YES! It's true! The mad genius at Polyscience, Philip Preston—creator of the anti-griddle, the smoke gun (looks like paraphernalia I used to oogle at High Times on Coventry in the 70s), and other magico creations to make cooking more fun—has sent me the latest version of the Polyscience professional immersion circulator for sous vide cooking to play with, something I am eagerly doing. But as I already have one, there is nothing for me to do but give this sleek machine away to one lucky reader!
First, the circulator: the original now seems like a little Datsun compared to this sleek Beemer. Its design has been honed, its size has been tightened, its power enhanced. This baby operates great.
Leave a comment on how you want to use the circulator along with a working email (not to be published) and your name is in the hat. Special consideration may be given to innovative suggestions on how to use this wonderful contraption. I haven't decided. Only one comment per person; anyone caught leaving multiple submissions will be forever banished.
For those who are unclear about what this thing is or does: An immersion circulator is a high tech piece of equipment that heats water to exact temperatures and circulates it so that the temperature surrounding the vacuum sealed food is constant (sous vide = vacuum sealed). This allows you to cook meat to say, exactly 132 degrees F., and keep it there till you need it. It allows you to cook short ribs for three days at 137 degrees F./58 degrees C., long enough to melt the tough connective tissue and make them tender, but at a temperature that keeps them medium rare.
It's an amazing machine and it's quickly working its way from the professional kitchen to the home kitchen. If there were any doubt that sous vide cooking has gone mainstream, my local Williams Sonoma at La Place in Beachwood, Ohio, said they had four available when I called them up. Yes, Williams Sonoma carries the immersion circulator.
I first began studying sous vide cooking while writing the book Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide, with chefs Thomas Keller, Jonathan Benno and Corey Lee. Much of this material, the basics of sous vide cooking along with home cook friendly recipes and a thorough discussion of safety issues, has been published in a stylish spiral bound book (cover above), that comes with the machine, along with a DVD, temperature chart and instruction manual. (Full disclosure: because I wrote the material sous vide manual, I receive some royalties for it; it is only available with the machine, alas.)
There are other machines out there that do similar tasks. The Sous Vide Supreme, a countertop appliance, was built with the home cook in mind. Plus side: It works as advertised and it's considerably less expensive; on the negative side, you're limited by the 9 x 12 x 7-inch box, and it takes up substantial counterspace. I know some people have figured out how to jury-rig a rice cooker to cook sous vide (recommended for tinkering geeks, but not for most cooks).
The Polyscience Immersion Circulator is a serious professional machine, portable and powerful. I've just been using a stock pot, but this will keep a big Lexan tub of water exaclty heated. I highly recommend it for restaurant kitchens. If you are a committed home cook and have the scratch ($799) and want to make sous vide a part of your routine, then I recommend it as well. It's a great machine. (More company pix on flickr.)
And the one I'm using (above, photo by Donna, cooking last night's London Broil cut) could be yours! Leave a comment and you're in the running. I'll announce the winner on Tuesday at noon, Eastern time.
"Small Print": Please only one entry per person, we'll be checking, and yes, you can game the system but you probably won't win and you'll risk bad karma for years to come. I will cover shipping in the US, but a shipping and handling fee will be required for shipping to Canada. I cannot ship to other countries (it's too much of a headache, sorry). And last, personal friends and family are not eligible.
As always, happy cooking!
If I win, I will approach it the same way my mother did when she got a cuisinart in the early seventies: try EVERYTHING in it, starting with the venison from the deer I killed last weekend. And maybe sous vide a peanut butter and cabbage sandwich, too.
I really think I would love to use an immersion circulator for entertaining my co-workers since all of us have moved to the midwest from other cities (<24 in age) and don't know anybody else, but use it to introduce them to less common cuts of meat and offal I get from one of my beef/lamb/pork CSAs.
Given that we work long hours, it would be amazing to be able to start cooking some beef tongue on Wednesday or Thursday in preperation for dinner on Friday/Saturday and free up stove space (only have 1 working electric ring).
I could see some amazing short ribs or venison in my future if I were to win that amazing machine.
I've been inspired by Carol Blymire's sous vide cooking... gal's funny as all get-out, but she knows her stuff!
Living in Minnesota we have a lot of wild game and fish. Venison has no marbled fat so cooking to an exact temp without drying out is a real challenge. The same for pheasant and grouse. And what a unique was to prepare fish, especially walleye, with their delicate structure. A whole new way to use the fruits of the woods and water. Thanks for considering this idea!
I cannot begin to think of what I will do with this. Science is my friend and I will use it to my advantage.
Possibilites are endless: 72 hour short ribs, perfectly poached eggs, turkey (or even better: turducken).
I have been increasingly interested in cooking. Next year I am retiring from my day job and can't wait to move cooking from hobby to passion. This would be a great addition. Plus, I want a sous vide egg right now!
I would love to use the circulator during the week for amazingly convenient meals that would forever banish the slow cooker (my nemesis). I would use it for slow cooking roasts and holding them at temp, alleviating any timing issues. So many possibilities!
I want to try it on the buffalo and lamb I get from other family members. Great stuff but sometimes roasts cooked rare are a little tough - maybe such cooking would help? It appears to just attach a water resevoir is that correct? That's be great to be able to do larger cuts and not be limited by the size of the resevoir - whole lamb leg, brisket, full bellies perhaps? It would be fun to play. Hopefully this is where comment gets left to be in the hat - email should be working.
Oh my gosh, I dream of owning one of these. This would be the only way I'd ever be able to get one. Please please please. 🙂
pig in all forms
Oooh. I've been wanting one of these forever. Can't make myself pull the trigger on an old gross one on ebay. I'd use it on some of the new wonderful pork that is available here in the Austin area to try and curb my pork belly budget at some of the new trailers around here. Sooo yuuummmmyy. 🙂 I'd even love to do a guest blog post about my first experiences with it. I'd love to work through the entire egullet sous vide thread and find out what is best. Great give away! I have TK's book sitting on my counter with drool marks already on it!
I have always wanted to cook my way through the entirety of a cookbook. I have come close with a few but I want to go all the way with Blumenthal's The Big Fat Duck Cookbook and the immersion circulator would help me in accomplishing this. In particular, I would be interested in experimenting with ultra-slow sous vide cooking. I think that this would lead to some interesting results with braises.
This is a fantastic idea! I've been waiting for a more consumer-friendly device to make it to the market. Of course I'd like to make the perfect steak with it, but I'm most eager to see how I can use it with vegetables like asparagus and Brussels sprouts...all of those green bits that go nasty, limp or sulfurous when overcooked!
One thing I'd be interested in trying would be a forcemeat of some sort. I would think the gentle, even heat would help insure that a pate or galantine is cooked the same all the way through. Plus, a plastic bag is a lot cheaper than an enamel pate mold. I want one, badly.
Having 2 small children, and being 2 working parents, I would use this to cook better meals more consistently for the family. Having items rolling in the circulator while at work. I believe the circulator will one day replace Crock pot cookery in the home. Being able to plan this far in advance allows a family to get away from pre-packed, industrial food completely. What a great thing to combine great quality homemade food and still fit it into our hectic day to day lives.
Hmmm. I bet corned beef would be great in it. I would think this would be an amazing item to use for preparing food early for Browns tailgating. Would really make things easier when tailgating before the Browns/Steelers game in January when we will probably have lots of snow!!!
The only chemistry I ever really enjoyed was cooking - I'd love to experiment with this new kitchen tool!!
My brothers and I grew up cooking with our father. His favorite method: low and slow. There's nothing we wouldn't throw in the smoker to see how it came out. The patience required could be trying, but in retrospect the anticipation made the final product that much more satisfying. As I see it, sous vide is another iteration of low and slow. I can't wait to use an immersion circulator to cook a meal for my dad and my brothers...
If i win, i would like to sous vide boston butt combined with a short smoking time. In hopes of enjoying great bbq, without attending to a smoker for 8-10 hours.
My foot bath is on its last legs, and this thing would be awesome for that. But realistically, being a professional cook i would love to have some pro equipment at home to perfect recipes and play around.
If I was fortunate enough to win this, I would use the sous vide to prepare meals for my friends and family using bison and ostrich meat. Most restaurants overcook these meats, so it is difficult to get a solid mid rare of either.
I know its simple, but I would make the perfect soft boiled egg with the immersion circulator. Served with a homemade accoutrements: a crusty baguette, bacon and some micro greens and a little tomato. My take on the BLT with a wonderful sauce, egg yolk.
Here I thought you were just going to taunt us with updates from Key West while the rest of the country suffers this damnable cold. But, no! You're giving us something that runs on sheer unadulterated AWESOME. You're a good man, Ruhlman... no ship me the damn thing already! 😉
I will make eggs. Many, many eggs. Eggs from every type of bird I can get my hand on. Duck eggs. Goose eggs. Quail eggs. Emu eggs. Ostrich eggs. The Sous Vide egg is a magical thing.
And here I thought I'd be original describing how I'd use it to cook venison! At the moment, I only cook venison in the pressure cooker because I'm never convinced that it will be tender. While delicious, it's impossible to get anything remotely "rare" in the PC. I'd love to achieve a less cooked, yet tender, version in an immersion cooker.
Perfect for working people who enjoy well cooked meat, and really isn't that everyone? Get your steak or roast going and have it hold the temperature until you get home, then a quick sear and you have dinner. This could even give my Big Green Egg a rest.
I've used this device and it's absolutely delightful. I would use it to make pig trotters even more unctuous than they already are, even if it takes 72 hours.
This is an amazing giveaway!!! I am actually kind of obsessed with sous vide eggs, and I would love the opportunity to perfect them myself.
I also think this would be a perfect piece of equipment to play with as the weather gets colder--I live in Montreal, and here we are surrounded by fantastic local meat which is pretty much ALL that is "local" in the winter. We have been experimenting with various cuts of pork, lamb, duck, and all manner of game from our awesome neighbourhood butcher, and it would be too cool to try cooking them new ways in the immersion circulator. I cannot wait to conspire with our butcher about this.
Wow, what an amazing giveaway. I'd like to try cooking some of Aaron Miller's amazing short ribs with this bad boy. Plus, if you pick me, you're guaranteed to sell another copy of Under Pressure because obviously I'd want to learn how to really use it like the pros.
Merry Christmas
I am in the process of opening the first sustainable, local, all whole-animal butcher shop in Chicago. I have a limited budget and no exhaust hood. I have wanted a circulator for some time, but, as with any build out, extra costs creep up and we had to strike the circulator from the equipment list. Without a hood, the circulator will allow me to prepare things like mortadella and other cooked charcuterie. It will also allow me to introduce people to some really interesting cuts of meat they may not have heard of in the form of a value added, take home and heat option. Thanks for the opportunity!
I have been wanting one for a while. I have access to some fantastic grassfed Texas Longhorn and Bison. The meat is leaner than the average red meat, and if it's not cooked properly it is easily ruined. I would love to try cooking it using the sous vide technique.
This would find use in my kitchen both as a thing to experiment with and as a practical tool for larger parties. I'm especially intrigued by the ability to get meats to varied donenesses pre-sear for guests with different tastes, or for prepping really long-cooked proteins.
I'd give it to my husband and then require he make me something really yummy in it!
Just a shot in the dark here. I am a chef affected by the economic downturn over the past 2 years, and trying to break out on the road (literally) with a food truck. Financing has been tough as it seems it's much more difficult to get help starting out a small new business than the current administration would like you to believe. The concept will be great fresh chef-driven food made better by utilizing techniques such as sous-vide (yes... right on the truck!!!). The circulator makes it possible to deliver food in an optimum state to guests right at the curb. I will bust my ass to make this work.
Slowly, I am building up a brand and concept and gathering small pieces of key equipment for this undertaking. Any help is appreciated.
I currently have a SV magic home unit (the one with the rice cooker), but it cannot handle any sort of volume cooking. I've used the Polyscience models at work for over 2 years, and would be ecstatic to have one parked in my own space.
I will love it, and pet it, and name it George.
My wife and I are food hobbyists and would love to experiment with this beauty. We'd be happy to keep your readers up to date on our results. Thanks for your blogging efforts and keep up the good work!
I would love to add this to my kitchen arsenal and have a go at it. Thanks for the giveaway!
If I had this thing, I would literally buy a pig to put in it.
As a fellow Cleveland Heights citizen, and a poor grad school student, I will use the circulator to take my cooking to new heights, and more importantly, make my wife appreciate me even more!
My mom's recipe for char-siu would only get better with this treatment! I would feature it in my column in Albuquerque's Weekly Alibi and give the phrase, "I write for food" some real clout!
Sounds like this would be perfect for some assembly line cooking for this single guy. Pre-make some lovely single servings of various items, toss in the freezer, thaw the day before use, and toss in the immersion circulator while I veg out after a long day of work instead of having to cook.
Plus, I then get to to show off to all my friends that I have one of those fancy Iron Chef America kitchen gadgets.
I've got a pig from the farm up the road. Lots of pig parts to sous vide. We also get fresh bug eggs from the farm (the chicken eat bugs not feed). The yolks are amazing.
Also, duck legs would be awesome sous vide.
I'm interested in comparing the results of sous vide versus "pas de sous vide" on good old pork spares, and how I can apply that knowledge to win a rib cook off. Also interested in applying it to brisket!
Well, I could be dishonest and say that I have all these glamorous ideas for this, but instead I'll just say that the prospect of having this in my own kitchen is both daunting and exciting. I have no idea what I'd do with it yet. Put everything in it I can find? Yes.
It would forever take me from being a mess-around-in-the-kitchen kind of cook to someone to be taken seriously. My reputation is on the line.
Wow, I hope I win.
Oh wow, that looks beautiful! I'd love to cook up a bunch of my 6 month old, grass-fed, local calf with that. We've got ribs and sirloin steaks, tongue, the whole thing! I've been pining for an immersion circulator for years now but just can't justify the price tag quite yet. We'll be raising on our calf this year along with our own eggs, chickens and turkey next year. I see endless possibilities!
I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, increasingly so with my children. I'd love to expose them to something new and different.
I would use it for just about everything. From lamb shoulder to creme anglaise, duck confit, short ribs, beans, eggs
I would try to cook just about anything using it.
I would use this to help cook large quantities of food for my church. Potlucks, thanksgivings, christmas and any other events. Personally, I'd like to use the device with a large turkey and and then dry roast it in the oven to crisp the skin. Foolproof turkey? Maybe.
I ate at Alinea on Sunday night for the first time. To say I'm inspired to try some new techniques is an understatement.
Unreal, if this one is mine I can either donate my recently acquired Sous Vide Supreme or use it to bathe any little ones that come in the future
I would put this to use in two ways...
1) It would annoy my wife that I am filling our kitchen with yet another cooking related gadget, tool, or untensil
2) It would blow my wife's mind when I serve her some of the most tender, delicious, and moist beef/chicken/pork/ cooked with this machine.
I really want to try poached eggs and anything made from pork 🙂
I love meat and veggies sous vide, but want to open a dessert shop one day and would love to experiment with what it can do for a pastry kitchen!
all cuts of IOWA PORK
I will demonstrate to A.J. Liebling once and for all that our technology provides an opportunity to prepare and serve better food than his good friend M. Mirande enjoyed in turn of the (19th) century Paris. Then I will propagate this information with a blog.
If chosen, I promise to use it only for evil.
I will lash it to a frame of jagged metal and splintered bone, lubricated with the tears of orphans, powered by the dreams of homeless rodeo clowns gone mad from mercury exposure.
With this machine I will march like Sherman to the sea, whereupon I will declare myself the Emperor of All That Is Taupe, and I will unleash my terrible creation upon an unsuspecting humanity, singing the song that ends the earth while the screams of the tormented rise up in terrible harmony and the sky is blackened with despair.
I will also probably cook steaks and stuff. I hear these machines are really good at that.
I would love to cook short ribs with one of these babies.
Being a scientist, I use highly sensitive heating tools (water baths, incubators, immersion circulators) every day at work. I would love the opportunity to experiment with my food in a similar way at home.
After the typical, "I'll try all kinds of things" phase, I think it would be very fun to create a 3 or 4 course meal using sous-vide for visiting guests. Often I find myself worrying about the upcoming courses and can't fully relax with my guests. This would allow everyone to relax at the table and enjoy our time together, simply pulling out the next course, plating and saucing it (and quickly searing if necessary).
Using a cooking tool to better enjoy the company of others, that sounds wonderful.
Eggs. Every possible way of making eggs.
I would use it to to cook delicious dinners without needed to keep such a firm eye on the clock (or stovetop) once my baby arrives in 12 days. And it would definitely generate a blog post.
I've held off getting a water oven because of the size, but this is perfect! I'd use it to pasteurize eggs in shell so my relatives would feel comfortable eating some of my dishes and I think I would experiment with tempering chocolate using the precise temperature control. I can envision putting chocolate in vac bags and dropping them in and having them be ready when I am. I also have been dying to try three day short ribs!
I would love to add this to my kitchen arsenal.
Thanks for the giveaway!
mmm... all this talk of perfectly poached eggs has me really hungry. I would take one of my homemade english muffins (loved the recipe, thanks!), break it open with a fork and toast it, poach an egg in the new circulator, fry up some beautiful canadian bacon, pull together a hollandaise, and build some eggs benedict for my wife (her favorite breakfast).
two words: sous-vide marshmellows. goodbye candy thermometer.
I'd love to try using it to cook our local goat, which can be pretty tough and would probably benefit from a long, slow cook.
But mostly I think I'd use it to teach my daughter patience, and maybe to torture her just a little. I'm imagining her asking "isn't dinner ready yet?" for 3 days running and it makes me smile inside.
