We have been asked, from Lausanne, if sous-vide cooking is necessarily linked to steaming or if dry cooking at high temperatures is an option. How about sous-vide beef stew cooked dry at about 160°C, for example, and the bags used for sous vide, etc.?
Response from our chef:
The bags for cooking can withstand temperatures ranging from 80ºC to 120ºC.
These bags usually withstand the cooking process without problems because during cooking they are kept humid at all times within the immersion baths or by the steam of an oven, but (short or long) cooking without humidity may cause changes to their structure.
Plastics can undergo changes to their structure when exposed to direct heat (160ºC) which could cause them to melt, expand or even allow some leaching of their components into the food with which they are in contact.
Our recommendation would be to always do sous-vide cooking in a humid environment, either by immersion or with steam. Let’s not forget that immersion is without doubt the most accurate way of cooking with this technique.
