REVIEW – I have wanted to try sous vide cooking for years. We have several friends and coworkers who swear by it. I understood the science and thermodynamics of how it works but I was always a little skeptical. While I have been tempted, I have been procrastinating more than anything…never pulling the trigger on actually buying one. So, when Julie offered the professional grade Anova Precision Cooker Pro to review, I was like Ooo, Ooo, Ooo pick me (think Arnold Horshack).

For those who do not know, Sous vide  (pronounced sue-veed and means “under vacuum” in French) is a cooking technique that involves vacuum-sealing food in a bag then submersing it in a water bath allowing for precise temperature control giving you consistent, high quality, near perfect results.

What is it?

The Anova Precision Cooker Pro is a professional grade sous vide cooker engineered to operate full-time in the busiest of kitchens. Designed for long hours of non-stop cooking main courses to perfection.

What’s in the box?

The box is big and well done, nicely presented. The only thing in the box is the sous vide cooker and instruction manual.

• Anova Precision (Sous Vide) Cooker Pro
• Manual

Hardware specs

Design and features

The Anova Precision Cooker Pro is a restaurant/professional grade sous vide cooker engineered for serious work and the long-haul. When you pull the Anova Pro from its packaging it definitely gives off an air of high quality. It’s extremely well made, precision-machined, made from metal and stainless steel parts. While I wouldn’t suggest testing this but according to Anova, it is submersible in up to a meter of water for 30 minutes…crazy.

Setup

Setup is quick and easy. Take the Precision Cooker Pro out of the box, plug it in, and you’re more or less good to go. It’s going to take you longer to finding the right sided/shaped pot and fill it with water. As a beginner in the sous vide world, selecting a recipe is the toughest part of the battle. For whatever type of meat you’re wanting to cook, there are many different variants of basically the same recipe. But the recipes’ cooking times and temperature settings are all pretty close. So, I just picked those with a 4-5 stars rating and went for it.

Currently the Anova app does not talk to the Precision Cooker Pro but should sometime this summer. You can still use the app to find and save recipes.

Performance

The Anova Precision Cooker Pro is engineered with performance in mind: 1200 watts of heating power, 12 liters/min flow rate, and max cooking volume of 100 liters (26 gallons) with lid. In addition to serious horsepower, the Anova Pro uses components made for the long haul: a powerful dual bearing brushless DC motor and double-core insulated heater. According to Anova, the Precision Cooker Pro can operate continuously for a minimum of 10,000 hours without having to shut down.

Inside the stainless steel protective housing is quite the array of heating, monitoring, and circulating hardware. These components combine to not only heat the water quickly and effectively but keep it at a very precise temperature set-point. The integrated temperature probe is accurate to +/- 0.05 ̊ C in water volume up to 26 gallons (100 liters).

The Anova Pro has a temperature range of 0 ̊ – 92 ̊ C  / 32 – 198 ̊ F . The heating coil quickly and efficiently heats the water bath to the desired temperature then keeps it locked onto that set point throughout cooking.

The powerful circulation pump brings in water from above, flows through the heating coil, then the heated water is forced out the base of the Anova Pro.

The Anova Precision Cooker Pro has a capacitive touch screen to set your temperature, time, and monitor progress. Funny thing is… the screen is what initially impressed me the most. As I stated above, the entire unit is very well made but the screen is what made me think “wow, this is pretty sweet.” Using the touchscreen to set the time & temperature is easy and intuitive.

The Anova Pro has an adjustable and detachable clamp that enables the sous vide cooker to be raised or lowered based on the shape/size of the cooking vessel. It can also be twisted in the mount for a better view/management of the Pro’s touchscreen. The clamp is just as well made as the rest of the Anova Precision Cooker Pro from hard plastic with knurled, PVD coated metal tightening knobs.

What I like

• Extremely well made from aluminum, teflon, & stainless steel
• Very precise temperature control
• Strong powerful brushless motor
• Extremely long operational period
• Can heat large volumes of water
• Excellent touchscreen
• 2-year warranty

What needs to be improved

• Smartphone app not compatible from the beginning
• Expensive

Final thoughts

As I stated at the beginning, this isn’t a review of sous vide cooking in general but for anyone who hasn’t tried it, I highly recommend it. I have cooked steak, chicken, burgers, and pork with the Anova Precision Cooker Pro and every meal turned out perfectly. It removes any of the guess work and stress of juggling variables of temperature, flame, time, doneness, etc. Anova’s Precision Cooker Pro is a professional grade sous vide cooker engineered for serious duty and is a bit of overkill for my kitchen. But what an excellent cooking tool that has been added to my arsenal of creating delectable meals for family and friends. If you can afford or need it, I suggest going for the Cadillac of sous vide cookers…you won’t be disappointed.

