Sous Vide Eggs

Sous vide (pronnounced sue veed) is French for "under vacuum" which is an incorrect description of this cooking method. It should really be water bath, but that doesn't sound anywhere as near as exciting.

Sous vide is an very interesting cooking method as it relies on lower temperatures and longer cooking times to achieve the necessary pasturisation of the food.

The easiest food to do sous vide is eggs, mainly because you don't have to vacuum seal them first, like you have to with meat.

So first the brains of my sous vide cooker.

The white wire is an American style triple adaptor, a short length of wire with three outlets on one end, plug on the other. The active wire on this has been cut and wired into the back of the temperature controller. The black power pack is providing the 12V DC for the temperature controller. The brown wire leads to the thermocouple.
The temperature controller reads the temperature of the water via the thermocouple and switches the triple adaptor on if it is below the set point or switches it off if it is above the setpoint. I simply plug a slow cooker into the adaptor, stick the thermocouple in the water and have a temperature controlled water bath.

So, I filled the water bath, programmed the setpoint to be 65 degrees C and went for a bike ride. When I came back, the water bath was up to temperature and I gently lowered a couple of eggs in the water. (You can see the other end of the thermocouple in the top corner.)


An hour later, I made some toast and cracked the eggs on top. Perfect poached eggs.

The whites were soft and the yolks had a texture and consistency somewhere between honey and vegemite, spreadable and ever so slightly sticky.