And I do have a US mailing address.
Beyond the basics of braising tough cuts of meat, or poaching meat and fish, I would like to experiment with cooking vegetables and fruits. Infusing flavors into the food through the slow cooking without losing flavor at all. Also, balantine and galatines. Maybe terrines in general, poached slowly so there is less of a chance of a broken emulsion. That would be great. Ooo, corned beef and pastrami. Can you imagine the tender brisket melting in your mouth after cooking for 72 hours. Put it on some good rye bread with mustard. That sounds great.
1. I will cook through the entire Under Pressure book. This will take heroic measures, but I am prepared to face up to the task.
2. I will use the device to facilitate a dietary experiment designed around the teachings of Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades.
3. I will sign up for a local, pasture-raised meat CSA intended for four people and attempt to eat all the meat myself by cooking everything sous vide.
A dream come true! Where to begin? For me, this comes down to major convenience. Set it and forget it (for 3 days!). It would be like a hot tub for the 1/4 grass fed and finished cow in my freezer. Cook a whole prime rib to perfect medium rare. Sounds fabulous. Thanks for offering.
Turkey, eggs, any kind of pork? Or maybe somehow make all of those together!
I would love to win this for my husband! He is a huge foodie and has been wanting one of these for a while. We went to Alinea a few years ago and that experience really got him on a creative kick.
Thanks for the giveaway! Beef brisket, couple hours of smoke and then a few days with the circulator.... hmmm
As an avid griller/BBQer, I am slightly embarrassed to say I would be most excited to do steaks in one of these bad boys, with a quick sear at the end.
I saw some beautiful skate at the market the other day, it brought to mind a technique I read about lacquered skate wing. Cooked in fumet, shocked, portioned, breaded then pan fried. I always wanted to try it and just for good measure maybe a braised pork belly how could I resist. I could go on and on with recipes I'd love to try Kellers corned beef tonge, ice cream base... But ill try not to get ahead of my self let's just say that wondeful piece of machine will get put to good use.
A tasting menu based on variations of the one minute egg.
I live abroad so might not be valid for the competition 🙁
However, one of the first things I want to try is the ultimate poached fruit cheesecake.
After all its just a custard so all I really need to do to create the perfect (flour free) cheese cake is fill the ramekins with the right standing custard ratio, freeze and then bag and cook probably around 90 degrees. To make things Interesting I want to incorporate fruit into the custard (strawberries sound good).
I am completely enthralled by Sous Vide and have been since discovering the idea. If I could have a do over I would go back to culinary school and enter the food world! Alas... since that is not possible I would settle for adding this to my Culinary home arsenal!!!
I would try some of the wonderful ideas cooked up by Keller and Achatz and then start experimenting on my own! Who knows maybe some Buffalo short ribs are in my future!??
My wife and brand new baby girl would love it! 🙂
Thanks for all you do in the culinary world Ruhlman! I have enjoyed your musings here and writings in your books immensely!
This would be a great addition to our kitchen! Please?
Thanks!
I would incorporate sous vide cooking with my BBQ. For instance, start sous vide then lightly smoke for a bit. I also would like to experiment with various confit preparations. And I've been thinking about playing with the various "odd" parts of the pig: trotters, cheeks, belly, etc. This would be the perfect tool for such experimentation.
Considering my limited experience, I can only vaguely imagine the numerous experiments I'd want to try with this. But really, what makes me want it is this... Last new year's one of our local chefs offered a sous vide rack of venison. It was the first time I'd ever had anything cooked in this style and it was simply amazing. If I could come even close to recreating something like it at home, I would be a ridiculously happy camper.
I have all of your books and have given them as Christmas presents in the past!!!
I would use this in two different ways. First, I think I would use this exactly as intended, to cook meat and other proteins the right way. It's something I've always wanted to do, trying to get just the right texture and doneness on my meat but have never quite managed to achieve.
But the other way I would use it would be to get all sorts of creative. I'm an engineer by trade and I've been having a discussion recently with cooking friends of mine about whether you could put chocolate in a vacuum sealed bag and use an immersion circulator to temper the chocolate if you squeezed the bag every now and then with tongs or the like. I figure that you could set the circulator to the first melting point (91 or something like that, if I recall correctly), drop the chocolate in the water, then once it's all melted, drop the temperature down a bit in the circulator, then bring it back up again and voila! Tempered chocolate.
It's just a theory, but I would love to put it into practice. This is what happens when you put an engineer in the kitchen. I'm sure I'll think of some other creative ways to use it too.
I had some "so-good-your-head-explodes" short ribs at Todd Gray's restaurant Equinox here in DC a couple of months ago. He prepared them using sous vide technique with vegetables and vinegars. Amazing. Since my wife is exceedingly fond of short ribs, if I win I'll first attempt to recreate Gray's dish. After that, I think I'd explore pork barbecue and mexican preparations.
I haven't tried this kind of cooking before, but if I won this tool I'd educate myself as much as possible and then just experiment a lot. What fun!
I'm really interested in seeing how it compares to my pressure cooker and dutch oven in terms of texture and favor. I think the American public (no thanks to Julia Childs) is so used to caramelization on meat that we've lost the flavors of the meat itself. Short Ribs (per your example) are a great place to start on a bed of Parsnip puree with basil salsa verde.
I'd also be really interested to see how it handles poaching fruits with spices for desserts and cocktails. Hmmmmm.....
mutton, and goat. just when the kids get tired of the cute baby animals they are perfect for the immersion circulator.
Since I'm a food freak, I am quite disappointed that I have yet to mess around with such a tool. I've eaten sous vide meat before and it is pretty outrageously delicious. If I win, I will take to my blog and experiment with the immersion circulator, study from under pressure and become and immersion circulation freak and document the recipes on my blog fr others to get inspired. Thanks for the opportunity, love your work!
The Food Freak
Thefoodfreak@gmail.com
Thefoodfreak.com
This is the most awesome creation since bacon chocolate chip cookies! I'm an amateur foodie and would love to be the first on my block (subdivision, city...) to use one of these. Think you could slow cook ham and greens with it?!
SAY! I like sous vide green eggs and ham!
I do, I do
Ruhl-I-Man
I think that would not be too haute
To even try them with some goat...
And I might even put some brain.
Yes, in a bag. For a main.
And oh, some duck. Why not confit?
It is sous vide, sous vide, you see!
Can you use it to make lox?
Or pork belly? Yes, several blocks.
In that bag will go a grouse.
And I will share it with my spouse.
And I will eat use it here and there.
Say! I will make sous vide poached pear!
I want sous vide green eggs and ham.
So help me
Help me
Ruhl-I-Man
My goal with sous vide cooking is to really explore the science side of the cooking method to achieve fantistic results. Also, I am a super lazy engineer-type so anything where I can put cheap meats into a bag and leave the cooking up to the machine for a few days is a bonus.
Awesome giveaway. Getting ready to remodel our kitchen. This would make a great addition ant the opportunity to learn a new cooking technique.
I would definitely do 63 degree eggs all the time, and would love to put lamb in a bag loaded with aromatics for a delicious and tender, perfect bite...
I've had Keller's book for a bit now and have been trying to save up the $ for a circulator! Bathing terrines to try to get the perfect texture, a new way to use the venison I've been saving in the freezer, the best duck confit of my life?! I'd run up my electric bill from the use I'd get out of this thing!
I would use it in a quest to make you (yes YOU, Ruhlman) appreciate the produce on which you so callously cast aspersions. Green bell peppers, chard stems, zucchini. Any other fruits or vegetables on your shit list? Let me at 'em. You send me the circulator, and I will take it as my personal mission in life to take your list of hated foods, and use that miracle of modern culinary science to turn them into something you'll love. While I'm at it, I may even whip up a sous vide chicken caesar. When I am successful, you will be invited to my home to taste the fruits (pardon the ghastly pun) of my labors. You will then publicly rescind your hatred of said produce. Sound like a plan?
In my basement sits a chest freezer that has slowly been filled with all kinds of fun and intersting stuff. I've got goat meat, lamb shanks, baby octupus, rabbbit loins, ducks, phesant, venison, elk loin, pork belly, and a couple of goose breasts. There are probably other things lurking in there as well. Having this immersion circulator would provide me with a fun and exciting way to use up all this meat (not that it wouldn't have gotten used anyway). I'd probably even blog about it, which I think would be very entertaining and given that some of my bounty is from friends and family that hunts, I think they would love to see their stuff being cooked in a new and exciting way.
Wow, winning this will *definitely* push my limits in cooking beyond what I have every tried before!
If I win, I will try sous vide'ing every vegetable imaginable. I always see and hear so much about people sous vide'ing meat, but really interested to see what interesting textures and flavors could be achieved in our plantier foods.
I would use the immersion circulator to perfect the burger, something that has been a goal of mine for some time now that few seem to realize is a possibility. Start low and slow in the water bath and sear it on a rocket hot cast iron skillet handed down from my grandmother. Not innovative I suppose, though comforting and delicious.
ooooo this is way fancier than my cooler/digital therm setup. short ribs, fish, steak, chicken, chops . . hmm gettin' hungry just thinkin' about it.
ooooo this is way fancier than my cooler and digital therm setup. short ribs, fish, steak, chicken, chops . . hmm getting hungry just thinkingabout it.
I think it would be a great way to teach my kids more about the science of cooking. What works well with this technique - and what doesn't. I can already see some spectacular failures in dessert with this! All part of the fun.
beef, pork, and chicken. and possibly breast milk. for the baby, not for me. although i have to say, i don't hate giving it a tongue test, if you know what i mean.
I would like try a milk braised pork shoulder, turkey or duck confit for some killer mac and cheese, and curried salmon. Here's hoping!
I can only dream of the wonderful magic of having this and my upcoming berkshire hog (Picture Homer Simpson drooling.) being slaughtered at the beginning of the new year (thank you Beau Ramsburg - shameless plug ) .
I think this would be a great for multi-tasking. I could warm up the kiddie bath for my infant son to the perfect temperature and finish off the medium rare duck for dinner at the same time.
I would use this for perfect hard and soft boiled eggs...braised lamb shanks...the possibilities are endless
Trying to cook healthy meals after a 12 hour work day is just so hard... I could prep in advance, come home and have dinner waiting. I would experiment with combinations for one-dish (one-pouch?) meals and since my husband and I like different things to eat, this would be perfect - beef and salmon dinners, all at once. I have been watching these machines and want to get one when the price comes down and the technology tightens up.
What an amazing giveway! I would sooo bring this to school and amaze my 8th grade students!
This has lesser cuts written all over it! Cheeks, oxtail, short ribs, gizzards, trotters. All of my favorite things to eat. Pick ME!
I would love to try this out!
All I can say is I would put it good use as well as use it to encourage my 7 year old's interest in science and food.
mmmmmmmmmm short ribs mmmmmmmmmmm
I attended the "modern Thanksgiving" class at Williams Sonoma and they used this product! I hadn't hear of it before that and I was really excited to see them make the turkey. I would start by re-creating the sous vide turkey and take it from there.
Thanks for the chance to win!
prizpriz@gmail.com
I'd bake with it. Give me a moment to explain. Many people, most in fact, like the crust of the bread or the edge brownies. My girlfriend and her family do not. It's the soft crustless interior that is for them. Imagine, perfect white bread with no crust! English tea-style cucumber sandwiches without all the waste! Brownies that are nothing but soft crumbly interior. Much experimentation would have to happen before this would work but I'm almost certain I could do it. I'd even photo-blog the whole process.
I would like to improve my short ribs!
If I win I plan to use it to create a major power outage in Cleveland. Traffic lights across city go dark as I blissfully make a confit of moulard duck four gras.
I would use the immersion circulator to make perfect eggs, steaks, and duck confit with less fat than usual--reducing my cost.
I have been using an old extra deep roasting pan with candy thermometer. What would I do? Aside from the obvious chuck tail flap and pork shoulder, how about some pineapple slices with french vermouth or milk poaching guinea hens.
Awesome...I'd use that baby to finally spread the sous vide word up here in NH! I've had experience with the older model and cant wait to show my colleagues up here how to utilize this great technique and push the limits in the scene around me! We have so many great producers here and to treat their product with the respect it deserves is my main goal. You're a generous man Ruhlman...
I would use this fantastic device as an ode to Sir Benjamin Thompson and his early work in thermodynamics... That or I would just make some damn good food and brag about it a lot.
experiments are fun!!!
The non-innovative but actual answer: eggs. We will sous vide so many eggs. And meat of course. The stab at innovative: I would promise to try the turkey cooked in duck fat a la these guys: http://www.cookingissues.com/2009/11/25/turkey-time-part-3-how-to-cook-it/#more-2600. Well, maybe.
Oh the ways I would use that fantastic little machine! I'd torture my husband and little boys with an endless variety of delicious flavor. Actually it'd be fun to spoil the husband as with his constant cycle of deployments, he's missed out on so much.
Fish. I would love to experiment with fish, and definitely some veg as well to see what I can do with the texture.
How much fun would it be to play with eggs - to cook them to 140 degrees, then 150 degrees, and every temperature in between? To know, from experience, what difference just one degree makes? I'm sure it's been done, but I have to try it. And beef. And pork. All those cuts that are braised low and slow forever... what do they taste like on their own?
I've always wanted to try sous vide! I think my first foray into the medium would be simple duck breasts, maybe for a nice duck salad with a citrus-y wild rice.
Organic chemistry was, perhaps, the worst course of my academic careeer. Cooking organic, sous vide, has the potential to produce one of my best courses--perhaps the third or fourth.
It would be great to vacuum seal a meal, leave it in the immersion circulator before I head off to work, and then have a perfectly cooked dinner waiting for me when I get home.
With a baby on the way, I would use it to cook and then freeze reheatable meals for the first few sleep-deprived weeks... And then when the kiddo is old enough, to cook meats and veg to purée for him or her.
I would love to experiment , maybe bring it into the restaurant where I work. I know about Sous vide but have never tried it. I already own a vacuum sealer
I'd use it to try out some new experiments in the kitchen. But, more importantly, I could use it to ensure (to my wife's delight, I'm sure) that the meat (be it chicken or beef) is definitely cooked through to the right temperature!
My foodie children and I would like to explore our family's traditional recipes with sous vide - grandmother preserved everything, especially multipurpose foods like slow-cooked beef, homemade sausage, salted fish and of course autumn fruits and vegetables that would winter over. Like grandmother, though, frugality prevents purchase, so you are my only hope! LOL.
Holy living crap... I don't think the question is so much what would I do with it, as what WOULDN'T I do with it. That list is far less expansive, and perhaps a bit less risqué.
I'm gonna dip my balls in it! OK not really, but I had to drop The State reference. I'm gonna get my pescatarian wife to start eating steak and chicken because I know how damn well these things turn out that stuff.
I'd love the opportunity to use this piece of equipment as an instructional tool to help teach over 800 students across MS enrolled in ProStart, the NRA's culinary arts/restaurant management curriculum. To be competitive and learn the techniques of industry innovators at such an early age would propel my students to greater heights and perhaps convince more high school students of the bona fide career paths offered in the culinary/foodservice world. (State education budgets preclude any school here in purchasing such a tool). Thanks in advance for the consideration.
Organic chemistry was, perhaps, the worst course of my academic careeer. Cooking organic, sous vide, has the potential to produce one of my best courses--perhaps the third or fourth, just after the soup.
I would use it for three things:
1. Low-Temp Pasteurization for my canning and pickling projects, which are varied and many
2. If I can find the bags to fit, I'm going to conft tons of fresh hams. I pit-cook whole hogs.. the hams are such a bitch to get right consistently. If I had this thing I would bag the hams with drippings from the rest of the hog and confit them, then mix in with the rest of my pulled pork!
3. Onsen Tomago for breakfast every day for the rest of my life!
First step, purchase Under Pressure. Second step, introduce it to my daughter who is studying culinary management.
After being laid off last year i took it as an opportunity to explore another career option and started working in a kitchen. While ultimately I opted for to go back to a career that allowed me to pay my bills on time and see my friends and family, I'm now armed with all of these new skills and techniques that i can't put to use at home! Two things I desperately want at home: a deep fryer and an immersion circulator. I have been trying the beer cooler/DIY sous-vide method for things taking less than two hours, but am itching to do things requiring longer cooking times - such throwing in pork cheeks or belly in for 12 hours. At the restaurant, we would cook our corned beef sous-vide, and I'm very anxious to give that a go at home! And, oddly enough, I'm really excited to do more with vegetables and fruits with the device. Basically, having trouble thinking of what I wouldn't do with it!
I've never used one of these, so i don't have a specific plan in mind. But I'd love to have one, and I'm a reasonably good, experimental home cook so I'm sure I'd dream up something good!
First things thing first: boneless beef short ribs cooked forever in red wine and topped with bordelaise sauce.
After that? Mutton shoulder (lamb if I can't get it) with infinite rosemary. Goat in spicy tomato sauce, I love the flavor of long-cooked tomatoes. Duck confit without having to purchase/save up tons of duck fat ahead of time. Sweet/spicy duck breast, medium-rare with lots of star anise and chilis. Steaks, perfectly rare steaks, 125 F, all the time, every time, finished on the grill for just a moment.
I'm not sure where it would go, but dammit, there will be space for it! *drool*
I would use this for anything I can that would work well in it, and probably some things that may not work so well. I've seen so much about these wonderful contraptions and I would love to have one for myself. Thank you for the chance to win!!
I'd love to be able to cook sous vide at home and you can make it happen Michael!
Thanks and have a safe and happy holiday!
