January 25, 2018

Sous Vide Cooking

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We love cooking at home! Not only does it save money over going out to eat all the time, it always tastes much better! Once we find something we like we will try to find a good recipe for making it at home. So far Matt kills it at all forms of barbecue, anything from grilling to frying to smoking all the things. He even, when we were dating, learned how to make sushi at home. Our home is full of tons of cooking gadgets. A few of our favorites are our oil-less fryer, Instant pot, electric smoker, and sushi making set.

I want to tell you about the newest addition to our kitchen. The Anova Sous Vide was one of Matt’s Christmas presents. We had been told numerous times by family and friends how great it was and that we needed to get one. I was hesitant because we do already have so many ways to cook food already I didn’t know if it would be worth spending the money. Spoiler: It was worth it!

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It is packaged in a nice box that comes with the Sous Vide machine and the clip to attach it to your pot or bin. The first thing I noticed was that it was much larger in size then I thought it would be from the pictures I’d seen. Matt was so excited to try it out.

What does it do?

Its purpose it to cook food evenly all the way through. Basically, you place your meat in a plastic bag. We used freezer zip lock bags and you want to get as much air out of the bag as you can. You don’t want your food to float at the top of the water because it won’t cook evenly all the way around. Ideally you could use a food save to seal your meat. If you food insists on floating on the top of the water you can weigh it down with utensils. (After we cooked a few things and knew we would be using it often, we invested in a food saver.)

Once you have attached your Sous Vide to your container you set your temperature. Once the temperature is set it basically circulates the water in and out of the Sous Vide to keep the temperature of the water steady for length of the cook. You can find plenty of charts online or in the associated app that tells you the target temperature for each types of meat.

How does the meat turn out?

We choose steak for our first meal. I wasn’t convinced that it would be any different than just grilling the steaks. I was wrong. After the steaks cooked for about 2.5 hours, Matt took them out and gave then a quick sear on the stove in the trusty cast iron pan. We cut into them and they were a beautiful medium rare pink in the middle, juicy and delicious.

With grilling unless you’re a trained chef it’s always hard to judge if your meat is cooked all the way through. I usually end up having to cut into the meat to check on it only to find it’s not quite cooked enough. That’s the benefit of the Sous Vide it cooks longer but it makes sure to cook the entire piece all the way through evenly at the proper temperature. No worries about burning the outside only to find the inside is still raw.

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Bluetooth vs. Wifi

There are two options for purchase. I didn’t know there was a difference when I purchased ours. We have the Bluetooth one. The range is not that far on the Bluetooth and doesn’t work well if you’re in a different room and the connection must go through walls. We considered exchanging and getting the wifi option, but my husband decided that since the app doesn’t seem to be working that great. They still have some kinks to work out on there, it wasn’t worth the price difference to upgrade. When I purchased ours, it was on sale for $99 and the wifi option is $144. For us it’s not worth the difference in price since the app isn’t the greatest. Matt will just have to walk to the kitchen to check on the progress.

Accessories

The Anova Sous Vide is inclusive you don’t need to buy any accessories to be able to use it or do any of the functions. The first few time we used it we used random containers we had already. It worked fine for short cooks that are only a couple hours.

When Matt decided to tackle a long cook to make pastrami we noticed on amazon that there were lids made to fit the Sous Vide. To make pastrami you have to let the corned beef cook for 48 hours. From what we had been told by others who have been using the Sous Vide longer is the water will evaporate so you want to have a cover. You don’t need to buy anything extra for this you could just cut a hole in an existing cover, but my husband is extra and “needed” to order the lid specifically made for the Sous Vide.

The lid is made to work with any of the 12, 18, or 22 ounce square Rubbermaid containers. We, of course, didn’t have any of those so we also ordered the 12 oz container. It’s the perfect size for anything we might make next.

After using our Sous Vide more than a handful of times we love it! I especially love it because it makes Matt want to cook more which is a win for me! It’s definitely worth the cost to have perfectly cooked food every time!

Do you have a Sous Vide? What have you made with yours? Let me know in the comments below. 

 

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