Author: Eric Ravenscraft / Source: reviewgeek.com
The Anova Precision Cooker is the perfect sous vide device for anyone who’s not quite sure what sous vide is but is ready to revolutionize their cooking methods.
A sous vide—sometimes called an “immersion circulator” but let’s be real, “sous vide” is a cooler term—is one of our top three kitchen gadgets that can change the way you cook.
So What, Exactly, Is Sous Vide?
If you’re not clear on what, exactly, this fancy French word means for your cooking routines, let’s break it down first.
Sous vide (French for “under vacuum”) is a cooking technique where you place food in a plastic bag or glass jar, then the bag/jar is placed in water. The vacuum bit comes from the practice of vacuum sealing the food storage bags but it isn’t strictly necessary (you can pick up a vacuum sealer quite inexpensively though, like this $60 FoodSaver model).
The water’s temperature is precisely controlled by a device—like the Anova Precision Cooker 2.0 that we’ll be reviewing today—to cook your food consistently every time. And when we say “precisely” we mean precisely.
A pressure cooker might have a high and low setting. Most ovens can only be set by increments (and often times the set temperature isn’t even accurate). A sous vide, however, deals in tenths of a degree. When you set your sous vide cooker to 140 degrees, then 139.8 just won’t do. Anova says its cooker is accurate to ±0.1 degrees, so you might see it slip to 139.9, but that’s as far is it goes before the cooker turns the heat back up. It will also stop adding heat when it gets to 140.1. In other words, it’s always the perfect temperature.
We can practically guarantee there is nothing in your kitchen that can cook with the same incredible precision as a sous vide cooker.
The result is a far more reliable cook than you’re used to. Have you ever tried to cook chicken only for it to turn out dry? Or undercooked? Or anything but the perfect texture you were going for? It’s a lot easier to get that cook just right with a sous vide.
Cooking temperatures are usually a lot lower, so if you don’t pull your food out at exactly the right time, it won’t be burned. In fact, it can’t be burned. You might, in the case of some foods, overcook the item through setting a too-high temperature, but you’ll never end up with a dry pot and burnt-to-a-crisp food.
And because the temperature is so tightly controlled, you can time the cook perfectly. If you haven’t experienced it, it might be difficult to imagine just how incredible this is. You can cook food to the exact temperature required for the exact flavor and texture you want. Meats, vegetables, even things like infusions, can all be cooked perfectly and consistently.
You can also safely leave a sous vide to cook while you do other things. There’s no watching the pan or babysitting it, you just drop the bag in and return at the appropriate time. It’s also handy for batch cooking. Cook all the food you need for a week in a single, large tub and get it all out of the way while you watch a movie.
Whether you want to cook a steak to the exact degree of perfectly medium rare you desire, prepare food in a foolproof hands-off fashion, or you want to go full mad scientist in your kitchen, sous vide cooking offers something for everybody.
How the Anova Precision Cooker Works
So, now that you know what the deal is with sous vide, how do you get started? First you’ll need one of those immersion circulators we talked about. For this review, we’re looking at the Anova Precision Cooker 2.0 ($130), which pairs with your phone via Bluetooth. The same company makes another version that can also connect via Wi-Fi ($160), and a smaller, cheaper version called the Nano ($100) that also uses Bluetooth, but can only cook in smaller containers (5 gallons, versus 8 gallons for the more expensive versions).
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