Two words: Mangalitsa belly.
You truly inspire me and I love the blog. More importantly, my wife went to Duke. That's gotta count for something right? 😉
I'm a student at Wesleyan university, and have been cobbling together a group of foodies to eat together every couple of weeks. I wowed them with my ghetto sous-vide preparation of slow-poached eggs, but would love to take it to the next level with this machine. I'd really like to get into sousvide'd rabbit next.
Michael,
Everytime you write about Mangalista pork you get my mouth watering. If I win, I'll get on the horn and order some pig parts from your friends at Mosefund Farm. I'll cure some (my father daughter tradition) and sous vide the rest.
How would I use it? Both my husband and I work full time and we have 2 small kids. Dinner needs to be on the table by 6 or hell breaks loose. I would use this a couple of times a week to make awesome meals - we could have a roast going all day, or short ribs going for 2-3 days. Chicken and veggies together - start it when we walk in the door, play with the kids, do homework and have a complete meal ready in an hour. Think of the possibilities! We could buy larger cuts or protien, spend some weekend time preparing and vacuum sealing and freezing them. Then during the stressfull week just throw the frozen packets in and enjoy a nice family dinner. And since eggs are a staple in our house (see above about the need for quick meals) sous vide eggs opens up a host of new ways to try them. Finally, let's be honest; I would cook just about anything/everything we buy at the NUFM sous vide - maybe it would get the kids (and me!) to eat new veggies!
Perfectly cooked steaks, poached eggs(breakfast of champions!), I wonder if you could make a roux sous vide?
Oh wow. What WOULDN'T I use it for? Fish, scallops, burgers, steak, chicken, veggies, maybe even some seitan an tofu. Brilliant machine.
Yummy food!
I would be able to stop using my stock pot and a digital thermometer while carefully adjusting the heat and adding cold water to control the temperature.
I was planning on building a DIY version during my holiday break. I'd much rather have the real thing. Sounds a lot safer than me, water, electricity and a soldering gun.
My 3rd grader and I spend Sunday's cooking recipes from cookbooks like The French Laundry, Le Bernardin, and Bouchon. We have the Alinea cookbook, but we haven't really done as much with that because several recipes call for cooking sous vide. This machine would open that world.
I love Mr. Keller's restaurants and this machine would allow us to purchase Under Pressure and start working through that book as well.
I guess to sum it up best, that sous vide machine would open up a whole new world of opportunities on Sunday afternoons beyond the amazing food I'm sure it can produce. And the 3rd grader wants you to know that this would make sure her steak is medium rare and not "still alive" (her term for rare which is the way I cook it).
No worries, she still puts ketchup on a hot dog. She'll learn.
Looks like the perfect gear for Coq au vin and Boeuf Bourguignon!
I'm really looking forward to winning this fine piece of equipment. Short ribs and pork belly for starters. Chicken to be fried. Brisket...mmmm.
I would love to be able to give this amazing gadget to my Dad! He is an avid cook and foodie (as is our whole family-- we always joke that the only thing we can do together without fighting is cook and eat!), and loves experimenting, trying new techniques, etc. Recently we blow-torched a prime rib, a la Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc technique, and it was awesome. He would absolutely flip his lid if I somehow won this thing for him!
Besides using it to cook a myriad of perfect dinners I would use to achieve the perfect water temperature for a facial - a multi-tasking machine!
Set it and forget it takes on a whole new meaning with one of these. Sign me up! Thanks and happy holidays.
I am worthy. Pick me.
I am going to use it for a weekend long epsom salt foot bath.
No one can deny that is an innovative use
Oh man, this thing is awesome. I've been lusting after one for ages.
I guess there are so many recipes I would like to try out - from lamb chops to creme brulee. But ultimately, it's the idea that sous vide makes time management easier while ensuring very delicious food that gets to me. Making GREAT food for friends is what makes this doubly awesome. Getting would be a big kick start to my underground dinners.
Eggs first then 48 hr short ribs, then everything else.
I would definitely be buying pork belly from the local butcher and fattening myself up for the holidays!
I was thinking of using immersion cooking turkey next year in parts instead of doing the whole big Norman Rockwell thing. This'd be perfect.
This is a true cooking geek giveaway. Even serious home cooks are hesitant to drop major coin to try a product. This would effectively change the way I cook for my family. Hook it up!!!
I've always wanted to play with one of these. It would be an incredible gift to win.
First, I would use this machine to finally perfect cooking with pork, which I am never able to consistently get to the sweet spot. I would probably use it in combination with other cooking techniques to create perfectly cooked but barely seared meats. Finally, and most importantly, I would convert my fish tank over to extremophiles! http://bit.ly/hNuZSD
Holy moley. Well, I'm a brisket guy. And the idea of making a medium-rare brisket is pretty appealing to me. So I would use this for brisket, and serve sous-vide brisket to my co-workers for work bbqs. Then I'd move on to some of the other traditional bbq meats. Pork butt. Short ribs. But in the few beer-cooler experiments that I've done with sous-vide, I have had a lot of success with fish. So fish would be a regular weeknight event.
Oh Boy!!! (i will pay shipping)...I would put the unit on a specially placed wheeling island where I will prepare to cook pigs feet (trotters) so that I may finally make a Petchah that I hope will rival the one my mother-in-law used to make. Of course she didn't use pigs feet but i have read that upon buying three (now in my freezer) I can indeed make petchah from them. Alternatively I should I not win I will be making the Pork Trotter Roulade from a recipe off Starchefs.com
Now how's that for a girl who never ever thought of making anything pork until her 40's?
our passion is education...and the residents of applebee's country are dying for us to bring a little more fun into their lives! four years ago tapas...last year charcuterie...2011...sous vide!!!
I would cook ox tail and trotters perfectly and incorporate into cassoulet. Generally when I incorporate things like this the beans end up losing their consistency before the meat is done.
I would cook more pork belly and shortribs. If my wife would let me I would use it for perfect temperature baby bath!
I would obviously use it to make the perfect steak au poivre to keep my wife happy! Once that has been achieved I'd move into experimenting with fish, eggs and various poultry. I think wild game would be a fun challenge to master with this.
Cheers!
I would start with the favorites - pork belly, short ribs, etc, but then I would try to get more creative with fruits and vegetables. If there is the right kind of watertight container, I bet you could make some incredible custards as well.
I may become a mad food scientist and never leave my kitchen!
Poaching the batch of cotechino I stuffed over the weekend. Milk/whey poached cuts of pork and veal. Eggs.
I run a small little cheese shop with my wife and we recently starting serving lunch. We have a teeny kitchen and no hood, so cooking meat has been out of the question. With a sous-vide machine we would be able to positively up the ante on our menu, all the while singing the praises of our very generous benefactor!
Wylie Dufresne's wonderful velvety eggs! Been making them the hard way by monitoring the water temperature and turning the gas on and off as needed. With one of these I could work through more of 'Under Pressure'.
Steaks and more steaks.
I'm currently a line cook at a great restaurant that uses multiple circulators to cook everything from vegetables to 48 hour wagyu short ribs, fresh bacon, and even sausages,made with mangalista fatback, that could be cubed and seared off to nice finish. I would love to experiment at home, as I am actively seeking my own kitchen to run, which may not be up to speed with this great technology!
"I would make Porchetta Di Testa, herbed and delicious pigs head perfectly cooked with the aid of an immersion circulator."
I would use it to make nearly every recipe in Under Pressure, which I bought in June (and use w/the rigger cooker), as well as some puddings and other desserts!
I've been watching them use those for years on TV. This would make a most excellent Christmas present, and it won't put my eye out.
Hmmm....eggs, lobster-mac-cheese, fish, PORK!!!!. And would be a big help with cooking time management.
I think beyond the obvious of many much meats, I have a new baby who is approaching the age of getting to eat food instead of just nursing. So we could cook up a ton of veggies and such for him. Also I think I could use it to help in propagating yeasts for brewing beer.
I think I'd start with the meats and then go on to veggies and desserts after that. Actually, I'd probably go off from the Ideas in Food and studiokitchen blogs as they're doing all sorts of interesting flavour combos.
After perfecting short ribs on both the cook-top and oven, I would love the challenge of a new technique/appliance.
First, I would take it with me to California when I start my first semester at the Culinary Institute of America- Greystone and be the coolest kid at school! Then I would experiment with the broad range of amazing ingredients out there in the Valley... I desperately want to try fruit in the sous vide, or perhaps macaroni and cheese? Of course I want to make hundreds (if not thousands) of perfectly cooked eggs and amazingly tender cuts of meat. PS- your books helped lead me to the CIA and down the path of writing/cooking. Thanks!
mmmm, pork chops. I know that's a rather lame response, but the bar down the road (yep, that's right...the local bar just steps from my doorway...I'm a lucky girl) cooks thick, local chops sous vide and they are soooo meltingly tender!
I actually tried doing a poor man's sous vide awhile back, with a ziploc and manually regulating water temperature by adding ice water. It turned out alright, but I'm sure I couldn't keep the temperature stable enough for optimal results.
One of the main reasons I want a legitimate sous vide setup is so that I can vacuum seal items ahead of time, then my wife (who doesn't really cook, and won't touch raw meat) can toss them in the water bath while I'm at work. Once I get home, I can toss the meat onto a hot pan to finish it up, and boom, we've got dinner ten minutes later.
Not even having any real sous vide experience, I've already sold my dad on the idea, too. He's gone from "so, you're boiling it?" to actively looking for vacuum sealers and immersion circulators at yard sales for me. I'd like to relieve him of this task.
-Justin
What to do with it besides *everything* in this book?:
http://amzn.com/1579653510
Wow. Happy as I am with my Sous Vide Supreme, my heart still longs for an immersion circulator...
That's a thing of beauty. It'd make the Momofuku hanger steak recipe a lot easier, too.
great minds? see my post 2 below yours. good luck!
I'd use it to cook delicious food for my wife and family
my brother did a version of David Chang's Momofuku Hanger Steak with a rigged up cooler -- came out really well, but would love to try and make it using true sous vide technique and equipment. here's hoping!
This will be a great winter (and summer) alternative to the char of the grill.
Medium rare chicken breasts with perfectly crisp skin, all the time. 140 degrees or thereabouts for however long it takes to sterilize them.
Ditto squab.
Not sure about confit, since I enjoy dealing with the huge pots of fat, but definitely any and all tough cuts of meat, with experiments with galantines and boned-out whole birds.
Would sausages work? Seems like a perfect way to never violate the Ruhlman rule of overcooking sausages.
Although it's tough to compete with someone teaching kids to cook...
One thing I'd use it for is to freak out my in-laws, who, when I met them, might have been the least adventurous eaters on the planet. They are better than they used to be but still a work in progress.
Mad science. Need I say more?
Steaks, Ribs, Turkey, eggs.... EVERYTHING!
One word: eggs.
Vegetable cookery, shrimp with basil and garlic, mushroom stock.
It would be just one more way to spend endless hours in the kitchen sharing with family and friends. Thank you for the chance.
Seafood!
I would definitely do its maiden voyage preparing poached eggs and lutefisk -- but not together.
I'm sure it would see lots of eggs and pork belly and, most likely, next Thanksgiving's turkey. And between meals it would be perfect for holding the 102 degree water bath I need to develop color film.
Brisket, short ribs, and I would buy your book of course 🙂
I'd be cookin' anything that moved...or well, used to move.
I've played a bit with some home-made iterations of Sous Vide, but having something that wasn't prone to burning down my little kitchen would be pretty cool.
I am new to immersion cooking and this would beat any homemade contraption. I can make.
I would give it to my daughter who is a wonderful cook and more innovative than I.
Just in time for the holidays, I'd cook reindeer.
I'd use it to play with new ingredients to be used in sushi and maki. The immersion circulator would let me play with new texture and flavor combinations that would be much harder to achieve without the machine.
Hello Mr. Ruhlman ,
I'm a current student at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY.
I for one have admired your dedication to the persuit of culinary awareness and teaching.
I love what you are doing and continue to support you're work through the purchase of book and most recently the iPhone app (save my life multiple times).
I would love to obtain the sous vide machine but currently do not have the means of purchasing one.
During my externship (in Chicago) used it and learned how to operate it. I find it to be one of the most interesting,if not, the most innovative inventions in our time.
I humbly ask you to consider me as a possible candidate in receiving the machine.
I will use it to continue my persuit of understanding and appreciating both local, sustainable ingredient.
It wil be both an amazing birthday/Christmas/graduating present. 🙂
Thank you
My goal for the new year is to learn to cook duck in different ways, starting with the confit so highly recommended at this website. The sous vide would be a great technique to move onto after that. Also, the idea of perfectly gelatinous scallops appeals to me, although, maybe I should just eat them raw for that. But what about an egg? Would the 65-degree egg work?
http://discovermagazine.com/2006/feb/cooking-for-eggheads/article_view?b_start:int=1&-C=
I'm a poor, poor culinary student who would love to have this Sous Vide Immersion Circulator. In school our instructor has a circulator, it was part of our curriculum and we done a few recipes using this device (pork belly, pork tenderloin, fennel, apples and maple cured smoked bacon). I included this process in my mid-term cooking exam. It's perfect for cooking meat, then all you need to do is sear the cut of meat before plating. I really like the way it cooks vegetables. Locking in all the flavours, keeping colours bright, and using very little oil. Keeping fingers crossed in Canada.
It'd be a perfect present for my husband, who loves to experiment in the kitchen and makes dinner every night for me and our 1-year-old daughter. I foresee lots of perfect short ribs, poached eggs, stock... I honestly don't know what his brilliant mind will come up with, but I know I want to eat it.
I've rigged up my own with a simmer burner, a big cast iron pot, and a Taylor thermometer to cook steak (and it was fantastic) but with this baby I'll cook everything in it.
I can't say I have any original ideas other than to cook delicious meals for my family and blog about it.
I'd like to develop methods of cooking leaner cuts of meat such as wild venison and bison that, using traditional methods, can be dry and lifeless. I'm thinking that combining pre-seasoning, (à la Judy Rodgers), healthy liquid fats and suos vide could make a big difference.
I would do a cooking demo at work (Hubspot.com). Where we have plenty of people interested in food, but no other cooking appliances. It's Science applied to food, what could be better!?
Carnitas!
Oh, I might be inclined to long cook an octopus, whole, and then throw him on the grill with some mint and balsamic. Y'know, maybe spatch-cock some game hens and souvide 'em with soy and sambal only to subsequently flash fry ‘em and serve over a ginger-cucumber salad. And what of dessert you ask? Elementary my dear Ruhlman, espresso braised lamb shanks.
I'm a pastry chef in Dallas and am looking to create some amazing new sous vide desserts! First, I'm am about to take a molecular gastronomy course at the Notter School, and second, trying to find a way to get some super high tech equipment that isn't in the budget this year! I would use this ALL THE TIME!
RIBS! STEAK! EGGS!
My inlaws would also be freaked out if this showed up in my kitchen. They already think I have too many gadgets, as they are graduates of the Minimal Instrumentation School of Cooking. What they don't realize is everything has a function capable of making one's life easier and more delicious! I can't wait to figure out what my favorite use of this contraption might be!
As a FT working mom and basketball coach for both of my boys I have to get dinner on the table in short order on a regular basis. It would be great to have an updated 'crock-pot'! Good think I love to cook because my family LOVES to eat!
Seems perfect to warm up some leftover carryout.
My goal for the new year is to learn to cook duck in different ways, starting with the confit so highly recommended at this website. The sous vide would be a great technique to move onto after that. Also, the idea of perfectly gelatinous scallops appeals to me, although, maybe I should just eat them raw for that. But what about an egg? Would it make the perfect 65-degree egg?
Sorry! I didn't mean to post twice, it just didn't seem to work the first time! Please notify the Karma Police, it was an honest mistake.
I would cook from 'Under Pressure' and 'Alinea' the right way instead of my lame ziploc in boiling water attempts (which still tasted pretty good, but lets be honest here... lame!)
got beat to the mad science, and to carnitas, so I'll just mix the two and say "Mad Carnitas!"
My husband has been after me to add this technique to my bag of kitchen tricks and as I am a very busy mom this beautiful piece of kitchen gadgetry would be of immense help to me. I am frequently out of the house for long periods of time taking/retrieving children from rehearsals, classes and performances preventing me from preparing foods for my family that are time sensitive in nature. With this little beauty my time dilema would be solved and my culinary creations would be endless!
Could this be used to melt chocolate without getting it over 90 degrees? I've been dying to try sous vide sweet potatoes that are super-sweet.
I would love to do pork - and maybe attempt duck confit!
My best bud Arlene and I saw this beauty in action at a Williams Sonoma demo. We're both HUGE fans of your TFL cookbooks -- own them and geeked out and got TK to sign them on his last tour. She's the better cook by far, but those cookbooks have taught me better than a classroom could. Arlene works in retail but dreams of a career in the food and wine industry. I can't think of a beeter gift for her, and maybe, just maybe, it would be e final impetus to find a job she truly loved! And I'm not gonna lie...I would reap the rewards of being the sous chef and taster!
As baby #1 is on the way, it will make our lives so much easier! I mean, yes, of course, I will cook all manner of delicious eggs, and steaks, and chickens, and want to see about using it for various custards and ice cream bases, not to mention some larger cuts like standing rib roasts, but it will also be a huge help, allowing us to get meat cooked perfectly, sometimes over the course of a day or two even, while I am busy at work and the wife and newborn are otherwise occupied.
Well since my eggs and/or pig... will be in vacuum sealed bags maybe I can use it as a small hot tub as well 😉 - hmm... maybe I've been reading too much ruth bourdain.
