This Christmas my wonderful In-laws gave us a fantastic gift that introduced us to a cooking technique known as Sous vide. The word Sous vide is French for “under vacuum” and is a method of cooking where food is sealed in a airtight plastic bag or in some cases a glass jar and is placed in a water bath or in a temperature controlled steam environment. Though the need for a vacuum seal of the food is a misnomer since you can use a ziplock bag to package your ingredients. The technique is really about bring food to a very precise temperature and holding it there for a period of time for cooking.

The Sous vide equipment we were gifted is the Anova Bluetooth Precision Cooker which I find to be quite easy to use. To set up the Anova you just need a good boiling pot or food grade vessel that can handle near boiling temperatures. I also suggest having some form of trivet or wood block to set the pot/ vessel in order to protect your counter top or table.  Another great feature of the Anova is that they have created phone or tablet apps that interface with the cooker. The application has the ability to set the temperature, time, and view current temperature status of the water. It also has recipes, ideas, and guideline for cooking different things.

Thankfully I already owned a vacuum seal system for packaging bulk items into set portioned meals on hand so the concept of preparing food “under vacuum” was not a hard step for me. Now that I had the opportunity to play with the Sous vide cooking method I am totally on board with preparing a lot of different meals and having them in the freezer ready to use regardless of the cooking method. I will admit the downside of the sous vide method is that your don’t get the crisp texture on certain meats unless you either pre-sear or post-sear. Otherwise the meat comes out tender and precisely cooked.

So far we have tried a Chicken Marinara both Grilled and not, and a Tri-tip Steak seared. All three of them were moist, flavorful and cooked to perfection without having any areas overcooked. I am looking forward exploring other options such as cooking eggs, fish, or vegetables.  The possibilities with this cooking style are endless.