How does sous vide compare to other cooking methods?

Question

I have a stomach ailment which makes me intolerant to roasted meat and grilled meat. Even though with grilled food most of the fat drips off, you will notice that smaller amounts of fat still fry on the meat surface throughout the grilling process and then drip off. Even if grease is not my problem, I simply cannot eat or roasted or grilled food due to the effects these cooking methods have on the meat e.g. it may be due to the meat being relatively hard. On the other hand I can tolerate soups just fine. Most likely it is because the fat does not fry or the effects water cooking has on the meat and so my stomach isn't irritated.

Anyway I was wondering if I were to try sous vide, would the end meat be just like or similar to the meat in a soup or is it more likely it would be have problems as with grilling/roasting. In sous vide the meat will be in a bag i.e. never make contact with water and stay at low temperatures. Even if this is the case, I would think the heat would still cause fat and juices to drip out and then the meat would be fried in its own juices. Please explain what you think about sous vide compared to grilling, roasting in the respects I have mentioned. Also how different would the cooking result of sous vide be with steaming?

in order to fry something you have to bring the oil past the boiling point of water, sous vide does not do that. — Brendan, Mar 24 '13 at 01:37
Steaming and boiling also don't bring things past the booking point of water, but you've said you've had problems with them in some cases. The one thing in common with all the meat you've said you've had trouble with, as has been explained before, is that it sounds like it's tough and overcooked. Perhaps instead of bringing all this speculation in you should simply ask if sous vide results in properly cooked (tender) meat, and maybe if it involves frying (though your characterization of frying is... odd.) — Cascabel, Mar 24 '13 at 01:44
I fixed the obvious spelling mistakes but left the rest in, for what it's worth. — Cascabel, Mar 24 '13 at 06:26
You can't "fry" meat in "its own juices". Even the conventional layman expression for it is "stewing" in its own juices. Those juices are mostly water and can't be brought much higher than the boiling point of water, even if the external temperature is higher (which, in sous-vide, it isn't). — Aaronut, Mar 24 '13 at 12:56

Cascabel · Answer 1 · 2013-03-24T06:28:42.333

Here's the short summary: "hard" meat is overcooked. There are some exceptions like nice crusty bits on the outside (overcooking those bits is the point), but a piece of meat that's actually hard and tough the whole way through is overcooked. The entire point of sous vide is to avoid overcooking, so it'll be soft and tender. Roughly, I suppose it's most similar to steaming until just barely done, but even with steaming you can overcook meat - sous vide should always be just right.

And no, it doesn't involve frying, though roasting and grilling (British or American) don't really either - frying is when it actually sits in oil, not just a few drops (and often those drops are water, not oil). The problem you're having with roasting and grilling, making the meat "hard" is simply that it's overcooked.

How does sous vide compare to other cooking methods?

1 Answers1