As It Happens

Next level sous-vide: Icelandic man cooks a lamb in a hot tub

Kristinn Gudmundsson decided to turn up the heat on a recent episode of his online cooking show.
A screenshot of Kristinn Gudmundsson's live-stream where he cooked a lamb in a hot tub. (Soð/Facebook)

Story transcript

Kristinn Gudmundsson decided to turn up the heat on a recent episode of his online cooking show.

The Icelandic chef cooked an entire 15-kilogram lamb in his parents' backyard hot tub.

"My mother was excited from the first moment. My father was a bit skeptical, but he totally went with it," Gudmundsson told As It Happens guest host Helen Mann.

He cooked the meat sous-vide, a French cooking style that involves vacuum-sealing food and giving it a long "hot bath."

Gudmundsson trimmed the belly fat from the lamb, seasoned it with sea salt, butter, garlic and Nordic thyme from around his home, wrapped it in plastic, and plopped it in the hot tub, where it remained for about 17 hours.

He said it would have been better if his parents' hot tub had jets.  

Asked if he cleaned the hot tub first, Gudmundsson replied: "I don't want to answer that question, actually." 
Kristinn Gudmundsson posts cooking videos online — and recently, he incorporated a hot tub into one of his recipes. (Kristinn Gudmundsson/Facebook )

Regardless, the lamb was a hit.

He served it at a dinner party to 35 of his friends with potatoes and an Arctic thyme Bearnaise sauce, which was also heated up in the hot lub. 

"They were really happy about it," Gudmundsson said. "At least they told me that — I don't know what they were talking about behind my back."

And his ever-supportive mother?

"My mother went in the hot tub that night," he said. 

And yes, they changed the water.

A listener in Michigan contacted As It Happens to say Gudmundsson and his friends aren't the first people to cook meat in a hot tub. Michael Copado wrote to say British Chef Heston Blumenthal cooked a pig in hot tub back in 2009.