All -
Got the Anova for Christmas and I have been very happy. It is my first foray into Sous Vide cooking and I have had a lot of success doing just very simple things. Zero complaints with the circulator. I read a good amount on the three in my range and found this one got fairly similar reviews (and slightly better in some things) than the others but really it just came down to timing for Christmas and the Sansaire was not shipping yet.
So far I have been combining learnings from Modernist Cuisine at Home and assorted googling and had consistently delicious results. Its weird trying to explain to not food people what the hell the device does and why it is so special, but I am slowly learning is to just let the food do the talking.
Items cooked:
- Hanger steak
- tri tip
- Carrots
- Lost of different egg temps
- Hollandaise
- Chicken
- Salmon
- Pork Belly
I think the thing that stands out (which is also why I bought it) is just the consistency. Being able to deliver perfectly cooked items to a large group can sometimes be an art but with this it is very easy.
Specific item reviews:
- The hanger steak just brought the house down when I served it. I generally find that to be a piece that always gets good reviews, but the medium rare/butter sear at the end just delivered a very appealing visual plate as well.
- Carrots were ok but I think also a tad undercooked (down from al dente).
- Salmon - sensational! Cannot wait to do more fish. Really want to get a good piece of Monkfish and see how it comes out.
- Pork belly - perfect as expected
- Hollandaise - used the recipe from Modernist Cuisine at Home. Flavoring was incredible, consistency was a disaster. I did not have an immersion blender and could not get rid of chunks. Next time it will be better.
- Eggs - lot of fun playing with egg temps especially combined with the Edx.org- Harvard Science and cooking class (great discussion in that class on how great sous vide is using an illustration of how differently eggs come out with even 1 degree differences). I have found the yolk consistency in the 63-64C range is amazing but the whites are still a tad runny for most people i have served them too. Starting to think about separating and cooking to different temps then re-assembling
Very happy thus far and am just starting to figure out what I am doing with it. At this point I am looking forward to doing 72 hour short ribs and then peeling back layers on flavoring components to play with and how much you can do with them.
Anyone have any good sites/ books they have used specifically for Sous Vide? Egullet has the most info but is also a tad daunting when i am just looking for a quick recipe. Chefsteps.com has been pretty good and has a couple of the guys that helped Nathan on Modernist Cuisine.
Sorry for the long post. Feel free to move this guy to an actual Sous Vide thread if it straddles too many topics.