Sous vide is the bomb – the nexus of cooking and science, and if you haven’t had the pleasure of eating a succulent, juicy, flavorful steak cooked sous vide, you’re not living. Oh, what’s that? You know don’t what sous vide is? Fear not – we’ve got you covered.
Sous vide is a cooking technique that involves placing food in an airtight, vacuum-sealed bag and cooking it in a controlled low-temperature water bath. This way, you’re able to keep the temperature of the water at the exact temperature that you want your food to reach. After a certain amount of time, any food you’ve placed in the bath will eventually reach your desired temp without any risk of overcooking.
What’s the benefit? Cooking at lower temperatures generally prevents the food’s cell walls from bursting, which helps make it more succulent and retain nutrients. Sous vide also makes it possible for tough collagens in the meat’s connective tissue to be hydrolized into gelatin without overheating the proteins, which is generally what causes meat to lose moisture and develop a tougher texture.
In order to cook in this fashion, you’ll need a piece of equipment called an immersion circulator. Up until recently, these things were large, bulky, and prohibitively expensive, so only high-end restaurants and obsessive gastrophiles had them. But that’s all starting to change. In the past year or so, immersion circulators have been slimming down, and this latest one from Anova is the slimmest and simplest we’ve seen yet.
Rather than being a full-sized machine that houses a water bath, Anova is a small clip-on device that can be attached to a cooking pot you already own. Using a compact impeller and a variable-temp heating element, the device can effectively circulate water in the pot and keep it at the exact temperature you choose. To set the cooking temp and timer, just use Anova’s dead-simple three-button touchscreen interface. It seriously couldn’t be any easier.
And the best part? Unlike other machines, this one is actually affordable. Most immersion circulators currently on the market will put you back anywhere from $500 to $5000 dollars – but Anova’s only costs $200. In all fairness though, you’ll have to get your hands on a $50-$70 dollar vacuum sealer and a large pot in order to use it, but even with all those additional costs included, it’s still one of the cheapest (and most compact) immersion circulators you can buy.
Find out more or place an order here.
