I’ll admit, at first the concept of cooking meat in a plastic bag at bathwater temperature grossed me right out. How will I not get food poisoning? But then my husband asked for a sous-vide cooker for Christmas, and as he is the world’s hardest person to buy for, I bought the Anova Culinary PCB-120US-K1 Bluetooth Precision Cooker from Amazon and hoped for the best.
But now, after trying sous-vide cooked meat, I am a convert – and not just because my husband now cooks dinner. This thing is amazing for busy families.
Basically, it’s a heating element that attaches to the side of a big pot full of water. It heats the water and keeps it at a consistent temperature. You put your food down in the water in an airtight bag (I use ziploc) and set the temperature (for example, 150F for Chicken breast). It takes about an hour to cook chicken breast at that temperature, but it doesn’t overcook it if say, your kid is having a huge temper tantrum and you’re knee deep in tears. You can even cook it ahead of time and then put it in cold water once it is done to hang out and wait until you’re ready to eat it. Once you’re 3 minutes away from eating, all you have to do is pull it out of the bag and sear it in a frying pan or on the grill on under the broiler to crisp it up a bit and voila – delicious, juicy but not stewy meat. I season/marinade the meat right in the bag. So far I’ve made chicken breast, chicken thighs, steak, and eggs and the results have been flawless every time.
In my home, the hours between 4:30 and 7 are chaos. It’s impossible to cook anything, so we are either starting to cook dinner after DK goes to sleep and eating at 8:30 (too late for me) or I’m eating over the sink before I start bedtime routine before my husband is even home. With the sous-vide, it makes it easy to do the prep earlier in the day during naptime, put it in the sous-vide before we start winding DK down for bed, and then finishing the dish off with a sear and a side salad once DK is asleep.
Rinkydink Mum 