I'm sure I could find a way to make some tricked out lunches for my daughter to take to school. Modern day bag lunch!
I cant wait to try this out for big family gatherings around the holidays.
Massive amounts of pork as well as any veggies growing in my garden.
Eggs and bacon!
I would use the sous vide machine to try my hand at perfect pork bellies. I've had them at restaurants but have never been able to perfect it at home. Every time I've asked, they've explained it's because they cook it sous vide for 24 hours before searing it.
My wife's back to school after being laid off, and cooking at night for my two kids while she's away has become boring because there isn't time to cook like I'd like. I'd use it in my endeavor to experiment with cooking meals ahead of time on the weekends. I think we'd all eat better for it.
We hosted a Momofuku inspired dinner party. During our planning, I held up the page with David Chang's "ghetto sous vide.". My wife's reply: "fuhgeddaboudit!". I haven't!
All of the above!
Oh, I might be inclined to long cook an octopus, whole, and then throw him on the grill with some mint and garlic. Y'know, maybe spatch-cock some game hens and souvide 'em with soy and sambal only to subsequently flash fry ‘em and serve over a ginger-cucumber salad. And what of dessert you ask? Elementary my dear Ruhlman, espresso braised lamb shanks.
Were I to win I would sous vide every fish and fowl and vegetable and fruit I could lay my greedy little fingers on.
7-Bone roast ftw
I would use it to keep my husband busy in the kitchen while I relax on the couch with a nice glass of wine.
Sous vide corned beef for the St Patty's day. Seems like a great way to keep all the flavor in the meat.
Bang off: Eggs and ribs. Then maybe eggs again. Then more meat. But then! I would probably start experimenting with fruit/veg for cocktail ingredients.
I would dip my balls in it (after I wash out the stock pot, of course): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR1hI_Ikuv8
and then I would cook all things pig.
I think it's about time I gave one a shot..
1. boudin blanc
2. carrots
3.pork belly
4.apples
5. beef cheek
I really want this thing. Send to Chicago!
Cooking salmon to a custard-like consistency.
Make things out of cookbooks authored by Michael Ruhlman.
Perfectly temped meats. Eggs. Buttered potatoes!
Aside from all kinds of meat and poached eggs, the first thing I would do is try to recreate the sous vide bok choy with cashew butter I had at Blue Hill a few years ago. It was one of the best vegetable dishes I've ever had
Thanks for the chance to win such an awesome piece of kitchen equipment
God, I miss Coventry. I hope my old house is as kind to its present inhabitants as it it was for us. Were I to win, I'm stocking the freezer with Mangalista Pork and Sous Viding the shoulder and belly. Then I'm giong to win the next BLT from scratch competition.
Oh man the possibilities are endless: perfect poached eggs, edge-to-edge medium rare meats, food experiments (like cooking things in off-the-wall liquids like Cheerwine), and adding to my usual bouts of "Honey look how awesome this food gadget is!!" *indifferent gaze*
Sure, there are the usual cooking applications. Flavorful, multi-day braises. Eggs. Perfect steaks. All that.
Then there are some of the more experimental possibilities, such as seeing how a relatively constant temperature will affect extractions from vanilla extract to coffee.
Aside from all of that, I'd like to use it to thaw meats quickly and safely (who needs the constant drip-drip of the sink when we can circulate), and to see if I can adapt it to be a quick bread dough proofer (put the dough in a container, immerse all but the top, and set it to a yeast-friendly temperature until the dough rises; I'd probably need to cover the whole setup to allow the air to also come to temperature, as dough likely doesn't conduct heat well).
Count me in! Besides showing my pescatarian girlfriend that other kinds of meat can be cooked fully while retaining a juicy, tender, flavorfulness, I'd combine the circulator with my cast-iron fry pan for perfect burgers, AND I hope to become the first person to successfully sous-vide chocolate chip cookies!
I've always been curious about whether the sous vide technique could keep chocolate in temper without exposing it to moisture. If it works, then this could be a component in my great Wonka/Goldberg-esque confectionery machine.
I would cook food, and I'd do so for a community of eaters.
Time/opportunity costs are a prime reason people don't cook more. It's certainly one reason why I don't cook more--as a poor, poor graduate student, I spend my days and nights reading what it means to be human, and too often neglect actually putting what I read into practice--which is to say, I too often forget to cook.
I realized this not too long ago, and decided to start a community group: I cook for 8 or so people twice a week, and others in the group do the same on other nights. Taken all together, we each save much time and money.
The immersion circulator would fit well into this plan. We could circulate it (ha!) among the group, and it'd reduce our time barriers even more for more and more tasty food. Additionally, it'd give the bakers in our group--you know, those people afraid of actually cooking because it's too unpredictable--another venue to put their scientific minds to work. This seems to me to be a rather good thing.
1. It will save my fiance the headache of me making one from scratch in our tiny NYC apartment.
2. It will allow me to use my horrible oven that doesn't even fit a 12" roasting pan even less.
3. I can finally make perfect soft poached eggs without babysitting a large pot of water for half an hour.
Immersion circulators make great holiday gifts!
I am hosting our first Family Christmas in our tiny townhouse with limited kitchen space. Fifteen people are already confirmed, and the meal is scheduled to be served at Noon. I was considering doing a roast, but sous vide sounds like the perfect solution! I have been wanting your book Under Pressure, but I was waiting to buy it after I could afford an immersion circulator. As many have said, it would open up a whole world of possibilities for my home cooking. I am twenty-eight years old and trying to lower my cholesterol; sous vide would be an amazing way to cook even healthier food. Fish, for example, is something that I would eat more of if I knew I could keep a constant temperature. The precision of the cooking is what I am most looking forward to.
It's super great to see equipment and techniques that used to solely in the realm of professional chefs migrate to the home. Here's to tastier dinner parties!
Oh! I would use this to cook spare ribs for 24 hours, duck breasts perfectly medium rare, squab with herbs, what could I do with pork belly? something magical, I'm sure! maybe try liver and apples in a spicy marinade, and then hangar steak, as mentioned. How about fish? anyone ever try fish? I could go on, but in the name of brevity, consider these only a few of the life-changing dishes I'd prepare. I am thrilled at this possibility!
I work in a retirement village and run a fine dinning restaurant there. Unfortunately we are not always given the time and money needed to cook certain things the way we wish to get the optimum product, and along with very picky eaters, it can pose a challenge. I would use it to help the process in making perfect roasts, amazing lobster, moist brisket, and juicy short ribs. I am only given a 4 hour gap before service, which makes cooking some of these foods a challenge, but this would make most of those woes go away and help bring the food I know they would love to their plates
I've been dying to try one of these. I don't have a whole lot of innovative things to suggest, but I know I want to try some kind of steak just to see it cooked evenly all the way through.
I'm thinking chocolate, moussy, something counterintuitive, ethereal and sweet. And foie gras, which I've never had the courage to tackle.
What would I use it for? I'd use it as a gift to my girlfriend who is looking to study at the CIA in the spring.
We watched Bryan Voltaggio use one at a cooking demonstration in WI not too long ago. She'd squeal if I won and presented her with it.
I'd work my way from one end of the pig to the other with it
As an engineer / home chef, I'd love to start truly understanding the issues surrounding temperature vs. flavor vs. texture. Sous vide seems to be the way to gradually test those limits.
As fara s what I'd cook first, I think I'd go on a burger binge.
I'd use it to cook proteins while my current pid-controlled rice cooker setup cooks the veggies!
Sous Vide French Toast. It is ridiculous.
As an engineer / home chef, I'd love to start truly understanding the issues surrounding temperature vs. flavor vs. texture. Sous vide seems to be the way to gradually test those limits.
As far as what I'd cook first, I think I'd go on a burger binge.
As an engineer and home chef, I'd love to start truly understanding the issues surrounding temperature vs. flavor vs. texture. Sous vide seems to be the way to gradually test those limits.
As far as what I'd cook first, I think I'd go on a burger binge.
I could finally stop looking at the photos in The Book, and start cooking. Venison and wild pig,prickly pear fruit, whole porcini , so many options. I've cleared a spot in my little kitchen, just in case...
Some of the best fish I ever had was cooked sous vide. Sign me up!
I recently read about cooking eggs this way so I think I'd experiment with custards.
Okay I have tried sous vide in a cooler, just trying to raise the temp and maintain it through the thermal mass of the water but that is pretty limiting. And you have to heat up a cooler-full of water (which is a lot). I really want to try sous vide veggies, the flavor is supposed to be out of sight.
Really thick pork chops!!
We'll have fun in the kitchen, as usual, but now we would have a new toy! The other Diane (my friend who is a chef at W&S) will make our husbands happy, once again!
I would love to try using it for yeat productions and bread making. Seeing that yeast just need some sugar and a warm enviroment. It would be pretty cool to watch dough rise in a vaccum sealed bag. Might get messy tho. But the flavor would be pure to the yeast.
I'd love to dive into Sous Vide and your book that comes with this thing. I think it would be cool to put together some meal ideas for tech folks like myself who love cooking but are putting in way too many hours at work.
Thanks, Ruhlz! Now the only question is, where can I get some good short ribs?
It's freezing out, so first I would cook short ribs at a low temperature for 2 or 3 days, then sear to finish them. Pork belly, for sure, which I've been wanting to try to make at home but haven't been brave enough to do yet. Perfectly cooked eggs, finally! The braised veal cheeks, foie gras, rutabega, and turnip preparations in Under Pressure. I own the book because I'm a serious Keller fan, but don't own the equipment to make most of its recipes. Also, this would be a good excuse to prepare more fish, since I could use some healthier proteins in my diet. Then, onto hanger or blade steak, tricky cuts of meat to properly cook but simple with a sous-vide cooker. Tender chicken breasts. Desserts, like pear or apple slices with vanilla and bourbon. The list is endless. This would be so much better than Kenji's beer cooler hack.
I see this device as the Crockpot of the future. I’d us it to make everything from chili to eggs, and from fish to ice cream. With the new baby, “fix it and forget it” has become a way of life.
Don't count this as an entry. I'm too much a novice so a video demo for those of us that have never seen one operate would be an education. I'd like to see how is circulates the water to keep it at temp. All I can think of wanting to keep at a steady temp is chocolate for coating candies and it doesn't sound like this would work for that.
We're having our first baby in February, what better way to feed the little one than with Sous Vide veggies and goodness (Not to mention that Mom and Dad sure do love a Sous Vide duck). We'll start the next generation of foodies off right! As a bonus, we'll get the baby thermometer back to what it's originally designed for... lol... Eat Well!!!
With a real immersion circulator, I could finally attempt more time-intensive low temperature cooking that you can't really do in a beer cooler. It would also work as a starting point in exploration of modernist cuisine. A free circulator would allow monies to be re-purposed towards purchase of the book of the same name.
I'd use this to take another step in the continuing debate with my father, who insists that there are some techniques and ingredients that should only be used in restaurants. He is, obviously, wrong.
No doubt the perfect poached egg would be the start. Where then? Maybe construct a take on Eggs Benedict with some braised pork belly, and whisking the hollandaise with the bowl partially submerged in the properly heated water bath, sans vide...
I can't think of anything I wouldn't want to try with it!
I would love to use this to try out cooking pork belly - I have always been intimidated by this ingredient and I'd love to make it work with an immersion circulator!
Salmon!
The thing I'm most interesting in doing with Sous Vide is cooking eggs. Besides that I'd love to use it for tuna steaks and duck breasts that get finished on a grill.
Long time listener, first time caller.
Working around the clock leaves me little time for many experiments in my tiny kitchen, but with the forgiving duration of an immersion circulator cooking, I dream of:
- sous vide risotto, for novelty's sake!
- a sous vide hamburger, a soft pillow to eliminate any need for 2-hour lines at Shake Shack.
- sous vide purple mustard greens, to experiment with whether they can ever be better than raw.
- sous vide head cheese??
And, oh! Tis the season:
- sous vide mulled wine? Why not! Here's to dreams!
i picture making some beautifully cooked chicken breasts and veggies for my wife. also, some nice short ribs for myself 🙂
Pick me! Pick me!
I want to make the perfect scrambled eggs.
Well, I have Thomas Keller's book, now it's time to put it to good use.
I've been drooling over one of these since it was announced. Our household is ready to take the next step in food preparation.
With a 3 year old, and another one on the way, the ease of planning our meals in advance, vacuum sealing and freezing, ready to go for the immersion circulator is highly appealing.
Right or not, I've always put cooking at home using sous vide in a slightly more attainable category than eating at el bulli. Whether I win this or not, it's clear that the new, more affordable devices are changing that - very exciting.
I want this so I can obsess over giving myself botulism!
Other than the regular cooking - of which: 'roast' beef at low temp is first up - I would love to use this in teaching food science to my son's third-grade class. We have talked about the effects of heat and e.g. the basis of browning - this would be a wonderful addition!
SUH-WEET! If I win, maybe I can stop replicating the sous vide technique with simmering water and a Ziploc bag. If I ever get to truly sous vide a venison tenderloin, it will be too soon.
Have done ribeye using beer cooler method...best steak I ever made. I am fascinated with the ability to do perfect eggs, fish, and non-dry poultry.
I really want to try out some longer-cooking items...pork belly etc... and higher temp things like vegetables. BTW, Bourdain non-offensive holiday special was great!
I would use it to become awesome.
I'm fascinated by traditional British steamed puddings (spotted dog, figgy dowdy, plum duff, etc.). It would be interesting to see what would come from mixing the very traditional ingredients and recipes with the modern technique.
I'd like to try and see what this thing can do for making beer.
The mash has precise temperature parameters. Even a single degree can impact which enzymes are more active, changing the final character of the beer. Using the bag you could lock in the temperature, thickness and pH of the mash, getting very precise results. Also, excess oxygen is to be avoided so the bag would help with that. Sous vide could be really cool for doing specialty mini-mashes of just a couple pounds of grain.
For example, it would be great to be able to do a step-mash at increasing temperatures of only the grains that actually need it. Finiky specialty grains like quinoa, buckwheat and oats. Or precisely control the mash on roasted grains to blacken a beer without adding astringency or burnt character. Or do a protein rest on a bag of roasted pumpkin, before adding it to the main pumpkin ale mash. Or a cereal mash on grains with a high gelatinization temp like rice or polenta without risking burning it on the stove (thus darkening the final beer).
Also, I've done Achatz' sous vide turkey and stuffing (with ziplocks in a big 7 gallon pot on the stove), which was delicious. So it's not a one-trick pony!
This is great - I'd LOVE to have it!
I would poach the eggs from my backyard chickens to perfection. I also want to see what this thing can do for cooking offal like liver and heart in flavorful sauces. I think it will prevent grainy liver and tough heart.
If I were lucky enough to win, I would annoy my friends with unsolicited testimonials about the wonders of sous vide and all the magical things I was going to do. Try it once or twice, stick it under the counter, and forget I owned it.
Wild Boar Carnitas! Rabbit, is a meat that is so lean that I would like to use the sous vide machine to perfect.
I want to replicate the beautifully-done-oh-so-fresh-moist-salty-tender chicken at Blue Hill Stone Barns that my father-in-law said was "the way chicken should be done" It would be a game changer for he and I. I would also love to see the results of a very dry aged steak in this thing. Oh the possibilities.
Would love to have one of these!
I'd love to use it for duck.
In March I'm joining the food truck craze in Nashville during March Madness. My fellow chef from Barbados has a family recipe for Jerk that makes some amazing chicken and pork!! I would use that beautiful machine DAILY! Mr. Ruhlman please bless my entrepreneurial spirit!
Initially, lamb and fish.
Have been dying to try this method of cooking!
As a college student on a budget (fixed by my mom) i'd use it to save money; my weekly cash reserve dissappears at restaurants rather quickly. 🙂
My boyfriend is a passionate line cook (and I'm a passionate at-home cook). This would be one of the best things we could ever win!
I think the first thing I'd attempt would be a perfectly poached egg over some asparagus. Then I'd dive into Keller's "Under Pressure." Thanks for the opportunity - I don't usually enter contests, but this is too good to pass up.
I would use it to make an amazing anniversary dinner for my finally non-vegetarian girlfriend.
I think it would make fabulous fresh gulf prawns and help keep some shrimpers in business as well, a bonus!
We've been getting a lot of pastured/grass-fed meat and, while most of it is pretty tender, the bison has been less than spectacular. I think sous vide would be the way to go with this, duck, rabbit... Now I can't stop thinking of things to cook in a bag.
We have a whole steer in the freezer, I could cook the chuck, & short ribs for days to break it down, retain every flavorful bit and sauce afterwards so the meat would actually taste like what it is suppsed to, and not the sauce that the flavor has leached into by braising... I'm also intrigued by the thought of cooking a turkey sous vide for the holidays (or any day actually!), and would LOVE to do fish this way... Thanks for the opportunity to win one, I'm sure whom ever wins it will love it, it is a great thing to have in your cooking arsenal 🙂
I would love to cook cheaper cuts of high quality meat with an immersion circulator. I purchased a pig head a month ago with the hopes of creating a porchetta di testa the way Chef Chris Cosentino's prepares it. Chef Cosentino utilizes sous-vide cooking to prepare the porchetta, and I hope to use the same technology to achieve the best possible results with an amazing ingredient. The pork is hand raised by an Amish farmer who makes cheese, and he feeds his pigs whey, a byproduct of making cheese. He had no idea that some of the best ham in the world comes from pigs raised this same way in Parma. He just feeds them whey because the pigs love it, and then he marvels how the fat doesn't melt away in his bacon like it does in virtually all other bacon. It is a phenomenal product from an amazing farmer, and I want to do it justice. The immersion circulator would make it even easier to utilize everything but the oink from these awesome animals.
