Curtis Stone’s grilled 80 day dry-aged ribeye with creamed corn and charred scallions

Coonawarra's flat, fertile plains have been part of Australian wine history since the mid 1800s, with its terra rossa soils renowned for producing red wines of great character and structure. Chef Justin Williams opted for a dish that typifies modern Australian cuisine. The rich, fatty flavours of beef cheek soften the Bard's big tannins, making for a mouth-watering and deeply satisfying pairing.

What was once the domain of the professional chef, sous vide , is now accessible for the home cook. We look at the many advantages of this remarkable cooking technique. In the early 1970s, French scientist Bruno Goussault developed the most significant advancement in the recent evolution of cooking – he called it sous vide. Literally defined as ‘under vacuum’, it should really be called precision controlled cooking, because that is far more ‘precise’. Basically defined, sous vide is sealing an item of food in a plastic vacuum pouch and then submerging it in a water bath so it can be cooked gently and slowly at a precise temperature. It is a technique used by some of the world’s best contemporary chefs, including Heston Blumenthal, Thomas Keller, Joel Roubuchon and many more. If you’ve ever wondered how the chef at your favourite hatted restaurant manages to get your steak cooked perfectly through, but still maintain its moisture, how the vegetables not only look vibrant and colourful, but also taste crisp and flavoursome, chances are it has been cooked sous vide. Up until recently, it was only the domain of the professional chef. But advances in technology and the more affordable cost of equipment have made sous vide cooking accessible to the home cook. Those who try it, swear it is the best way to cook food perfectly and to get the best flavour and texture – all that combined makes a compelling argument for sous vide cooking. Conventional Cooking Vs Sous Vide One of the most common problems with conventional cooking is under/over cooking food. This is because most recipes deal in approximates, such as cook on high/medium/low for approximately 10 minutes. Anyone who has baked knows the importance of baking at a precise temperature for an exact period of time. Sous vide cooking allows you to cook everything from beef, pork and fish to eggs, fruit and vegetables as if you were baking a cake. Conventional cooking regularly results in food being inconsistent. For instance, cooking in boiling water or a hot oven cooks food at a high temperature, so that by the time the centre of the food achieves the proper temperature, the outside is overcooked. If you don’t get the timing exactly right, meat ends up dry, vegetables end up mushy. But sous vide cooking allows precise control, so not only does food keep better texture, it also retains greater flavour. Because sous vide cooking is at lower temperatures, the cooking method is usually quite long, simple, but long. This has opened up new frontiers in the culinary world. Secondary cuts that were braised can now be cooked sous vide for longer periods at lower temperatures, and the results are simply astounding. Equipment To sous vide, you need two important devices, but just two basic steps. First you need a vacuum-packing machine to seal the food tightly in a plastic bag. Then you immerse the bag in a water bath heated exactly to the optimal cooking temperature. The vacuum-packed bag hugs the food, protecting it from contact with the water while transferring the heat from the hot water. The Sous Vide bath is regulated to heat the water and maintain the exact temperature throughout the bath and the cooking process. Time to sous vide This equipment was once the domain of commercial kitchen suppliers, was expensive, and took up loads of room. The great news is that Home Sous Vide is importing home kitchen versions of the industrial kit at very reasonable prices. What’s more, the process is fairly simple – plan well ahead, use great ingredients, vacuum seal, cook using the Sous Vide water bath and cool gently. That’s it. The secret to some of most delicious recipes from the world’s greatest chefs is within your grasp. And speaking of recipes – there has been an influx of fantastic recipe books  offering easy to achieve recipes for the novice through to the professional. For more details on the wonders of Sous Vide cooking, recipes, tips and Sous Vide cooking products, visit homesousvide.com.au

