with a fixed menu. To get rid of that annoyance sous-vide provides the perfect solution.

Every time you cook your in-laws favorite dish the amount varies, sometimes there are four people another time there are five and you cannot remember exactly how you did it the last time. 

Sous-vide cooking reduce complicated matters to a few simple steps, temperature and time. This gives you control and predictability. All your cooking stress is eliminated when you are assured of the outcome.

Why should I cook sous-vide

For one it takes away a big part of intense cooking, you can marinate and vacuum your meat or fish in advance, then just place it in your temperature controlled rice cooker with water and spend time on other important issues.

Linked to that is the idea of neatness and storage. Your marinated meat or fish is clean, safe for cross contamination and if made in advance easy to store in your refrigerator.

You can even prepare your whole meal and pan-sear or stir fry just before serving a magical dish.

The illustration

Teriyaki chicken breast

I use the example of chicken breast because chicken breast seems like an easy to cook piece of meat. You can buy it de-boned almost everywhere and most people like it.

Problem is that it tends to be dry and all your effort to produce something magic!! Well you know what I mean.  

Use this recipe per chicken breast and multiply by as many breast you intend to use.

For the chicken breast

1 bone-less chicken breast

½ tsp ginger juice

1 tsp evaporated cane sugar (you can use another liquid sugar as well, like maple syrup)

½ tsp salt

Season the chicken breast with salt, sugar and ginger juice.

Place the seasoned chicken breast in individual vacuum bags, vacuum and marinate overnight.

For the sauce

2 tbsp light soya sauce

2 tbsp evaporated cane sugar (you can use another liquid sugar as well, like maple syrup)

2 tbsp sake

Method

Set your temperature controller at 140 F, attach your rice cooker filled with water

When the water has reached 140 F, drop the bagged, marinated chicken breast in the water and cook for 1 ½ hour.

Place the sauce ingredients in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil.

Remove the chicken breast from the bag, you will notice that there is very little juice released.

Place the chicken breast on an oven tray and brush with some of the sauce,

If you have a blow torch brown the chicken breast, if you do not have a blow torch you can place the chicken breast for one or two minutes under the heating element of your oven broiler.

Slice the chicken breast at a 45 degree angle, and place on a plate, drizzle the remaining sauce around and serve.

It is nice to serve this dish with grilled asparagus that have been sous vide cooked at 190 F for 4 minutes, prepare the asparagus earlier and grill them for 2 minutes just before serving.

Best chicken breast you have ever served and eaten.


Let me know how you fared.

By: Marinus Hoogendoorn 

Vacuum Seal Food and Sous Vide Cooking.

From= www.officialvacupack.com

Vacuum-Sealed Food Is Perfect For Sous Vide Style Cooking
by Stephen Daniels
Word Count: 408
Keywords: vacuum sealer, vacuum packer, home vacuum packers

Cooking vacuum-sealed foods sous vide style is not a new method, but it's increasingly catching on as an in-home alternative to using the oven. Sous vide means "under vacuum," the essence of it being that raw food is prepared precisely at the temperature it will be served. The process starts by sealing a cut of meat, seafood or even vegetables in a plastic pouch with a vacuum packer. The pouch is submerged into hot water heated to the desired temperature, letting the contents cook slowly and thoroughly.

Sous vide preparation takes much longer than traditional methods - 30 to 40 hours in some cases. While this amount of preparation is untenable in the short term, it allows one to start cooking a day or more before the meal. Among the benefits, less liquid is required to marinade foods, and none of the flavor is lost during the process. In terms of texture and flavor, the sous vide method is unsurpassed.

A medium-rare steak prepared sous vide isn't just medium rare on the inside, while remaining tougher on the outside - it is medium rare throughout. This method gives food a silky, smooth texture that is impossible with oven cooking. Even tough cuts of meat stay tender, with each bite melting in the mouth. Besides meats, all types of fish and seafood, vegetables and even eggs may be prepared sous vide.

This style of cooking requires a vacuum sealer to enclose foods in a sealed, airtight bag, as well as an even-heating pot. Sous vide has traditionally been limited to restaurants that have access to expensive equipment. However, many consumer-grade sealers and slow-cooking vessels are available to amateur gourmet chefs for far less money. 

Besides preparing food for "under vacuum" cooking, home vacuum packers can be used for other purposes. Quickly seal freshly-blanched vegetables or uneaten portions of meals; or save money by buying in bulk, and vacuum sealing the majority for long-term storage. Home vacuum-packed foods also save a tremendous amount of space when stored. After sealing, they must be frozen, but they will store far longer and not suffer from freezer burn. 

Sous vide is catching on with home gourmets, but it's been used by the world's top chefs for decades. One may even see demonstrations on TV cooking shows. While it takes many hours to prepare food in this style, the results are outstanding in terms of tenderness, texture and flavor, as well as nutrient retention.

Reproduction permitted only when all active hyperlinks are included. 2010 All rights reserved. 

Stephen Daniels is an acclaimed internet marketing strategist. If you need vacuum sealers or retort pouches for home, commercial or industrial use, he recommends Professional Marketing Group. Specializing in food packaging since 1984, they offer a variety of supplies and a full-service repairs and parts department.