Chef Polcyn's and your book, Charcuterie, helps me out a bunch as well!
Thanks for this opportunity; I'm sure everyone here admires and appreciates your kindness.
I'd like to try this for grass-fed beef and venison. Also, I haven't heard of anyone trying organ meats. Obviously, I'd try everything- eggs, brisket, sweet potatoes, etc- possibly even coffee! Sustenance and entertainment in one package!
Well, this would allow me to throw out the old rice cooker and eBay the temp controller (and maybe be great enough motivation to get one of those fancy chamber vacuum packers so I can seal liquid in the bag more reliably). Then I'd have no excuse for not cooking my way through the rest of "Under Pressure."
Of course, I'd still have to tinker, so the heater would probably find it's way into my mash tun for the next beer-brewing session....
The coaches on my daughter's volleyball team are very conscious about nutritional factors for the athletes, and eating right "on the road" at tournaments can be expensive, difficult and BORING. Time, space and resources for on-site food prep is extremely limited. I'd like to prepare attractive and nutritious dishes for the girls using sous vide "cook - chill - reheat' methods. Meals could be appropriately portioned and cooked individually ahead of time, even accounting for personal preferences and allergies. Re-heating with the circulator would be ideal, but could be done with no more resources than hot water if required.
I've been eyeing the Sous Vide Supreme for this, but can't imagine how to cook for ten girls and coaches with that small volume.
Pork Pork Pork. I have a bunch of local frozen pork in my freezer that is crying out for some experimentation.
Wow. I tested a Sous Vide Supreme when it came out, but I only had it for a bit over a week - not enough time to try out a tiny fraction of the things I wanted to try.
Things at the top of the list:
- whole poultry (not feasible with the SVS). Maybe bathtub turkey... because I'd get to call it bathtub turkey.
- experiments with how best to finish meats cooked sous vide
- sous vide beef tendon
- unwise experiments with sous vide (not so)quick breads
- sous vide corned beef? better than boiled?
- pretty much everything with fruits and vegetables that I didn't get a chance to try before....
I want this so much...
It's game season!
Venison loin filets bagged with a splash of Arbequina Olive Oil, a sprinkling of sumac and a couple espresso beans. 54C. Sear. Rest. Devour.
I would love an immersion cooker to get a chance to try oust some new meaty sous vide dishes that even my picky roommate would eat!
I would use the circulator to begin my catering business. I have been working with these wonderful machines for a few years now and it really frees up a lot of man power and that saves money!
yay! another fun gadget! I can definetly see the value of something like this.
Cook meat so delicious that my girlfriend will finally swear off vegetarianism
I'd like to start making food for my almost ready to eat solid food infant!
Im teaching my boys--7&9--to cook intuitively, using Ruhlman & Harold McGee as our guides. The addition this week of a digital scale and the Ratio app for the ipod hasn't hurt their math skills either. We've bought & butchered 1/4 of a pig for ham and bacon; 9 y old roasts two chickens a week; 7 y old made duck confit for Christmas dinner; currently baking our hearts out. This, simply, would rock our world.
I would love to sous vide ANYTHING! I'm so amazed with this cooking technique, I would go crazy trying everything! I think lamb would be the first thing...a beautiful rack of lamb.
I would be honored to receive one of these fabulous machines. My familia is trying to recover from a serious blow to our finances. We were boarderline homeless a couple of months ago. Prior to our crisis happening, I was trying to teach my 4 children how to cook right and healthy. We don't eat out much, so trying to bring home the amazing food you have had the pleasure to eat would a dream come true. My familia loves your books, they are amazing and completely informative.
All types of meat - beef, poultry, and definitely fish...i wouldn't mind experimenting a turkey breast to see if we can avoid the all too often dried out breast
Mr Ruhlman
I have wanted one for the longest time but living on a cooks wage is hard. I am currently enrolled as a culinary student in Vancouver b.c. and my nick name there is sous vide suzy. I am always thinking of inovative ways of using this machine. Sous 20 hour brisket till it's fork tender, would love to the see the out come of sous vide chicken stock, the perfect confit pork belly or sous vide tea. Yea I said it sous vide tea, these ideas never stop, and the possibilities never stop. Thanks again.
I've got a cook brother who has worked his ass off to gain the upper hand on an addiction. After selling knives and other personals to fuel the habit, as well as a stint in the county jail, he has finally stuck with his commitment to better his life for almost a year now. I have passed him all of your books as well as those from Bourdain and Keller since cooking, reading and music are now the things that fuel his life. I can't afford to get him such a cool tool, but you can trust that he would put it to good use if we were to win it.
The picture in _Under Pressure_ of lthe lobster station with liters of buerre monte in a tub with a a circulator has always fascinated me...
But that is not exactly practical in a home kitchen, even as awesome as it would be. Duck Confit and variations on Eggs would be the most immediate gain, not to mention the amazing things I could do with brisket, short ribs, lamb shanks, and other high-collagen meats.
good opportunity to play on.. i wish i could win... anyway good luck to us and congratulation in advance to the winner.
This would definitely make the winter go by a little quicker.
I'm a college student in Texas, and fell in love with learning proper technique through Top Chef: season 1 (plus my travels to Spain). Along with my cooking partner (still trying to get her date me), I cook for our 9-15 person dinner parties on a pretty regular basis, and they usually go really well - when I don't overcook the meat. A machine of this caliber would definitely eradicate the need for making f**k-up sauces to cover up the dry pork, lamb, etc. Plus, the ability to lock in the marinades seems to good to be true. And of course, it's hard to mention sous vide cooking without the amazing soft-cooked eggs. I promise you this machine will be abused and loved in my kitchen.
I've gotten very interested in low/slow cooking and I see sous vide as a good way to get excellent results from difficult cuts of meat.
I'm also an engineer and I'm quite interested in tinkering with new ideas.
With this thing, and our well worn copy of Charcuterie, we could really kick some serious (pork) butt in the kitchen! It's a "gotta have" item!
I would be able to throw out the ugly, tempermental, franken-sous-vide machine that has been taking up too much counter space for about two years now. This hacked together monster has been the source of much marital strife. Michael, please help restore my household harmony. Thank you.
Be a great opportunity to prove to my friends that sous vide is realistic and has benefits outside of a restaurant kitchen, and an excuse to complete my TK collection by picking up "Under Pressure"!
oh WOW. The first two things I would cook would be eggs (also from backyard chickens) and elk (that my husband hunted this fall). Also, on a non-cooking, scientific tangent, I've been wanting to test different kinds of plastic for BPA and plasticizer leaching during sous vide cooking. So I would try that.
I would use it to cook 72 hour beef short ribs. And to heat the water used for brewing beer to the required temperature for mashing the grains.
Can you use it you heat and maintain oil at a constant temp?
I'd like to try using it for that to see if makes a difference not necessarily in sous-vide cooking but maybe poaching things (fish, veggies, veal, etc) in oil.
We're big coffee drinkers in this house, and have our own roasting set up for greens. I wonder if the outcome of roasting coffee in a sous vide would be like the outcome of aging wine in a steel barrel? Would you miss the smoke like some people miss the oakiness? only one way to find out, i suppose!
Would love to give this a try have been admiring the Sous Vide Supreme for some time now but would prefer this.
Micheal, I for one would be able to put it to use immediately. I'll be closing a deal for my own restaurant at the first of the year - and something like this - while it's on my wish list. We're opening with a small budget and this would be a very useful piece of kitchen gear.
And being that I'll be a one man brigade this would be a wonderful tool to have at my disposal. And I know for a fact it would get used, and used well.
I'd really like one of these. My family grew up thinking you cook it till juices stop running, so it would be nice to show them a better alternative.
Yeah, we use these heated circulators in my lab. But I haven't dared use one for food! I'd try pork chops, which are otherwise easily dried out.
I've played around with different ingredients and applications of sous vide, but sadly never had the pleasure of experimenting with one of these. While I've had mixed results, some of them were phenomenal! I would absolutely LOVE the opportunity to experiment with and produce dishes with the more exacting results this piece of equipment would provide!
Just what I need to really, really avoid doing my homework forever. Exciting. My guy will love all the increased large meat cust this will require.
The fact that Polyscience has developed a unit I can use at home is awesome! I am going to practice making baby food in this thing!
Well Santa, I've been a very good girl this past year and I promise I'd clean it and take care of it and everything!
Dealing with the somewhat tougher and flavorless (aside from salt) cuts of meat that I'm left with after the Kashering process. I've recently moved into a house that keeps kosher in the kitchen, and I've had a great deal of issue with cooking meat.....
My wife is currently seven months pregnant with our first born child. I would seriously consider a trade here. (kidding)
I would like to cook perfect eggs for breakfast every day for my wife and daughter. I would like to cook short ribs for days until they have the texture and flavor of what I imagine will be my first meal upon arriving at the pearly gates of heaven. I want to vacuum seal and sous-vide scallops, because I have never heard of it being done before.
For the love of all that is holy, I want to win this.
I would like to use it on shellfish -- especially butter-poached lobster -- to start with, and then move on to eggs and vegetables. The suggestion an earlier commenter made on grain mashing sounds interesting, too, since I'm an old home-brewer -- perhaps I could use this to mash specialty grains for a small batch.
Pork "baby" back ribs, I have a stash of wonderful locally sourced heritage pork back ribs in the freezer just begging to be cooked sous vide.
This machine blurs the line between need and want.
I would love to cook eggs and then it would be fun to explore all the other possibilities!
I can't think of something I WOULDN'T try cooking this way … but I'd probably start with all the weird pork parts no one else wants from my loveable pig farmer @ the baltimore market.
This would be the perfect outlet for me to further annoy my wife with my over the top and annoying habit of making all my meals a little too much high maintenance.
Thank you for the opportunity to win one of these. Honestly, I have no idea, but would love to learn!
i cannot even begin to imagine the ways i could use this in my kitchen! my vegan kitchen will rise to new heights of deliciousness! please throw my name in the hat!
eggs!
My first instinct was baby food...keeping all those vitamins and nutrients in the poach instead of the poaching liquid, but then my mind turned to the cooking school where I work. I have some very imaginative students who are obsessing over Alinea and would love to give some of the more complicated recipes a shot!
I would like to use the circulator as a hammer... No, wait, I would use it to cook, mainly edible food products.
What else would you do with it???
It would make my husband so happy if we were take this home. He has been drooling over the many ideas he has for meals prepped with it.
I have been eyeballin' this baby at Williams-Sonoma, trying to dream up ways to 'sous vide' desserts. So, if I were to win this bad boy, that would be my challenge - a challenge I would be excited to accept!
-not having played with one, I have no idea if that is possible or if it sounds appetizing to 'normal' people. 😉
Definitely would slow poach eggs a la momofuku, then try a few tougher pieces of grass finished beef.
I've been dying to try some sous vide lamb. The dish in the Alinea cookbook looks amazing. Sadly, my kitchen and bank balance are both too small for a Sous vide Supreme or an immersion circulator.
This may sound boring, but I would experiment with non-proteins. For example, I have never been happy with roasting spaghetti squash (I grow my own, which taste awesome but are large) because it cooks so unevenly. Could sous-vide deliver perfectly cooked squash? I'm also interested in experimenting with sous-vide for desserts, such as custards, making ice cream bases, and infusing fruits.
This would be the ultimate Christmas present!
I bet it would churn out an amazing brisket. Meat of any kind, really. And eggs.... The first thing that came to mind, though is that I would use it to quell my summer jealousy at having to cook in an apartment, which means no long oven use and no backyard for a grill or smoker. Perfectly tender meats then quickly seared...mmmmm!
It would be a saving grace to use a polyscience machine. I've been using a Lauda M20 for the last three months until the heating coil and display went bonkers. Lauda Brinkman wants hundreds just to look at the machine. As a line cook, you know that money just isin't available. I've been working my way through fruits and vegetables, as I find them to be the most creative way to cook with a circulator. I have been fond of changs "brick chicken" as well.
Help me continue to educate the foodies of VA at Circa 1918 kitchen and bar!
I can just imagine using this like a slow cooker... setting up the eggs and bacon the night before and walking up to a perfectly cooked breakfast. Or lamb cheeks and asparagus when I get home from work.
I just froze with how many things I want to do with this. Eggs, of course. Pork Belly. beef in bourbon with the advantage of both the vacuum and the cooking for a day....oh, my.
i would like to use it to prepare Filipino stews that a paraplegic friend of mine who lives out in New Hampshire has not had in over twenty years. i could pre-cook the dishes and send them to her so that she can enjoy fork-tender meats without getting involved in the long process of preparing these dishes.
I've been wanting one of these since I first heard of them! There's loads I'd love to do with one, but short ribs would be at the top of my list. I wonder too if you could rig it to keep a bath warm. Don't you hate taking a bath and having the water get cold s you have to keep letting out some water so you can add hot water, but then you have to mix the hot water in to warm up the whole tub? Or is that just me??
I'd love to cook my way through "Under Pressure!" Then maybe they'll make a movie about it and get someone much better looking to play me. How about Bill Pullman as Ruhlman?
I would cook a 36 inch striped bass unprotected directly in temperature controlled fat.
As a hunter, Im looking for new ways to take this years deer and make it into something more than it is. Everyone grills, pan fries, and crock pots. Not everyone can Sous Vide a perfect back strap for their family, and I'd love to be the first in mine to try...
Thank you for the offer, and keep up the excellent work on the blog.
I've used a meat-thermometer and a crockpot with a buffet setting before and had promising results, the idea of getting a proper rig on my present budget is too good to pass up! I would use a sous vide setup to cook for my parents, and probably take it with me when I went to Japan to cook for my husband, who is in the military there. I taught basic cooking lessons when I lived on the base in Japan, and my students have asked me to teach when I'm back on vacation. This is a technique they'd love to see!
I would use it to impress my father-in-law who prefers McDonalds for most meals. No easy task for sure.
My friends and I spent the entire time during dinner on Sunday, dreaming of the things we would cook sous vide if we had a way to do it. Eggs and artichokes have me the most intrigued.
As a young aspiring chef access to an immersion circulator would amazing. Having only heard of a few things it can do, like cook eggs to a hard white but a pure liquid yolk, I would try all sorts of things with it and study up on the chemical reactions that take place while cooking to try out new stuff. All while driving my parents crazy with my kitchen experiments. Plus do not know when I would ever get access to one again because the cost is way beyond what I have now and the country club I work at would never get one.
Chef Achatz has a video of sous vide-ing an entire thanksgiving dinner, and to me that just sounds like the greatest thing ever.
I would love to do a whole lot of slow cooking for the whole winter. And this would validate my status as food nerd.
I have an unnatural and probably unhealthy relationship with pork belly. I love pork belly braised for hours. I love pork belly sliced thinly and fried. I love pork belly roasted and finished, skin on, under the broiler so that the skin becomes cracklins. I love making bacon from pork belly (a la Ruhlman's recipe in Charcuterie). But there is a hole in my life as I yearn for the ability to sous vide that pork belly at home to create a sinful preparation that melts in the mouth and spreads its love (also known as fat) across the tongue. Only then will my life be complete. I will have reached nirvana.
I've been wanting one of these since I first heard of them! There's loads I'd love to do with one, but short ribs would be at the top of my list. I wonder too if you could rig it to keep a bath warm. Don't you hate taking a bath and having the water get cold s you have to keep letting out some water so you can add hot water, but then you have to mix the hot water in to warm up the whole tub? Or is that just me??
An incredible and generous offer, Mr. Ruhlman! I've been trying to replicate recipes in Keller's Under Pressure and would have a greater chance of success with the precise temperature control offered with the Polyscience device. Right now, I use a digital thermometer and a stock pot on the stove top, which is not so bad, but so low-tech compares to the shiny gizmo in the photo.
An alternate use - while still within the realm of cooking - would be to replicate kuro-tamago by determining and replicating the specific mineral make-up of certain Japanese hotsprings and using the circulator to get the temperature and water circulation just right. Stinky black eggs made easy!
I envision a winter of experimentation that ends with me buying a T-shirt with an "S" on it: Sous vide Man! The possibilities are endless, but I would be interested particularly in seeing if my mother's goose recipe (pressure cooked, and the only way I will eat a goose) could be adapted. And the ribs....ahhhh the ribs.
What a Christmas present this would be! I've been wanting to get into sous vide for a whole.
Hard to say! Would definitely start with eggs, and would love to try the whole fish immersed in oil ...
I would do various pig parts.
What a treat for a lucky person! The reason I would like it is I love salmon but hate the smell left behind in the kitchen when I sear it so I don't tend to cook it that way. I generally bake it in the oven or poach it. I would like to try cooking salmon sous vide.
Hm. There are plenty of nifty uses coming to mind. Everything from rapidly defrosting (& cooking) to maintaining a just-right temperature for growing yeast, kafir, yogurt...
I'm planning our annual "Festivus" dinner party on 12/23 with some of my friends in CLE, and I'd love to feature sous vide pork belly on the menu...glazed in a pan, of course, with sherry gastrique.
I'd use it to keep myself busy as finishing up my last round of chemo. I've been going bored out of my mind sitting around the house and not having the energy that I used to have, at least I usually have an appetite. The only thing that has been keeping me sane has been reading lots of McGee, Ruhlman, Keller, Chang and tons of food blogs and the ensuing kitchen experiments that have followed. Until the spring I'm going to have lots of time to babysit batches of hard cider, hanging pancetta and making confits.
