Sous vide cooking with Anova Nano

Time to play

I have had some fun playing with my new Anova Nano precision cooker lately. If you are at all culinary inclined you have probably heard of sous vide cooking, the method of vac packing or bagging a food product and then cooking it in a water bath.

Precisely controlled

The water can be precisely controlled to the half degree in order to cook things with pinpoint accuracy. Gone are the days of guessing at a perfectly cooked rare (and expensive!) filet mignon when all you have to do is dial in 127F from your phone or other device. Better yet, you can add your recipe to the Anova app and next time you want to replicate that recipe simply hit one button to run that specific time and temperature.

If that’s all too futuristic sounding for you, you can also just tap in the information directly on the Anova Nano. You also don’t have to have a vac packing machine and can employ the ziplock water dunking technique, Anova gives you all the information you could ever need to get cooking on their app and website.

Perfect temperatures

Where sous vide cooking shines is nailing perfect temperatures for cuts of meat and fish but it can also transform different proteins by long and low cooking. Take for example the pot roast recipe I have included where an inside round is kept moist and perfectly medium rare by cooking at a steady 137F for 9 hours. It’s the ultimate slow cooker that will not overcook but allows you to cook long enough to break down tougher cuts into tender pieces.

Excellent ingredients

Eggs are also an excellent ingredient to cook using the Anova Nano since pinpoint cooking temps and times can drastically change the consistency of the yolk and white. You can even create complicated Hollandaise based sauces by running the yolks, butter and other ingredients in a sealed bag and then blitzing everything with a hand blender when it’s cooked. It will never break because the temperature stays consistent.

Biggest pot

I have been clamping the Anova Nano onto my biggest pot and that has worked for almost everything except when I wanted to cook Irish white pudding (sausage) and had to get creative and use the vegetable crisper from my refrigerator.

I would not necessarily recommend this method and will be upgrading to a 12-quart kitchen storage container in the near future. So far the Anova Nano has had no problem heating that volume of water and has worked flawlessly.

Conventional cooking

Unlike conventional cooking, the browning or searing is done at the end, usually after the product has gone through the water bath. This way you can control the doneness and then caramelize the exterior to create a deep brown crust in seconds. Using mayonnaise spread on a piece of meat or fish will create a wicked crust in seconds and leave no residual mayo flavour.

It really does work well by essentially glueing the emulsified oil and egg to the product which browns up in a hot cast iron pan very quickly.

More recipes

Check out this recipe for filet mignon with balsamic sauce where I used the mayo technique for awesome results. I have also posted this recipe to the Anova app so you can save it and run it from your phone. Look for more recipes in the future posted by Tim Harris on Anova Nano Recipes.