Author Article – Lisa Q. Fetterman

January 22, 2017 by
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Sous Vide at Home: The Modern Technique for Perfectly Cooked Meals by Lisa Q. Fetterman and Meesha Halm and Scott Peabody demystifies immersion circulation technology while providing easy recipes for the home kitchen. 

Lisa Q. Fetterman is the CEO and founder of Nomiku, the maker of the first affordable sous vide device – she knows her stuff. Recipes such as Halibut Tacos with Avocado Crema, Pomegranate Molasses Short Ribs and a Lemon Saffron Tart are a few of the tempting dishes that await you and your sous vide. A full of index of recipes is available here at Eat Your Books.

This book is truly beautiful and will have us dusting off that device we had to have to revitalize our meals. It is the definitive book for sous vide home cooking – with pages of instruction and advice along with approachable recipes.

Lisa was kind enough to answer some questions to help us better understand sous vide cooking as well as letting us know a little bit more about herself. After you are finish here, be sure to enter our contest for a chance to win three copies of this book. 

Lisa, thank you for answering a few questions about your new book for Eat Your Book members.

 
Lisa: It’s my pleasure! Thank you for helping me get the word out.
 
Q:  How do you explain sous vide to those who have never heard of it or are fearful of technology?

Lisa: Sous vide means under vacuum in French, but I think it’s a misnomer. Sous vide is really about cooking with exact temperatures. We don’t cook anything above boiling (100C). If you’re using a Nomiku what you’d do is clip the machine to the front of a pot you already own, fill it up with water, put your food inside of a zip seal bag and remove the air then put it in the pot. You can dial in the temp with the knob according to recipes in our cookbook or use our app “EatTender” to directly talk to you Nomiku about what you’d like to cook.  Ever since the dawn of cooking we’ve been trying to control heat in the kitchen – heat is the secret ingredient that makes what we cook truly delicious. Now we can control simply to .1 degree and that’s opening the floodgates of creativity for chefs and homecooks around the world!
 
Q: I feel Sous Vide at Home is quite approachable and beautiful. How was the process of writing this book for you? What is your favorite recipe from this title?
 
Lisa: Oh thank you! We wanted the book to feel timeless. Sous vide is here to stay, it’s a tool to help you eradicate every obstacle between you and a delicious plate of food. The best part was thinking of the diversity of dishes we could represent, our publishers gave us a lot of freedom and we went for it! One of my favorite recipes from the book is the duck mole…. oh babyyyy! I also keep many of the cocktail pantry items on hand at all times in case of surprise entertaining.
 
Q: For the sous vide beginner, which are the best recipes they should try first? What are the easiest and hardest proteins to sous vide and in your experience are there any proteins what sous vide doesn’t change in a good way?

Lisa: I highly recommend the egg recipes and the fish recipes first for beginners. They take the least amount of time and reap the biggest WOW factor!
 
Q: Can you share what was your biggest wow moment when applying the sous vide technique to a dish? Something you weren’t sure that was going to work out but that worked beautifully?
 
Lisa: The biggest wow moment was when I first cooked an egg “poached” inside of its shell. When we first made our first DIY open-source sous vide it was the first thing that we ever cooked and it had me hooked forever! It was impossible to cook it incorrectly because we could control the temperature so well.
 
Q:  How often do you and Abe find yourself using sous vide as your method of cooking at home?

Lisa: Everyday! For serious. I even reheat my breast milk for my baby to my body temperature using the Nomiku! We make yogurt, we can meal plan for the entire week because everything is already in bags so it’s easy to throw our cooks into the freezer for later.
 
Q:  What products does one really need to sous vide at home besides an immersion circulator? Do we need the searing kit? A vacuum sealer? Can you break it down for us?
 
Lisa: You don’t need a searing kit, a good heavy cast iron pot will do. Even a grill. Actually you don’t even need a kitchen, I have college folks who email me that they’re cooking in their dorm room closets!! You don’t need a vacuum sealer, you can just use a zip seal bag. Put your ingredients in the bag and then dip the bag in the water up to the seal, the barometric pressure of the water will push out all of the air. We detail this “water displacement method” in depth in our book.
 
Q: We are cookbook lovers here? Do you have favorite authors? What are your go-to cookbooks?
 
Lisa: Oooooooh! I am crazy for the Kyotofu dessert book. I’m also excited about my Fuchsia Dunlop books, she teaches me so much about Chinese cuisine I didn’t even know about. I also find myself reaching for my Food 52 Genius Recipes book for inspiration. Dorie Greenspan can teach anybody to bake, so can Joanne Chang of Flour in Boston. I can’t choose my favorites, don’t make me dear lawd!

 

Category: Book News, Recipes

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One Comment

  • rchesser  on  January 22, 2017

    Great author interview!

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