You, sir, are a very kind man for doing this. Ever since I've seen this circulator at Williams and Sonoma I have had this sort of pained excitement about it, knowing that it's probably an unattainable dream product for me. Of course there are blueprints for a DIY sous vide machines on web but I'm scared to death of electrocuting myself.
I have become so passionate about food in the past couple years that I'm convinced it's my calling - whether that means being a chef, I'm not sure, but I know I can't get enough. I live in western Massachusetts and there really isn't an outlet to talk about local food or restaurants. I've began the framework for a website that would encompass a few things: showcase local restaurants, not just with a review, but sitting down with the owner for an interview; showcasing all the amazing local farms we have and spreading awareness of their CSA's and farmers markets; 'cook the book' reviews, much like Carol Cooks Keller/Alinea; an articles on my experience with dry aging, making home made bacon, home made stocks, etc. Having an immersion circulator to cook the local products I use would be the absolute best way to showcase their products. I'm reading now through 'Culinary Artistry' and feel that combined with Ratio, I can start creating very flavorful dishes using all the good stuff from my CSA and having an instrument that helps cook things perfectly would be the ultimate.
Thanks for any consideration you give!
Bone rack of lamb chops, duck breast, tenderloin, short ribs all cooked to perfection waiting to be seared off and served to anticipating guests is a dream made reality by the Polyscience immersion circulator. Do I NEED it? NO. Do I WANT it? YES PLEASE!!!
I love trying new things when it comes to cooking, but I also like to stay true to the classic approach. I feel that sous vide cooking is a great way to use new techniques to put a modern twist on classic cooking.
On vacation in San Francisco a couple months ago, I had the pleasure of sampling the "tasty salted pig parts" at Boccalone. My favorite was the Porchetta Di Testa, which they told me had been cooked sous vide after curing. If I win, I'd love to try to make some porchetta of my own at home.
Way too many ideas flooding my brain... risking explosion.... thanks for the consideration!
Hmmm...the possibilities, the possibilities. I'm interested to see if I can get meat tender enough to feed my youngsters (texture-challenged, they are) while leaving enough flavor to please their dad, but I'll probably also dive into my stash of Italian regional cookbooks to see what can be recreated.
Obviously, most meats would be great in this. . . However, I'd really like to try rosemary poached pears with the sous vide immersion technique. I made these for Thanksgiving but was disappointed with the lack of rosemary infused into the pears (nice aroma, but taste didn't come through) - though it worked great for rosemary apple tart tatin I made using your "Amazing Tart Tatin" entry as a guide. But, pears, rosemary, some white wine, a little honey or sugar, tiny bit of water. . . with some fresh whipped cream (dash of vanilla and cinnamon) on top. . . brilliant!
I am a Soldier in the US Army and I live in barracks. I don't get to cook my own food cause we don't have a kitchen and aren't allowed to have appliances in our room that have flames. So no hot plates. But we can have Sous Vide appliances because that's just water heated up. So what would I use it for?...EVERYTHING! I would cook all my meals Sous Vide. Not only would I be in compliance with the rules, but I could make the best food for myself and my Army buddies.
I am currently trying to start up a new business, a patisserie. Equipment is very expensive but a circulator is a must have. Anything from poaching the perfect pear to custards and ice cream bases. I would also use it to cook perfect meats for our lunch menu!
Ever since I found out about the beer cooler method, I've been playing with sous-viding everything. I'd love to have something that could more accurately hold a temperature. I've even thought about using something like this for homebrewing.
Baby Octopus, Pork Cheek, Beef Tongue, Sweet Breads. The possibilities are endless. LET THE OFFAL BEGIN!!!!!!!!
Well I have two theoretical recipes I would like to try out. One is a 36-hour pork rillette where the belly and shoulder are cooked separately in pork fat and then mixed with the concentrated liquids from within each bag
The other is my attempt at the perfect steak, pre-seared on a cast iron pan preheated for an hour on a max heat grill. Cooked sous videj to medium rare and then post seared again at 800F for the ultimate crust. And then rest it, of course!
Wow, awesome!! I have been dying to give sous vide, but have been put off by the cost....
Aweomse...I'd use it to feed great food to friends and to teach us all a new way to appreciate the food we are lucky to have access to. I'd experiment with everything from meats to vegetables to desserts..especially the tremendous ingredients available to us here in the Hudson Valley. How about some infusions of beef or pork with those terrific Tuthilltown spirits!
I was going to build one of these -- but now, I can escape botulism! The company holiday party would never be the same -- sous vide mangalitsa for everyone!
To get my mitts on that would be extraordinary. As for one use. In a word "wabbit season". Besides that there are so many possibilities.
We're a family of amateur cooks who will jump in and anything and everything!
a very merry sous-vide christmas dinner in my household this year
Finally found a source for pig's blood. I would love to use it to cook the boudin noir I'll soon be making.
I don't need this. I will just continue heating rocks in a fire and then throwing them into an old pig bladder filled with my tears.
I'd use it to make a riff on eggs benedict - sous vide butter lobster, sous vide poached egg, creamy hollandaise, and hot, freshly toasted english muffin. yum!
Upon receiving the immersion circulator, I can guarantee you that my wife would be sent on a roller coaster of emotions.
- Dismay upon learning of a new gadget to burn through my time.
- Overwhelming joy knowing I'm not going to destroy a third crock pot/slow cooker or, worse yet, her recently replaced rice cooker...
- Unbelievable shock that I can complicate sourdough starters...
- Happiness to see me acting like a giddy school boy when an slow-boiled egg 'inverts' between 64C and 67C!
Then again, overall I'm sure she would be just fine knowing I'll still be in the kitchen - she loves to eat!
I'd like to use this as a comparison device to develop my pet project - to work out how to reprogram a standard programmable slow cooker to act as a sous-vide cooker, so everyone could buy a sous-vide machine for about $50.
I would love to make eggs that are just set.
this would be like winning the lottery - by the way - your English Muffin recipe could be the holy grail also.
I'd love to use one of these circulators to make soup purees that have a really precise, concentrated, and clean flavor. I also think that making infused liquors would be interesting with a circulator. Lastly, flavored-salts, flavored-sugars, and spice mixes could benefit from a run inside a circulator bath. Cheers. Trev.
Beyond the obviuous, I would like to give it a try with baby food. Our second child is just starting on baby food. Last time we made the fruits and veggies but bought meat. Souis vide could be a good way to cook meat to a safe-plus temp and still leave it easy to process into a delicious, baby frieldy puree.
Since I work an early AM shift and my wife works a normal daytime one, there's always the challenge of cooking something that works for my lunch and her dinner. A sous vide would offer more options than a standard slow cooker.
"comment"
My husband would love this. He has been talking about getting one since we had dinner in Chicago.
I would use it to make onsen tamago, perfectly cook meats, and complete my project of covering every last unoccupied square inch of counter space in my not-quite-big-enough kitchen.
I would start with seafood - probably lobster tail, shrimp and other meat that is easy to overcook the conventional way. Then I would try using local meat, especially unusual cuts or rabbit, goat, anything else I can find. After that, what wouldn't I cook in it? Veggies, grain... I also pledge to start a blog to record my experiments for posterity. I'll call it "Sous Vide N'importe Quoi."
I always find the molecular gastronomy wizardry more PT Barnum than avant garde. I work in a pharmaceutical lab and have had liquid nitrogen and water bath in my life for over 25 years. These are tools, nothing more, nothing less. They do not make a bad meal better, they are still the tools and the cooks and chefs are the craftsman (or craftswoman). Let us not forget this simple fact while we stare at all the shiny toys.
But yes it is oh so shiny...
I've done some home sous-vide with coolers and hot water, but I'd love the real thing. Please put me in the running!
Thanks so much for what you. Happy Holidays!
I am going to use it to cook our traditional holiday dinner, a good ole fashion melt in your mouth brisket.
First off, thank you for the generous offer. If I were lucky enough to receive the immersion circulator, I would convert my vegetarian girlfriend with a sous vide rack of lamb that not even the strongest willed veg-lover could resist.
Thanks for the contest! My biggest reason I would like to win this immersion circulator is that it would help with preparing meals for the orphanage its children incuding Annie, Homer Wells, Fuzzy, Tiny Tim......OK that was a lie, but I would still like to win the thing! Keep up the blog. I look forward to it daily.
Ooo. I've been working my way gradually through Alinea, and hoping to tackle Fat Duck soon. This would *greatly* simplify things (versus stalking my stock pot and adding ice cubes, stirring it, etc) - Please put me in the running!
I am an exec chef at a small restaurant and this would help me bring more creative food to my loyal customers.
My sweetie hunts for us and I assume that game meat would be well suited to the "low and long" cooking this would enable me to do!
If it's meat, it'll cook sous vide. Beans, too.
Otherwise, I'd like to try stock, sauces, potatoes... maybe some baking applications? Pie fillings? Caramel sauce?
I once saw Rick Bayless sous vide a pork butt in pork fat for 50 hours and it come out ridiculously tender and delious looking, ever since then I was hooked. I guess you could call me a hi-tec redneck because I love to cook BBQ using the immersion circulator that I built from a web site that I found. Take a nice rack of baby back ribs and smoke them for a couple of hours then into the immersion circulator to finish. It works o.k. but I feel like I am going to get shocked every time I use it, but it is worth it. If I had the Polyscience Immersion Circulator could sous vide in style.
If fortunate enough to be picked, I would use the machine to help teach my two young daugthers how to cook. They (Isabella and Sophia) would probably choose pork belly as their first foray into cooking.
Sous vide... I want to go to there.
Exciting! what an awesome giveaway. fingers crossed.
Well my husband does all the cooking so I would be the lucky beneficiary of many great meals. Plus this would save me some Christmas shopping because he would LOVE TO HAVE ONE OF THESE!
Ooohh. I've been wanting to try one of those....
Isn't my styrofoam cooler and hot tap water good enough for sous vide?
You would be helping the worst cook on the planet.
I'm a home cook and want to test the machines ability to do everyday things better and easier. I'm thinking about brisket that cooks while I'm at work; simple dinner parties where I can hang with guests and not worry about overcooking. I'll leave the foie gras torchons for others!
You would be helping the worst cook on the planet. I overcook everything.
I'm imagining game cooked sous vide to avoid drying...say a big honkin' moose roast. OK, maybe smaller cuts...
Please count my vote for Jesse Gindlesperger. I remember cooking and eating ramen noodles for the entire year I was in Vietnam, and know that he eserves it way more than I do.
I love to cook at home and entertain friends and family. I've always wanted to cook anything sous vide...much less eat a piece of meat cooked sous vide. Unfortunately, finances are tight and I'm not sure I'd be able to afford a circulator for years. Winning the giveaway would be an early Christmas miracle...
I would love to use this for everyday meals and experimenting with non-traditional cuts of meat.
I have a daughter on the way-- my first child-- and I dream of making all her food from scratch. A sous vide machine would allow me to be creative and safe in doing so.
For me, the perfect egg would the first order of business. Then, pork and game meat (I have occasional access to elk and moose - two meats that I think could benefit from low and slow cooking but don't have the fat to stand up to traditional treatments). Also, a sous-vide setup would seem the perfect place to test small batches of extremely finely temperature controlled beer brewing.
In addition to making myself perfect eggs every morning and moist pork chops for dinner, I could teach my daughters to cook with it... They'd love to be able to watch their food cook in an acrylic tub- it'd be like the fishtank...
A machine like this would be great for someone who is creative and likes to experiment with food. That would describe my oldest daughter that lives in southern California. I haven't seen her in a long time, but We talk often and share a mutual interest in fine food and wine. As much as I would like to have this machine, it would make me even happier to give it to her for Christmas.
Oh snap! I definitely want my name in the running for this bad boy.
Elk! My father, the lifelong hunter, and I go elk hunting every Thanksgiving. I love the flavor, but it's so difficult to get it tender but still juicy. I think Dad would be amazed by his favorite meat, perfectly cooked sous vide. Maybe with a little black pepper and a blackberry reduction!
I am a curious cook who loves to play with new techniques in the kitchen. I am also currently a student at the CIA, and I would love to have a shiny new toy to play with and build upon my knowledge.
As someone with a busy lifestyle I would use it to have a nice sous vide meal waiting for me at the end of the day. I have also had some thoughts about using it for small batch beers that require precise mash temperatures...
To put it simply, this would be a fantastic tool to use for my annual 'Duckathalon' with friends and family..
I wouldn't mind replacing my DIY setup (crockpot and home built PID) by some fancy technology. My kids love sous-vide eggs, and I love chicken cooked sous-vide.
coddled eggs and shortribs. maybe even together... mmm
oh dear... I have these trotters that have been in my freezer for a few months that really need to be warmed so I can get that fantastic collagen from them! I'd love to basically make trotter jam with help from the immersion circulator, and then attempt to get the fiance to give up the microwave in favor of setting up a couple of hotel bins to have steak always at the ready. Oh, so many ideas!
My boyfriend and I LOVE experimenting in the kitchen--he was the first one to introduce me to molecular gastronomy and to the incredible restaurants in Chicago. He has wanted a sous vide cooker for as long as I have known him, and this year he is trying to assemble a makeshift sous vide cooker so that he can try to replicate some of the dishes from his favorite restaurants. The look on his face if I present him with the real thing would be unforgettable!
What I would cook with my new sous vide professional would certainly be wild mallard ducks from the great State of Arkansas!
I'd love to sous vide some steaks, and possibly even top them with some poached quail eggs made with the ame machine!
I have a little jar that I've been throwing my spare change in--in hopes of buying this very tool. It really adds up, but I have a long, long way to go.
If I win, I 'm going to buy some seriously prime meat and fish to sous vide with my change.
Know this: I will use the hell out of this machine if I win.
Eggs first, but I think It might be fun to experiment with pate as well
I am a chef de cuisine at a restaurant in Toronto. I have had previous experience with the older model at another job and would love the opportunity to gain some more experience. Not only to experiment with ideas I have (for possibly my own place someday) but to improve upon and expand our current abilities at the restaurant. I would love to be able to join the ranks of chefs like Thomas Keller, Grant Achatz, Hubert Keller and even young stars like the Voltagio brothers.
I would like to try make a cheesecake with it. think that could make it really even textured. But I would also try to use it for fish for everyday cooking.
This would be a great machine to have! I am an amateur cook that loves playing around with new food and new cooking methods. I would use this cook short ribs and pork belly over and over again!
Rats.
I've been a passionate fan of sous vide for a long time, talking it up at dinner parties, sighing wistfully every time its used on Iron Chef America, and even cornering vacuum sealer salespeople to interrogate them on their equipment's suitability with sous vide. (This invariably leads to me providing them with a brief lecture on the nature and value of sous vide, since the sales folks have never heard of it.)
I've read just about everything on the Internet about the method, have lusted after the Sous Vide Supreme and have longed for the day when the household finances rebound (the unemployment rate is 50% in this house) and I can finally, FINALLY, turn theory into practice by buying the needed equipment.
This contest gave me hope of a December miracle, until I read the other entries. What would I do with the immersion circulator you offer? I'd wrap it up, sigh, and then send it on to one of the several people on this list who clearly deserve/need it more than I do.
Good luck making your selection -- there are a lot of deserving folks here and you won't have an easy choice. For my part, it's just good to know I'm not the only person out there who is fascinated by this process!
At the end of a long, hard day at work, I would use it to cook some hanger steaks while also soaking my tired my feet at a sweet 135-degrees 😉
I added a comment once, but I don't see it so I am trying again. Please don't double count me or punish me if it shows up twice.
I would love to work with some of Aaron Miller's amazing short ribs with the immersion circulator. I am sure they would be amazing. Plus, if you pick me you are guaranteed to sell another copy of Under Pressure because I'd want to learn from the best how to properly us it.
I would love to be able to cook my way through the keller/Ruhlman cookbook, but more practically, I want to try a version of lobster poached in butter.
This would permit me as a recent retiree to save my rice cooker and expand the scope of my kitchen.
ps: I want it offal bad
This is not particularly creative, but would be oh so good: I dream of using one to make prime rib. No one in my extended family likes quality meat (and when they eat meat at all, it's well done, sigh), so we can't have it for Christmas; therefore this year my mom and I are going to have a prime rib Christmas eve eve dinner for all of our friends who love good meat, and the prime rib will be cooked to a perfect medium rare. How fantastic would it be to use the sous vide to do it, and then blast it with heat at the end for a glorious crust? So fantastic.
20 minute no worry custard I think yes. Good luck to everyone
I just got an email from my local Community Supported Fishery letting me know that they are ready to start delivering sustainably caught lobsters. They are just crying out to be cooked sous vide with butter and garlic. When they come into season, I'd love to try a riff on the sous vide egg with haddock roe sacs.
I would like to have this to replace the small, imprecise cooler that i have been using to make sous vide thus far. Surprisingly, monitoring it every couple minutes and dumping in hot water is not precise enough to result in good sous vide outcomes. This would greatly enhance my credibility with the wife, who is convinced that I am crazy to "cook" food in ZIplock bags
My dream is sous vide Salad Lyonnaise. Eggs and lardons ready to go at a moments notice.
Although I'm sure that having perfectly "pink-all-the-way-through" meat would be awesome, what I would mostly do with it would be to make my foodie friends insanely jealous!
