Sous-vide is a method of cooking in which food is sealed in airtight plastic bags then placed in a water bath or in a temperature-controlled steam environment for longer than normal cooking times at an accurately regulated temperature much lower than normally used for cooking. [Wikipedia]
A typical system setup
In the usual industry kitchen you can find big water based, or even steam-rooms that is created for big-capacity Sous-Vide cooking.
But in the last couple of years several simpler and user friendly machines have become available for consumers. Sansaire is one of them, and that is the unit we are taking a closer look on in this post.
Sous-vide is essentially just easy temperature regulation. And the environment is not that demanding: Slow changing surroundings and minimal noise introduction inside the system itself. And all of the different control signals are easy to predict.
So all inn all, to create a simple Sous-Vide cooker you need only:
Temperature controlled water: A sensor, a pump to circulate the water, “a brain” and a heating element.
And this is easy to create yourself!
But a “machine” like this do neither have a satisfactory WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) or a good ease-of-use.
Therefor, enter:
Sansaire
Sansaire is a more user friendly and “beautified” Sous-Vide cooker for the regular consumer.
How do you use a Sous-Vide?
- Preheat the water to desired cooking temperature. Temperature guiding here.
- Prepare (and maybe pre-season) the food, and seal it in a closed and snug fitting bag.
- Put the food in the Sous-Vide-water. Wait the planned time, as shown in the link in pt. 1.
- Times up! Take the food out, and post-season the food (maybe give it a quick “burn” in a pan).
- Enjoy!
We inserted a temperature sensor connected to a multimeter (with a bluetooth data-logging add-on), and did some data logging of the temperature in the water. The room was at 23,1° Celcius, we inserted 3 liter water at 11,9° Celcius, and adjusted the cooker to heat (and hold) the water at 60° Celcius.
The recorded heating sequence looked like this:
As we can see, it took the 1100 Watt powerful Sansaire 18 minutes to heat all the water.
So what do you wait for? Sous-vide is a both fun and a great way into making super-delicious food at home!
