Step Up Your Cooking Game with an Anova Sous-Vide:
Step Up Your Cooking Game with an Anova Sous-Vide:If you’re somewhat new to “being an adult” and just now learning your way around the kitchen, or if you’re a veteran behind the grill with mad cooking skills… You’re probably missing something that will take your cooking game to the next level. A Sous Vide. In particularly, an Anova Sous Vide.
Sous vide is French for “under vacuum” and is a method of cooking where a temperature-controlled water bath circulates around food that has been sealed in an airtight plastic bag. The temperature evenly cooks the food to PERFECTION. Granted this method extends the normal cooking time (1-6 hours…. sometimes up to 48 hours), but it allows the food to retain moisture and prevents overcoooking – which is good news for us non-Julia Child mavens!
Here’s what the process looks like:
- Fill an extra large pot of water
- Strap the Anova clamp to the side of the pot, and insert the sous vide mid way through to the min & max line. Keep in mind the food will displace water and bring the line up.
- Set the Anova to the right temp for your food (ie: if you want your chickent stringy vs. hard & chewy) – just google “sous vide cooking chart for __________ whatever you’re cooking 😉
- Season food as you like
- Vacuum Seal your food (leave an extra 1″ on either side towards the edge). There are alternative methods instead of using a vacuum seal. We used our Foodsaver (another great investment!).
- Clip your vacuumed sealed food to the side of the pot. We used simple clamps from The Home Depot.
- Hit run and let it cook (Our Chicken was set at 150°F at 35 mins)
- Remove from the bags. We seared our chicken on each side for about 40 seconds via the Big Green Egg (totally worth the splurge as well!).
- Serve & Enjoy!
We pre-seasoned our chicken and added fresh rosemary and lemon before sealing it. You can always check out the Anova Sous Vide website for more details and alternative methods to what I described above.
Our Anova Sous Vide was a wedding gift from our very talented chef friend, Matt Dion, whom I featured in the restaurant review for Juniper. We didn’t even know we wanted it, but it was probably one of the best wedding gifts we received (thanks Matt!). He’s since moved on from Juniper to be a Chef De Partie in Charleston, SC at The Drawing Room… so if you’re in the area, go check him out and tell him I sent you!
Anova Sous Vide Tips:
- While I recommend using a good Foodsaver, you don’t have to have one! There’s a water immersion technique that can be used with a ziploc, but you have to make sure your ziplock bag has no holes and seals properly!
- Pat your meat or veggies dry when it comes out of the bag & brush lightly with EVOO before searing.
If you don’t have an Anova Sous Vide, you will truly be amazed at how great this one piece of equipment will totally change your kitchen game when you get one.
Trust me.
And if you don’t trust me…
Just watch Burnt with Bradley Cooper and let him change your mind 😉
Sure there are other Sous Vide brands, but this one by Anova is a great piece for a modest investment considering how many types of delicious food you’ll be able to cook up. Regardless of which brand you end up with… Happy Cooking Y’all!
Oh… and if you already have a great Sous Vide recipe that I have to try – share it in the comments below!!!