I would want to use this machine to see the different flavors you can get with herbs and sauces for different meat and poultry. Such as say a thyme honey dijon sauce sous vide with pork shoulder, or even better yet pork belly. I would like to take this and take something you would normally braise and see if I can impart a more flavorful finished product. Plus I love beef tongue and beef heart, I know one of the best ways to cook them is with a sous vide machine. Its a hot tub party and all animal parts are invited
You really giving this away? I have the old version at home and would love to try out the newer version. I'm sure it would be especially helpful when working on different ingredients for the same menu. Duck confit and potatoes at 80°C in one tub, and Ribeye at 56°C on the other at the same time... Count me in!
I am an avid homebrewer. Part of brewing is holding your water-soaked grains at a precise temperature for a period of time (mashing). Even more complicated are multi-step mashes, where you hold the grains at one temperature, then step it up to another, and possibly another. The stepping-up is tricky using direct-heat methods, and even worse if you try to add boiling water to hit another specific point. This would be an ideal tool for solving those problems.
I would sous vide a whole corned brisket. Also, the pastrami style short-rib that I've been looking to perfect since first seeing it here. A few hours over cold smoke, and then a long, hot bath under vacuum would be just about perfect.
Berkshire pork cheek with sage and apples sounds like fun, too.
I was going to say I'd experiment to see if there's a temperature that will cook an egg white but leave the yolk liquid, but I see Tom is already aware that it works.
I'll bet it would work great for tempering chocolate.
Shiny! Er, I mean, I would use this primarily to further my obsession with short ribs. Even better, it would justify buying a blowtorch, so it would really be two gifts in one.
oh I need to try this! I love slow cooking.
There are so many different ideas in my head right now. The only definite thing I would do is use it to teach my small children about safe temperatures for foods. Other than that I would have to experiment with everything.
How glorious it would be to experiment with this delectable machine! I have visions of salmon, chops, ribs dancing in my head.
This MAY just be the best giveaway ever. I've been telling everyone in my family to put all their money together and get me this and I got the same "are you kidding me?!?" response from all of them. Alas.
I have been a hardcore foodie for the past 7 years and have really taken the idea of learning techniques instead of recipes. I think the reason sous vide is so cool is because it's adding another technique that is rarely used in home kitchens and still barely used in professional kitchens. That in itself makes it fun to try out.
I would cook up a storm if I had one of these, not only making a lot of the traditional Indian recipes we make at home, but also all that great southern food I have grown up with in Nashville, TN. I would also be thrilled to read and make recipes from Under Pressure.
For me, getting an immersion circulator is the next step in me developing my culinary curiosity. I've intrigued by elements of molecular gastronomy and would love to just explore these new techniques and concepts that I always see on TV, but am never able to experience first hand. I hope you can make my holidays special by giving me the opportunity to grow as a lover of all things culinary. Thanks, Mr. Ruhlman!
I've had pork belly sous vided and then seared and I really would like to try that myself with some different flavor combinations in the bag. Perhaps goat's milk and acorns. Please.
How glorious it would be to have this remarkable invention in my toolkit. I have visions of salmon, chops, ribs dancing in my head.
I continually (as in being obsessed) test recipes for venison, being the good West Texas girl who harvests and butchers her own. Venison deserves special care to preserve its delicacy and I believe sous vide would respect its integrity.
I have been wanting to try sous vide for quite a while and would probably start off with simple things like steak and eggs.
I would use it by giving it to my husband. Then he will stop leaving magazines open to stories about sous vide cooking. And since it's our 10th anniversary in three weeks, I can prove to him one again that I am the girl for him (and that I still love to surprise him with wonderful treats.) He has given me the puppy dog look enough times that I am just about ready to start scouring under the couch cushions and the car floor mats to come up with the money to buy this for him.
My fiancee doesn't eat red meat and I'm a true carnivore. It would be fantastic to be able to prepare some well flavored chicken breasts for her while I prepare some short ribs for myself without having to worry about creating extra pans to scrub.
dangit! didn't think the first post went through and now I'm disqualified for double posting. ARRGH.
To pay hommage to Joan Roca, the first to write an entire book --not without mistakes-- about sous vide in the context of modernist cuisine. Not a single mention to it in Keller et all book (sic).
One word; pig. We have half of a locally raised heirloom in the deep freeze aching for some new preparation methods. This fine piece of porcine perfection deserves my creative best doesn't it? Help me Obi Wan, you're my only hope...
My husband (not so legally) hunts squirrel from our backyard. The most palatable way we've found to cook it is a nice long confit preparation. I bet that sous vide would be a healthier method to produce a similar result.
I'd try different flavor combination's with short ribs and would cook our weekly fish meal using it. I'd also use it to make perfect runny eggs for huevos rancheros. There are so many different options. Thanks for giving this away to one lucky reader Michael, very generous of you.
I'm not entering (I have absolutely no counter/cupboard space in my kitchen for anything cool). However, I just have to say that in my day job as a researcher (biology lab), we use an expensive version of a circulating water bath that is sold to labs - it allows us to control temperature-sensitive reactions. When I finally set up my own lab, I may buy a sous vide instead since it is about a third of the price, and would be just as effective (and with a company name like PolyScience, the folks in the grants office will not give me grief about justifying the expense. As they did when I budgeted for an item from Home Depot because they are the only place in the state that sells just the right kind of tubing for a piece of equipment we use).
At the risk of sounding low class I would use this on burgers and sausages. The best burgers and sausages ever!! Why? Because I could!
I will have a 63-degree egg every morning for the rest of my life.
Always want to try using ommersion circulator, especially on large party prep like more than 15 portions at a time (Thinking of New Year party). Besides, I would like to do some oil poached fish (ideally a pretty good size whole fish) which I cannot do with my current setup.
I can guarantee that this would get hauled from my current home in Florida to my parent's home in Minnesota to cook a venison heart and tenderloin (shot by my dad during season and awaiting me in the freezer) in a way that would make my salt-and-pepper-well-done-steak dad cringe.
I would make anything in this, the real magic would be in using the tears of everyone who did not win though as my liquid medium!!! Seriously though, I know there will be tears either way for whoever wins/loses.
Wow! What a wonderful giveaway! I think it would be interesting to use it to try the recipes in Thomas keller's book! Also, there are several recipes in the French Laundry Cookbook that I think would be absolutely incredible if started sous vide. Also, I love making braised meats but sometimes get frustrated with the texture. Sous vide would definitely take care of that!
Me too! The fun I could have with this. I've got "Under Pressure" and can't wait to start cooking my way through the book.
me please! I desperately want to cook rare burgers sous vide.
Ahhhh! My delightful (and most helpful) wife points out to me that it is not only necessary to post a comment, but to also specify how I would put the device to use. So not trying to double-enter here, just want to remain in the drawing! 😉
The 65 degree egg would probably be experiment number one. Followed immediately by a big slab of pork belly, cooked sous vide, crisped in a pan of hot oil, and served in chunks with some Korean BBQ sauce on the side.
With this circulator I will produce such beautiful food that my wife will beg me to stop taking her out to wonderful restaurants so that we can have more romantic, low and slow dinners at home. And we all know where that can lead...
Great Giveaway! Keeping my fingers crossed... Would love to work my way through several sous vide books / recipes!
Would love to try desserts with this! sous vide chocolate cake.. mm.
I would use the immersion circulator for education. I am a professor at a small liberal arts college teaching courses on food fermentation, biochemistry and microbiology. This semester I started teaching a course called "Biochemistry of Food and Cooking" we were able to conduct a variety of interesting experiments and even delve into the world of hydrocolloids in cooking - the students were fascinated. However, immersion circulators are so expensive that I couldn't afford one for the class, even with a modest teaching budget. If we received the circulator students would actually be able to study the scientific principles underlying sous vide through hands on research. I would incorporate sous vide into the syllabus and disseminate our knowledge openly and freely on a course wiki page so that we might all benefit. Thanks for the consideration.
Bacon and eggs. That's all there is to it. Eggs cooked in their shell with a circulator are amazing. And of course pork belly with a little apple cider vinegar, a dash of raw sugar, and an ancho pepper. My Southern side requires my to finish the belly off in a hot cast iron skillet. The biscuits don't go sous vide of course. Thanks for the chance at a great holiday treat!
As a restaurant chef at a hotel, I would like to integrate the sous vide equipment into our catering kitchen and blow the banquet chef away at how easily a small tool like a circulator can help us out. Perfectly cooked veggies, banishing rubber chicken, sauces, I'm getting excited all ready!
Goose. Duck. Chicken. I'm going to bone out and skin the chicken. I'm going to bone out and skin the duck. I'm going to bone out and skin the goose. I'm going to take Activa RM (transglutaminase, a tasteless cornstarch-textured powder known marginally less deliciously as "meat glue"), which I bought off Amazon with one-click, and I'm going to use it to bind the birds, neatly arranged, together, square it off, and wrap it in bird skin, again bound with Activa RM. I'll cook my entire frankengooducken SV to ~158f while rendering the fat and skin left over to crisp the frankengooducken in when I'm done.
Also I'm going to make potatoes, but that won't need the circulator.
Pork belly would be the first thing I'd try with this machine. A dry cure with some spices such as juniper, bay, thyme, then a sous vide treatment for a day.
I'd also be interested in using this to circulate hot water for beer making. One could set it up in a small heat exchanger that would keep the mash (enzymatic extraction of sugars from the malted barley) at a constant temperature to fix the fermentable/unfermentable sugars ratio in the final beer. It would allow very precise control of this process, which can sometimes be tricky in large batches.
I would use this for everything!
First I'd go classic and use this to do justice to the amazing happy lamb that I just got from my CSA farmer. There are some beautiful chops that I'd love to get perfectly rare before searing them off. Other cuts - shoulder, heart, tongue, liver - would also get the treatment to bring out their very best flavors and textures.
I've gotta satisfy my sweet tooth: I'd experiment to make my family and friends happy this holiday season with some ideas that I have for perfectly uncurdled creme brulee (using Ratio recipes, of course). Might also try pastry cream and creme anglaise, or custard for ice cream.
And the application that will make the love of my life happy: perfectly poached eggs for his toast-dipping pleasures. I could set them up before bed and have them ready when he wakes up in the morning. Heaven.
Thanks for the opportunity!
Would love to use this on the Elk loin I have. Pork Belly would be my second run.
I have one thing to say.... Duck...Duck and more Duck!!!
Pork Belly or Elk Loin!! be awesome - I don't think this is a second sumbission, had a weird message when I orginally tried to submit.
Hey, Michael
Long-time reader, first-time comment.
I would bring the immersion circulator to the Ledge Rock Grille at the Larsmont Cottages on the North Shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota. I'm a cook at the restaurant and this would be an amazing tool to share not only with my fellow cooks, but with the community of people who stay on the shore. I know that sous vide technique is something not many people have experienced in this area and it would only serve to build awareness in the local restaurants. I would end up giving the equipment to the Ledge Rock Grille so cooks and diners after me could learn from it and experience all it has to offer.
There would be so many different things I would want to try out. But one thing I would really like to do is sous vide vegetables. Seasonal produce with some herbs, butter and aromatics.
Cooking them so the flavors permeate, but still keeping the integrity of the original vegetable. I know it sounds basic, but I think there is so much that can be done with produce. I thought the Brontosaurus vs. the TRex challenge in the latest episode of Top Chef All-Stars was very interesting.
Balinese water buffalo, I think that will interesting.
I would cook my way through Under Pressure (of course).
I'd primarily use it for ribs + roasts, but I'm giving thought to the squirrel confit mentioned above.
Two words: Short Rib.
I'm looking for that secret to tender inside, just-seared outside, and haven't been willing to shell out the benjamins for the real gear (I'm almost to the jerry-rigged slow cooker point). And yes I know the searing part is sold separately.
Help save a life or two and keep me out of the slammer. I would love to be able to hold prime rib-eye steaks, short ribs, etc.at the perfect temperature so I won't ever be tempted to kill my sister-in-law and her husband when they arrive an hour late for dinner yet again.
I own Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide and would love to be able to try the recipes.
moose
Spice-rubbed beef tri-tip, perfectly medium rare, finished in a searing-hot cast iron skillet. (Suddenly, I'm hungry!)
I'd try this with all my favorite meats.....pork chops, new york strip, ribeye, chicken,etc......
We have a baby in the house, and I know it sounds crazy, but I'm dying to try out some sous vide techniques to try cooking for the little nipper. Something about texture has me convinced it's the right thing to do.
As a person who is endlessly fascinated by egg custards, I would probably start with the idea of cooking custards just to the point of coagulation without overcooking the external surfaces.
That said I have been wanting to experiment with sausage mousselines (I had an idea for a sausage based on the Poulet a L'estragon I had at Pere Bise many years ago) and this would be ideal for that.
Good luck to all those throwing their name into the hat!
I would prepare veal tenderloin with morels in the spring.
This would be te perfect compliment to the pressure cooker I have asked Santa for.....even if I don't win, merry Christmas everyone!
I need this. I have 2 kids under four that refuse to eat meat but love to help in the kitchen. Something cool like this would definitely get them excited to help and taste their work.
Cabrito. Slow cooked baby goat? Yes, I think so. Finish it off in the smoker for 30 min to impart that tasty, smoky flavor. Talk about the best tacos ever. Family meal would rock and my prep cooks and dishwashers would love it (after all, they're the heroes of any kitchen and they deserve to eat well).
Will use it to keep my venison perfectly cooked, rare and juicy!
This would be awesome - I would use it to introduce more fish into my diet.
If I won it, I would experiment the crap out of it. I have never used one, but have seen it used before and seen the awesome results that come out of it. It would be incredibly exciting to discover the applications of this machine for myself and of course, share the results with my friends.
Two words: Beef Cheeks.
What an awesome cut of meat: Tons of flavor, relatively inexpensive cut, sears easily, and plenty of silvery-white connective tissue just mooing for an $800 sous-vide machine (minus the $800).
And now it's time for the mandatory brown-nosing: Ruhlman Rocks!
I would love love love to have a way to keep water or milk at a constant temperature as I make cheese. This tool would work amazingly well, both for heating the milk initially, and for keeping a water bath at a constant temp over the long ripening, setting, and curd cooking stages of the process. It would be so much more energy efficient than using hot tap water or a low flame, and instead of 4 hours on my feet babysitting the milk to make a wheel of gouda, I could spend the time reading cookbooks:)
Also, a perfectly boiled egg with a runny yolk is my personal holy grail of cooking.
Lovely! It'll be like working in the laboratory again, only with delicious food as the reward 😀
Pork belly, slow cured over night...that's the ticket
I live alone and preparing meats and fowl involves lots of grease on the stovetop and multiple skillets and broiling trays and heavy duty cleanup - all for dinner for one. The sous vide machine would allow me to make a healthful, delicious weeknight dinner much more regularly and avoid the prepared foods I often have to resort to after a particularly busy workday.
I'd use it to try a ton of different recipes, but I think the three main uses would be: 1) chicken. I'd put up a bunch of skinless chicken breasts (brined, cooked to 141F long enough to pasteurize, then frozen) to provide a store of ready-made, quick-to-reheat-even-when-frozen, healthy protien. Great for chicken salad, vegetable & pasta meals, and sandwiches. I'd also prepare chicken thighs, cool them, then grill to get the skin nice and crispy without overcooking the inside. 2) medium rare braises, something that simply can't be done any other way. For short ribs, hangar steak and (at a higher temp than medium rare) pork shoulder and pork belly. 3) confit. Duck to start, but also turkey. That's for starters - I'd certainly add more as I learned.
this machine would be to die for!! this would help me perfect my egg making skills!! there is nothing like a perfect 6 minute egg... drool.
This would be great for making in-shell poached eggs and allowing me to buy cheaper cuts of steak that can be sous-vided to perfection! Don't get me started on short ribs.
What wouldn't I use it for? I would be very interested in using it for all sorts of fresh vegetables, since most methods of cooking take out the natural juices of the vegetables. I also think it would be very utilitarian to use it to simply heat malt extract to a uniform temperature before mixing with water to make home brew.
Have been playing around with this improvised sous vide cooker (http://www.cookingforgeeks.com/blog/posts/diy-sous-vide/#more-4931) but it isn't perfect and I'm still afraid I'm going to electrocute myself!
I'm actually very interested in trying out vegetables. What would it be like to assemble a pot roast with vegetables that hadn't given all of their flavor to the broth? Or what kinds of things could you do with a pre-sauced, vacuum packed artichoke (or just the heart)?
Would love to do some demos for my chemistry classes, but for myself, gotta be some sous-vide carnitas pork, homemade tortillas and fresh cilantro.
Sous vide Pork and Duck Pozole. I bet slow-cooking the meat and hominy on the guajillo and ancho broth will render an out-of-this-world flavor
I have a somewhat ghetto sous vide setup with a PID controller and a rice cooker. It works great ( has even helped me create contest winning recipes - http://honest-food.net/2010/10/28/and-the-winner-is/) but is still a long shot from being the precise instrument that my yearning for technique mastery asks of it.
A real immersion circulator would allow me to kick up my sous vide skills to another level. It might be enough to encourage me to start to use my copy of 'Under Pressure' for more than just furtive sessions of culinary masturbation on the couch.
I've never sous-vide-d anything, so I would start with some of the steak my roommate hasn't gotten around to eating yet, or maybe a slow-poached egg, to be deep-fried Momofuku style and eaten with a pork bun, and then move with leaps and bounds to Dave Arnold's bionic turkey... But I'd probably use it most often to keep yogurt-to-be at a constant 120 degrees while it cultures. My drafty oven does a terrible job at that.
Eggs! Pork! Herb buttered veg! Short ribs!
I was just staring at this on the William-Sonoma website for about 4 hours the other day. I either need to win this or buy a igloo cooler so I am not as tempted to drop $800.
