Now you can eat the most tender, melt-in-your-mouth steaks and succulent, silky-smooth salmon fillets. And you don’t even have to go to a fancy restaurant. With an Anova precision cooker you can easily get these results at home. The word sous vide is French for “under vacuum”. Food is sealed inside an airtight plastic bag or Ziploc bag and placed into a water bath. It’s cooked under much lower temperatures than your standard methods of cooking, which ensures the item is cooked evenly throughout and retains all its juices and nutrients. The Anova sous vide immersion circulator keeps water in a pot at a consistent, accurate temperature. Home chefs just need to put food into a Ziploc bag, set the temperature and time on the Anova immersion circulator, pop the Ziploc bag into the water and just leave it. Cooking with an Anova sous vide immersion circulator is an effortless way for home chefs to consistently make exceptional, restaurant-quality food in an easy 'set it and forget it' way.
History and Background Sous vide cooking has been a favourite with Michelin-starred chefs for years because of the superior quality that can be attained from cooking at very low temperatures. And that’s where sous vide used to stay: in high-end restaurants and on TV programs hosted by celebrity chefs – but not any more. Today with just a single nifty gadget, you can create exceptional, restaurant-quality food at home. And it doesn’t even require a lot of work. The first person to really experiment with sous vide cooking was a Frenchman by the name of Georges Pralus in 1974. He cooked some sous vide foie gras, and much to his delight, found that it didn’t lose excess fat and had a better texture. Another key sous vide pioneer is Bruno Goussault, a food scientist who developed the different sous vide cooking times for various foods to get the optimum results. It wasn’t long before the popularity of sous-vide took off and it became a highly regarded method of cooking used by top chefs across the globe in some of the world’s finest restaurants.
Advantages Sous vide cooking locks in the moisture and nutrients of food. Cooking under low temperatures is less aggressive and stops the cell walls of food from bursting. When cooking meat sous vide, the tough collagen in the connective tissue is slowly broken down to create a supreme level of tenderness that just isn’t possible with conventional methods of cooking. Sous vide veggies, too, are cooked perfectly evenly throughout but still retain a desirable crisp texture.
| THE BENEFITS OF SOUS VIDE |
WHY ANOVA |
| Effortless meal preparation |
Turn on Anova, set the temperature and time, and walk away. |
| Consistent results |
Anova’s circulator ensures consistent results by eliminating hot and cold spots. The pump output can be also turned to direct water away from delicate foods or for increased circulation. |
| Healthier cooking technique |
Anova's sous vide cooking locks in food's nutrients and moisture. Enjoy delicious food without the need for butter or other dressings. |
Different Types of Devices Sous vide cooking at home used to be all about big, expensive water bath machines, the likes of which you’d find in the kitchen of a fancy restaurant – along with loads of other bulky equipment that’s needed for service on a large scale. Using the Anova precision cooker, home cooks can now turn a normal home pot into a professional-quality, sous vide water bath. Once immersed, the Anova precision cooker precisely sets the water temperature and circulates it to ensure it’s even throughout.
How They Work The Anova sous vide machine couldn’t be easier to operate. Your regular home pot filled with water is transformed into a sous vide machine when you simply submerge the Anova precision cooker into it. You just need to set the temperature and the time on the Anova device, and you’re off!
Preparing Your Food Simply place food into Ziploc bags and clip them onto the edge of the filled pot, ensuring all of the food is fully submerged. If you want, you can also add seasoning into the bag such as salt, pepper and fresh herbs.
Finding Recipes You can find some great recipes on
the Anova recipe site and
blog.
Finishing Once you take your exceptionally tender and evenly cooked food out of the sous vide cooker, the final step is finishing. For a succulent steak that might be a flash in a hot pan to char the exterior, while a juicy chicken breast may benefit from a quick broil/grill to crisp up the skin. Most sous vide recipes will include a finishing tip.
