Sous Vide

Sous vide (sounds like your calling hogs, but you say "v" instead of "weeee") is cooking in a vacuum bag in a water bath at the final temperature you want the food.  I bumped into it (again) at the site with the Ike Jime fish bleeding.

 Restaurants use stupid expensive lab equipment to circulate and maintain the temperature, but a stroll around the web found some cheaper alternatives. 

http://www.cookingissues.com/primers/sous-vide/part-i-introduction-to-low-temperature-cooking-and-sous-vide/#comment-15854

http://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2010-01/cooking-sous-vide-inexpensive-diy-way

Long story longer, I tried it. Twice.
 
First, I used a filet from the Omaha gift pack we get every year from the inlaws. I used a 6 pack cooler and maintained the temperature at 135 F for 3 hours  I took the grey blob out of the bag, seared it on both sides and ,,,,,,,,,,
It was freakin amazing! It was perfectly medium rare from edge to edge with a perfect crust. The texture was excellent, but the seasoning was on the surface and had no chance to marry.

The second time I used a deep fryer cranked all the way down, my digital meat thermometer, and a well marbled ribeye. Similar results, but I missed on the seasoning.

Advantages? Perfect steaks every time without having to watch them like a hawk and regardless of thickness. Ever had friends over for steaks and needed to have 5 to 7 chops of varying levels of done-ness at the same time?
Disadvantages? It takes a long time. Salmonella? Actually, the long relatively low temp is still supposed to pasteurize it.

So anybody else tempting ptomaine?

BTW: just to bring this back to something vaguely related to fishing, my other fishing bud who’s a sous chef, said it’s great for fish.