Sous Vide: Principles and Application

Sous vide was developed in France by chef Georges Pralus and food scientist Bruno Goussault in the 1970s, initially for foie gras preservation and later developed comprehensively for protein cookery. Modernist Cuisine was the first publication to make the scientific principles and practical parameters of sous vide accessible to a general professional audience.

Sous vide — "under vacuum" in French — is the technique of sealing food in airtight bags and cooking in a precisely temperature-controlled water bath. The control it provides — holding a protein at exactly 55°C for as long as desired — makes previously impossible textures repeatable. A chicken breast cooked sous vide at 63°C for 2 hours is categorically different from any chicken breast cooked by conventional means: the temperature is held in a range where myosin is denatured (tender) but actin is largely intact (moist), and held there long enough for collagen to convert to gelatin without the protein tightening.

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