Neil Perry, The Rockpool Group ’s Culinary Director and a chef who has helped shape the food scene in Sydney, reveals where he likes to eat & drink in his hometown. Sydney is a very beautiful city with its harbour and gorgeous white beaches, but it’s so much more than just a pretty face. The restaurants and bars are second to none and they give Sydney a beautiful personality. The city has changed so much over the last 10 years and if you add in Chinatown, some amazing places are all within walking distance. I regularly dine at Rockpool Dining Group restaurants so they feature genuinely in my top picks. My favourite bar in Sydney, hands down, is the bar at Rockpool Bar & Grill . My wife, Sam, and I like to go and enjoy a great bottle of wine, or a fantastic cocktail, or both, while we chat with the bar guys and soak up the amazing buzzy atmosphere. We’ll have some beautiful freshly shucked Sydney Rock oysters, all iodine and tasting fresh of the sea, our favourite minute steak with café de Paris butter, the Cape Grim beef full of flavour and perfectly tender, and we always share a number of sides like roast pumpkin, grilled corn, shoe string fries and a salad. It doesn’t get any better. Breakfast and beyond Room 10 is the best place in Sydney for coffee and breakfast . Andrew Hardjasudarma and his team not only make some of Sydney’s best coffee, but the food out of such a tiny space is nothing short of miraculous. My go-to is the classic soft boiled egg and avocado on toast, or any of the brilliant breakfast sandwiches - the slow cooked brisket with slaw and pickles is probably their signature. I also love the Brekkie Rice, which is perfect for a healthy start: creamed red rice, quinoa, walnuts and pepitas topped with dukkha. Chaco Bar is without doubt the best yakitori place in town, but it also has next level ramen – served Monday nights and Wednesday to Saturday, lunches only. Go for the chilli coriander – it’s spicy and full flavoured with such a fresh delicious cleanness to it. Add an organic egg: they are awesome! The yakitori skin is crunchy, smoky and creamy all at once and the wing and chicken meatball with slow cooked egg are a must. They also serve the best gyozas. Are you getting that I love this place? Wash it down with a beer and sake and say hi to Chef Keita, we’re lucky to have him in Sydney. Azuma is another terrific Japanese restaurant in the city owned by Kimitaka Azuma. Here we go for sushi and sashimi, which is so well made, and the best dish of all is the wagyu sukiyaki for two. We love sitting sipping sake as I cook our beef slice by slice in the boiling soy broth. We add tofu, bok choy, mushroom and spring onions, all the time cooking another strip of beef and dipping it, eating with rice and then at the end adding udon noodles to the broth. Such a great one pot dish.  Masterful Dim Sum Another favourite from our own portfolio is Jade Temple . I love having the dumplings for lunch, made fresh daily by our Dim Sum Master, Dicky. They’re always so perfectly balanced in taste and texture and I can’t get enough of the roast duck either. Golden Century is famous for being a chef haunt and I was one of the first eating there along with Tetsuya way back in 1990. We all loved the place as it was open late and the food was always fabulous. All these years later, nothing much has changed, only I don’t eat late anymore, I’m in bed well before 3am these days! Sam and I love the green lip abalone steam boat. This is another great one pot dish for two people to share. We get noodles and tofu with it to make the perfect meal. The abalone arrives thinly sliced on lettuce and we have soy dipping and a little XO sauce. The slices are dipped for seconds and added to the soy in your bowl, then start with tofu, then noodles and finish with lettuce, just keep adding broth and seasoning to the bowl as you eat, drinking the soup from time to time. This is one of the world’s great meals, you may even see owners Eric and Linda wandering around. Fire in the Heart Mike McEnearney’s No. 1 Bent Street is a treat. It’s everything I love: no fuss, awesome produce, seasonal cooking and loads of love and care. Everything on the menu is great, but you have to try the bread, it’s possibly the best in Sydney, and anything off the grill or out of the wood fired oven, which form the heart of the kitchen. I love Mike’s touch with vegetables, so order a bunch of salad and veg dishes and eat one of the best plant-based meals in town. Danielle Alverez at Fred’s in Paddington is another chef cooking beautiful, sustainable, seasonal produce with fire at the heart of the kitchen. Try to score a seat at the kitchen bench: a great spot to share a bottle of wine, watch the kitchen in full swing and eat some of the best food in Sydney. With her pedigree of Chez Panisse and The French Laundry, it’s no surprise everything is delicious. Add a wonderful wine list and beautiful, simple decor and you can settle in for long lunches and dinners. Cheap eats and BBQ Burger Project is a weekly stop for me as well. The Cape Grim 36-month beef is ground in store, hand-formed into patties, and cooked medium – they’re unsurpassed in the city. Naruone is great for a cheap Korean bite. My favourite is the spicy pork with rice. It comes on a sizzling platter with pork slices, cabbage, carrots, onions and sesame seeds after being wok fried in gochujang. It’s spicy and delicious and perfect with a beer. The KFC, Korean Fried Chicken, is really very good too. Dan Jee is my favourite Korean BBQ place . They cook it in the kitchen over a big charcoal grill, rather than at table-side grills, so it gets more of a smoky flavour. Short rib, pork belly and bulgogi are my go-to dishes. I can’t eat there without having Yukhoe, the Korean raw beef salad. It’s amazing with julienne frozen beef, Asian pear egg yolk and sweet sesame dressing that’s perfectly balanced. Further reading:  The Best BYO Restaurants in Sydney