Price: $399
Where to buy: anovaculinary.com.
Source: The sample of this product was provided by Anova.

Filed in categories: Reviews

Tagged: Cooking, Food, Home and Kitchen

Anova Precision Sous Vide Cooker Pro review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on June 17, 2019 at 8:00 am.

Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.

REVIEW – You’re not going to find a bigger fan of fried food than this writer. Growing up, I regularly attended the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which is famous for having booths of fried food including twinkies, snickers and oreos. Needless to say I’ve consumed my fair share of fried goods. I’ve been intrigued about air fryers for a while, as I get older and my cholesterol levels require me to cut back on the deep fried goodies. So I got the chance to review the Enklov 5.5 quart XL Air Fryer and let me tell you: this one might be a life saver!

What is it?

The Enklov air fryer is a cooking device that allows you to “fry” food by using heated air instead of submersion in grease.

What’s in the box?

• Air Fryer with removable basket
• Instruction Book
• Recipe Book

Design and features

The Enklov air fryer has a sleek black matte design, with a pull out basket that further disassembles for cleaning. Touch controls on the front panel allow you to adjust the temperature, set a timer and turn it on and off. The actual operation is fairly simple, set the temp to allow it to preheat, then put the food in the basket and set the timer. Many of the recipes and food types require you to either shake the basket, turn the food over or adjust it within the basket half way through cooking to ensure it doesn’t stick to the basket and that it cooks evenly.

Setup

Setting up the air fryer couldn’t be easier, it’s ready to go out of the box – simply plug it in, set it and start cooking.

Performance

We have tried multiple recipes and cooked a variety of types of food in the fryer. Here is a before and after of your standard fare tater tots:

The tots went in frozen at 400 degrees and after a shake half way through they came out perfectly brown and crispy. In fact, we absolutely loved the way they came out. Unlike when baked, they were not mushy on the inside and they kept the crispness until eaten. Definitely our new favorite way to cook tater tots, fries, and sweet potato fries.

Next, we tried a recipe for apple pie egg rolls:

You may be able to tell, they didn’t quite come out as pretty as the picture in the recipe guide, however they were still very tasty and definitely a healthier option than a deep fried apple pie. In the few weeks we’ve had the fryer, we have tried the fries mentioned above, the pies, as well as fried apricot glazed chicken, fried tofu, fish sticks and surprisingly we used the fryer to reheat pizza. The pizza came out especially well and using the fryer will be the only way I reheat pizza ever again. The cheese is reheated to a perfect gooey texture while also keeping the crust with some crispness. I always hated putting pizza in the microwave to reheat and now I won’t do it again.

What I like

• Great crispness and texture on cooking frozen food compared to other cooking methods
• Easy to set timer and temp, cook food and prep
• Faster to preheat than an oven or cooking oil
• Less greasy and oily food – healthier cooking overall.

What needs to be improved

• When the drawer is open after preheating or when adjusting the food, there is a VERY loud repetitive beeping – this could be toned down a bit.
• In cleaning the basket the bottom grill is rather difficult to get clean during hand washing, this can be rather labor intensive depending on how messy the food is that was being cooked. For most basic frozen foods, it’s not bad but the apple pie egg rolls for instance took quite a bit of time to clean with all the gooey overrun.

Final thoughts

Overall, this unit has me wishing I had invested in an air fryer a long time ago! It’s a great cooker, easy to use and fast to cook our meals. It has a wide variety of uses, recipes and will be a highly used item in our kitchen. I think it’s a quality device at a great price. I love that it gives us a healthier option for cooking foods like french fries and tater tots as well. I definitely recommend the Enklov Air Fryer.

Price: $89.98
Where to buy: Amazon
Source: The sample of this product was provided by Enklov.

Filed in categories: Reviews

Tagged: Cooking, Food, Home and Kitchen

Enklov Air Fryer review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on June 9, 2019 at 9:00 am.

Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.