Anova Culinary Precision Cooker (Gadget) Review

Sometimes when you're involved in an extended session with a great game, taking the time to make dinner can seem like a time-consuming chore. Sure, you can order a pizza, but do you really want to eat pizza all the time? (or perhaps I should ask, should you really be eating pizza all of the time?) Or maybe ordering the pizza is the safer option for those of you who don't know your way around a kitchen beyond the fridge and microwave. There is another option, though, and that option is to let a gadget do the cooking for you. And as gamers we have a natural affinity for gadgets, right?

The gadget in question here is the Anova Precision Cooker, a sous vide cooker that you can control with an iOS or Android app. If none of that meant anything to you beyond the app part, don't worry, I didn't know anything about any of that either before I decided to give the Anova a trial run - and I do know my way around a kitchen and cook all the time. Not that the product's packaging and manual were any help with any of that, either. The manual gives you the basics of how to turn on the device and change its settings, but there is no explanation whatsoever of sous vide cooking or how to do it, and there's not a single recipe included. I can't remember buying any kind of unusual device or cookware for my kitchen from my raclette grill to my tagine pot that didn't include at least a few basic cooking tips and recipes for use with it. The Anova website is full of recipes, but is still devoid of any information on how to use it to do sous vide cooking.

After spending some time researching sous vide cooking from other internet sources, I was able to finally figure things out. Essentially, it is boil-in-bag cooking in which the water temperature is kept at just the right level to cook meat safely and thoroughly, and with the added bonus that once the cooking time is completed it is impossible to overcook the meat ' you don't have to make a mad dash for the kitchen when a timer goes off, but can wait until you finish the level that you're on in the game you're playing ... or even the next level.

I was surprised to find that you can spend quite a bit of money on fancy vacuum sealers for the bag part of the boil-in-bag experience, but this is wholly unnecessary. Ziplock bags worked just fine for me, with the vacuum sealing accomplished by something known as the immersion technique. Basically you dip the bag with the meat in it in the water in the pot without submerging the opening at the top. You then press the seal closed and lift the bag out of the water, and you get a nice and tight, air-free seal. Science!

With the bag issue solved, it was time to move on to the boiling. Well, it's not really boiling since meats cook at different temperatures depending on the meat, and while all require temperatures higher than bath water they are short of a true boil. The Anova attaches to the side of a pot using a vice-like attachment. The pot is then filled with enough water to cover what you're cooking and the vents on the Anova's cylinder. You can then use the Anova's simple controls to select a temperature and set a minimum cooking time, but where's the fun in that? I preferred to use the Anova app which I installed on my iPad and then linked to the Anova itself using Bluetooth. The App comes loaded with recipes and when you've selected one you press the play button on the App and it automatically selects the temperature that you need. You can also have the app send you push notifications to let you know when the water has reached the right temperature and when your food is done cooking.

For my first trial run with the device I made three pork chops. I didn't use any of the recipes directly, but selected one for pork so that the app would set the right temperature for me. In one bag I placed the chop with two sprigs of rosemary, in the next I patted the chop with a BBQ spice rub, and the last I coated with a Ras el hanout spice mix I had put together for a recipe I had tried the prior weekend. I then dropped all three bags into the pot and left them to themselves. Since the stove was off and the Anova was maintaining the cooking temperature, there was no reason to stand over anything or even stay in the kitchen.

You shouldn't expect microwave-like speeds with this form of cooking. The recommended cooking time for my pork was 45 minutes, although I left it in the pot for twice as long to make sure that it couldn't really overcook things as it claimed. When I pulled the pork out of the bags the chops did have the look of something that had been boiled, the color was a little pale and they were a touch wrinkled. Many of the recipes recommend pan searing for a couple of minutes after cooking, so I cut each chop in half and seared one half while leaving the other as is.

All of the chops were very tender, juicy, and cooked evenly. The flavors of the herbs and spices had been absorbed by the pork, infusing each with flavor. I had gone light on the spices since I didn't know what to expect from the cooking process, but the next time I make something with the cooker I will be a lot more liberal with the herbs and spices. The non-seared pork was perfectly good, but the seared chops were overall better. The searing brought out more of the flavors and gave the chops a nice color. When cooking for guests, I'd definitely seer the meat afterwards both taste and presentation.

Clean-up was very easy. Since the cooker only ever touches water, I just gave its bottom half a quick rinse and set it aside to dry. Once the water in the pot cooled, I simply poured it into the pots of some of our houseplants.

Overall, I would recommend the Anova Precision Cooker. It's an easy way to cook with a minimum of direct supervision, so that you don't have to skimp on flavor or nutrition just because you don't want to sit in the kitchen watching a pan on the stove. It won't become my primary form of cooking, but for those times when I'd rather just be in my game room making my way through a new game I'm perfectly happy just letting my phone tell me when dinner is ready.

Final Rating: