The Sous Vide Pork Belly, is the first recipe of the Slow Cooking Menu section “Building the Menu”.
The sous vide cooking method, or vacuum cooking, was first described by Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count of Rumford, in 1799, who used air instead of water as a thermal conductor.
It was rediscovered by American and French engineers in the mid-’60s, developed as a method for preserving industrial foods.
It began to be extensively studied by food scientists in the 1990s, with the goal of extending the shelf life of foods.
There are two important elements in sous vide cooking: time and temperature.
Sous vide cooking typically consists of three phases:
– preparation of the bag
– cooking
– finishing (e.g., searing the meat or cooling)
Less expensive cuts like shoulder or pork belly require longer cooking times.
I cooked the pork belly at low temperature for 10 HOURS with my crockpot, that is by placing the sealed bag in the slow cooker in HIGH mode, but you can achieve the same result with a rooner and cooking at 176°F for 12 hours for juicy and braised pork belly, or tender and firm at 154°F for 24 hours.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Cheap
- Preparation time: 5 Minutes
- Portions: 4 people
- Cooking methods: Slow Cooking, Other
- Cuisine: Contemporary
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
- 1 pork belly
Tools
- 1 Vacuum Sealer vakuum sealer
- 1 Pot slow cooking
Steps
Place the pork belly in vacuum.
Cook on HIGH mode in the crockpot for 10 hours.
Serve with the cooking juice.
If you want, you can make a gravy sauce from the liquid, thickening it in a small pot, or serve with a lemon-based sauce.
FAQ (Questions and Answers)
What are the benefits of sous vide?
Vacuum sealing has several benefits:
a) it allows heat to be efficiently transferred from water (or steam) to food;
b) it extends food shelf life, eliminating the risk of recontamination during storage;
c) it inhibits flavor loss due to oxidation;
d) it prevents flavor loss due to evaporation of volatile substances and moisture during cooking;
e) it reduces bacterial growth.
Food placed in vacuum bags and then cooked, retains nutritional benefits better than conventional cooking methods.What are the sous vide cooking times and temperatures?
Here is a reference chart.