So many ideas. Although I am a professional chef, the very small restaurant i work at can never justify the expense. my experiments with duck breast pastrami, pork stuffed quail, and turkey baollotine using only a hotel pan, thermometer, and a bucket of ice to maintain temperature have been fairly successful (i even pulled of the 63* egg once) but this would open up worlds of possibility
Sounds like some kind of fun, possibly a new hobby. Or, a new branch of current hobby. Thanks!
My two 'boys' have emerged into adulthood... (thank goodness - those teenager years were murder) ...as awesome cooks. We all love to eat good food and stretching our culinary skills has become great fun. We had a few dishes prepared with a sous vide at one of the Culinary Vegetable Institute's Earth-to-Table dinners. We would LOVE to recreate those dishes and try lots of other things too! (one of the dishes incorporated sous vide cooked chicken that was used with risotto). The chicken was amazingly moist and flavorful. This sous vide would be a gift that will help keep my family enjoying our culinary journey for years to come! Thanks for this opportunity to enter the contest!
Oh, this is tough. What to cook first? I think The Perfect Egg to start.........then a riff on Canard à la presse.......then a pork jowl and belly with foie gras terrine. Unfortunately after that I think my wife would inherit it because surely I'd die after three perfect meals.
Having never experimented with this technique, I'd have a lot to think about regarding what to use it on.... but how I would use it would be twofold: 1) practically, to produce textures and flavors that would be difficult or impossible otherwise, and 2) academically, to really understand how food behaves at different temperatures. Seems to me that the controllability you get from this technique once you understand it gives you a huge opportunity to learn how heat affects things.
I would definitely use this machine to cook a way into a girls heart. Plain and simple.
Would love to experiment with that!
I would use this machine to simply attempt to perfect the cooking of kidneys, livers, and heart. Mostly pig, but I prefer beef kidney.
Classic comfort with modern techniques. Bacon and Eggs utilizing the best that my area has to offer. Pork Belly sous vide from our local farm with Beer from our local Micro-Brewery. Sous Vide soft boiled egg from my neighbours backyard. Finish the belly in a smoking Pan, top with the egg. Perfection. Yam hash optional.
Best Holiday Wishes to All.
Just because...a holiday treat to start the new year off with plenty of new test drives in the kitchen...
Onsen eggs at will! I've been teetering on the brink of purchasing the Sous Vide Supreme but the lack of circulation has held me back.
Mmmm. Perfect eggs every time! I would definitely use this...
My two 'boys' have emerged into adulthood - - - (thank goodness - those teenager years were murder) - - - as awesome cooks. We all love to eat good food and stretching our culinary skills has become great fun. We had a few dishes prepared with a sous vide at one of the Culinary Vegetable Institute's Earth-to-Table dinners. We would LOVE to recreate those dishes and try lots of other things too! (one of the dishes incorporated sous vide cooked chicken that was used with risotto). The chicken was amazingly moist and flavorful. This sous vide would be a gift that will help keep my family enjoying our culinary journey for years to come! Thanks for this opportunity to enter the contest!
I would use this to introduce my friends and family in Nebraska (to whom a fresh steamed artichoke is novel) to the joys of sous vide meat and fish! Also to keep a bain marie for melted chocolate perfectly in temper... Christmas baking season is here, after all 🙂
I wouldn't have to use my convection oven, wired thermometer and dutch oven filled with water for sous vide chicken wings in duck/bacon fat any more. My wife would be happy! Thanks for the opportunity.
I would gleefully vacuum seal my way through our organic CSA box weekly - it's a year round subscription here in Silicon Valley, with a lot of winter veggies that are challenging to prepare in interesting ways. I would also like to experiment with items to precook, chill and take to the office to reheat for lunch and torture (I mean *share*) with my cube mates.
I'm a tinkerer (engineer in the biotech business) but my wife hates the aesthetic of a PID controler/rice cooker combination sitting on the counter. Save my marriage please!
I'd also love to get a copy of "Sous Vide: A guide to low temperature cooking" by Thomas Keller since I'm an information junkie. Does PolyScience have these as a stand alone purchase?
If I were to win this gastronomic swiss army knife, I would assure its daily use with two perfectly coddled eggs every morning but, more importantly, would make sure to experiment more with healthier cooking techniques of vegetables that get people just as excited as eating swine (try not to laugh too hard), as I have been recently intrigued by a movie called "Food Matters" which touches on using lower temperature cooking to preserve nutrient density in our under-nourishing, well-traveled food. I love the pig as much as anybody, but veggies are sexy too.
Pork belly is a duh! in this case.
I really want to experiment with vacusealing different sauces and experimenting with the different temperatures at which the compounds in different alcohols break down and how maybe through manipulation of temperature and keeping in a sealed environment, you could manipulate those things from being destroyed by heat or keeping the aromas within the pouch.
I also think this would be great for fat/oil poaching for confit.
Mangalitsa!
I don't have a lot of gadgety things in my kitchen so this would be a treat. Think of the possibilities-fish, fowl, leftover candy canes. Seriously, it would be such a blast to experiment with. There must be infinite possibilities...
Wow very cool, would love to play around with a real immersion circulator.
I would love to cook sous vide: I'm stuck in a rental kitchen with an oven that behaves like a bon fire or a pock hand warmer: no medium rare in this house! Help me dissolve those connective tissues during these lean unemployed times and keep my daughter's taste buds on their educational path!!!!
Wow! Now this is a giveaway!
I'd have to figure out how to incorporate it into my small kitchen, but that would basically be for the larger Lexan tub that I'd need to get for it.
But Wow! Great giveaway! Cheers!
I would love it so I could cook the perfect meal as I am running home from work and carting the teens to one event or another.
Holy Cow. Where to start? Pork Tenderloins. Beef short ribs. Fish of all sorts. For a kitchen geek dad who does most of the cooking, this opens up a world of possibilities, doesn't it? The mind reels.
Steak.
chicken thighs or rack of lamb. or maybe something crazy like potatoes a la alinea.
Haggis and Soylent Green
I'd try oxtail.
So many things to try, I can't decide! Ribs would likely be the first. The husband is always looking for better ways to cook ribs but has yet to find just the right combination of cooking and spices. He even read all the forums and modified our smoker to try to get the best flavor. Alas they mostly just tasted like smoke. I'd love to be the one to make the perfect ribs. 🙂
I'd like to cook a perfect ribeye -- for lunch, at work.
I'd love to try cooking waterfowl / roosters sous vide. I love strongly flavored meat, but it's murder trying to make a tough old bird tender with most methods. Sous vide, though, sounds VERY promising: even a surly old yardbird won't be able to stay tough after three days in a water bath!
I'd use it to make a chicken Caesar salad that'll put those clowns at Chevy's to shame.
There are two interlocking reasons for us looking to use a sous vide. One is that we have started buying grass-fed meat from a local farm, which sometimes means that we are exposed to more flavorful (but tough) cuts of meat that need long, slow cooking. The other factor is my wife's recent diagnosis with celiac disease. It is prompting us to look look at traditional cooking from a range of cultures whose food is not necessarily wheat-based, especially the Carribbean, Africa, and South and Central America. A sous vide would make this whole process a lot easier!
I'd make the most astonishingly succulent, tender suckling pig. Unless, of course, I'm lucky enough to have it appear on my doorstep before the holidays, in which case I'll try a goose. Either way, I'd finish with a few minutes over (under?) searing heat for perfect skin. Yes, I cook big, which is why I haven't bought one of those home versions. And perhaps most importantly, the next time I'm trying to serve ten guests a duck confit / frisee / fig salad (as an appetizer; cassoulet was the entree, it was Easter Sunday, and half the guests were Jewish), my poached eggs won't be overdone.
Wow this would be awesome....and the only way I would ever get to have one! The possibilities are endless....would probably start with some of the great meats I have access to here in the Midwest! I would be excited to learn this new cooking technique.
Oh baby, it'd be so awesome to be able to sous vide...the fake way we have to do it at work just doesn't really cut it. So many fabulous meals I could make at home....
I would use it for evil.
I'd use it along with the High Times smoke gun to make some pork bbq.
I use it to cook fish to that perfect place when it is done but not dry.
If I were to have an immersion circulator, I would be endlessly experimenting. One thing that has intrigued me about this cooking technique is the ability to precisely control temperature. What I would like to try is this level of precision on items that are normally not cooked en sous vide. In particular putting a metal bowl into a water bath should keep the interior surface at a very controlled temperature. I suspect this level of control would benefit delicate sauces in particular. I haven't seen this approach approach used before, but I believe it could be very effective.
I really can't think of anything particularly innovative - I'd just love to be able to try sous vide cooking without jury-rigging something inadequate and requiring nervous baby-sitting...
I would love to have this in order to share with my friends and family a dining experience that they would not likely have a chance to experience otherwise.
wow! what a science project for the kids, and free samples to boot.
I would use it introduce my six year old to even more imaginative cooking techniques, much as Charcuterie has done. One of my favorite pictures of all time is my son pushing pork shoulder through the grinder attachment of our Kitchen Aid to make breakfast sausage.
I'd do two things:
1) Personal: explore the world of mexican cookery with the addition of sous vide, what can you do with the vegatables to increase fresh taste? what about traditional meats like pork carnitas, but done in the water bath for 12 hours and then fried - same texture, but healthier perhaps?
2) Practical: My wife doesn't cook and I often work late which means my twin girls don't get a very diverse menu at dinner. I'd love to prep some food in advance using the sous vide so that my wife could take the bags out of the fridge, reheat and serve. I bet I could stock pile a variety of perfectly cooked veggies and meats in a weekend that would feed my ladies for a several nights during the week.
My obsession with perfectly cooked protein would probably lead to many sleepless nights of experimentation should such technology as this fall into my hands. Perhaps, it would be better if I did not win.
I would use it to turn my tiiiiiny apartment kitchen into something more functional!
It would be lovely to be able to see how much one could get done with only an immersion circulator and induction hob. I wonder how long it would take for me to get all sad and forlorn about not being able to bake bread.
Would love to turn beef chuck roast into filet mignon! Would also sous vide flat irons and other tougher cuts.
Love it! Oh the amazing things that I could try!
I would use it to show my three children how to cook and eat well
I agree with many of the others that game seems to be a perfect use for the sous vide method. I would be excited to try it with both venison and elk, but then again using it on a thick cowboy ribeye and mixing old and new by finishing it in a screaming hot cast iron skillet sounds like a great Saturday evening meal.
What I wouldn't give to play around with one of these... I've played around with a fishtank pump and a slow cooker to make perfect poached eggs but it would be amazing to have the real thing
This looks... amazing!
Honestly, besides using the immersion circulator to make interesting 3 in the morning food for my fraterinity brothers, I would test out as many different types of foods as possible to get a complete understanding of the chemistry of the food I use. Oh. . . and crispy pork belly, lots and lots of crispy pork belly.
I would love to cook duck. Mine always doesn't turn out quite like I'd like. And I'd like to try to incorporate it into Asian cooking.
I would use it to learn how to cook sous vide and make unique stews with frozen liquids and sauces!
2 things: For cooking meat and I might try to use it to maintain stable mash temps in beer making. Basically, run the hot wort through a copper coil in the waterbath controlled by the immersion circulator.
Eggs!! 12 ways.
The two things I am dying to make in a sous-vide setup are variations on portuguese torresmo and dominican chicarron (similar), as well as brazilian torresmos (the skin and the fat w/o the meat) done as a confit in the sous-vide then fried. The second would be doing a moqueca de peixe in a pouch, potentially with a type of eel which really soaks up flavor. That said on most days it would simply to allow me to start meat dishes while working at home and thus simply dinner making.
Wow, first I'd like to say this is a fantastic gift that you're giving away. I've actually looked into one for a while, but they're so damn expensive. What wouldn't I cook with this if I won? Well I just read that this bad boy can heat up 30 liters of water, so I think first thing I would do with it would be to hook it up to an 8 gallon bucket and cook a whole ham. 🙂 Although after that the majority of the use I would get out of it is cooking rubbed ribs or brisket for long times, or even a nice steak or some marinated chicken. Mmmm...
I would love to use if for cooking classes we do on the road. We have one (larger and older) one in the kitchen, but with the smaller one, we could travel with it. We do food education with kids from the learning center who are in an after school program in our neighborhood. Check it out here: http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/index/news-diversity-fast-facts
I would use it for pork belly cooked with sliced oranges and fresh herbs for about 12 hours.....
I would cook everything under the sun, but most importantly, I would cook healthy food for my daughter so I could quickly rewarm it on the day she eats it. For me, I have about 25lbs of mangalitsa pork belly that i want to sous-vide. I now have to baby sit a water bath with a bunch of ice cubes.
For a busy dad this would be a life saver.
Wow, what a generous offer. I am a chemistry professor and wouldn't mind having this for my lab! Just kidding, my lab is really well equipped, but I would love a circulator like this for home. I have the Keller book and would like to work through more of the recipes. The DYI sous vide machines just don't cut it, at least in my hands.
Everything, but Dang! I'd give chocolate chip cookies a shot in it.
I have a fisher scientific that refrigerates as well, but it has its own bath/tank that is only the size of a third pan. It makes me cook in really small batches. Yours looks totally pack and take-able to out of state events.
I would use this as justification to buy the $1400 commercial chamber vacuum sealer that I've always wanted and ditch my trusty Foodsaver. Being able to vacuum seal liquids would open the door to so many opportunities with sous vide and other things like marinating.
Then I would re-invent barbecue. I would sous vide those tough cuts in a spice rub until the collagen begins to break down and finish them hot and fast on my smoker.
Next I would look to the ocean. Sashimi grade fin fish. Oysters, sea urchin, and squid. The possibilities seem absolutely endless.
I would use it to attempt to work my way through Under Pressure. Word.
I would make my husband the happiest rib maker in the West. His ribs are already pretty dang delicious, but uber-science geek that he is, this would make his Christmas (and since we can't afford much else this year, it would make mine to be able to give it to him!)
Another kitchen gadget! Yea! I think I need a bigger kitchen.
We are at high altitude, and it's devilishly hard to cook meats etc here! I'm hoping this might be the answer 🙂
I would love to finally be able to afford to build a sous vide machine and experiment with everything under the sun; especially fluids, gels, and potential uses in advanced fermentation (e.g. finding and maintaining the absolute optimal temperatures). Thank you for this generous offer.
Quite honestly I never heard the term “Sous Vide” until I read your blog today. Without knowing the name of the technique, my only exposure to this methodwas a brief youtube video of Robuchon explaining how to cook “the perfect egg.” The yolk was cooked to a slightly less than viscous form of silly putty. According to commentary, two degrees higher and the yolk would be chalk. Two degrees lower it would be liquid. I had never seen anything like it.
This past year I’ve started taking back control of what my family and I eat by tossing out the processed garbage and learning to really cook. I’ve made the perfect roast chicken, with a little help from a Thomas Keller video. Learned not to F-with my steak until it has rested. Made my own pasta alfredo (from one of your earlier blog posts). Baked a perfect boule bread and will soon attempt Robuchon’s sublime mashed potatoes. Each experience has been humbling and rewarding, drawing me deeper into the culinary world. I have no professional experience and many who have already posted here would probably think it a waste to give a serious piece of hardware like this to a neophyte like me, but I would truly love to see what I could do with this little beauty.
Fish, first and foremost. Short ribs, spare ribs, duck! I'd love to be able to share some great unusual meals with our family and friends!
I would use this to completely delve into cookland nerdery!
I'd like it to cook some of the dishes out of Under Pressure. Would also be nice to impress the wife with some perfectly cooked steaks, lamb, etc and turn her on to cooking more -- through the immersion circulator.
If I received the circulator, I would make korean tacos, fried chicken, pork belly sandwiches, and gold label burgers...for my food truck, obviously.
I'd start with fish, then move on to pork. From there who knows? This would open up a whole new world of cooking.
I would like to clog my arteries using this glorious machine
I would modify the menu for my upcoming holiday party to use sous vide on every course, thereby ensuring that I'm able to intrigue and steal the guests from all of my acquaintance's parties, making mine the most successful. I guess to shorten that...I'd use it for spite?
I'd love to have a new circulator. My ancient Lauda is getting rather flaky.
In addition to the usual sous vide stuff, you can do perfect soft-boiled eggs in them (Look behind the counter at Momofuku Ko.)
I'm going to make pulled pork - but first, I'm going to mash grains for brewing beer with it. I have wanted to utilize step mashing (raising and lowering the grain temperature during the mash) in order to activate and deactivate different enzymes to end up with just the right starches and sugar that I want. A sous vide set up would be perfect for this operation. It would also help me in extracting flavors from hops, herbs and spices for use in the brewing process - getting only the flavors I want and leaving the others behind.
I've always wanted to try one of these but never have the money. It would be great if I won. Perfectly cooked steaks would be the first think I would try. Maybe some fancy carnitas next.
As general as this sounds, I would love to cook ALL types of protein (eggs, steaks, game...etc). I think after that I'd branch out....
Would love to win this! My boyfriend is the ultimate kitchen geek and has been dying to get one. I also work at a cooking school, and I know the chefs would love to play around with this bad boy!
Wow - that is some giveaway. Not sure where I'd start, but it would be fun.
I have a good friend who has been experimenting with budget methods of achieving sous vide results. He's used Michael Chang's 'ghetto sous vide' method (simply using hot tap water), and has also tried a rather tedious method that involves monitoring a pot of water on a stove with a thermometer. He's generously shared the fruits of his efforts with me and many other good friends, and while the results have been somewhat uneven they've always been appreciated.
Understandably, he's been a bit frustrated by his inability to control the process as precisely as would be ideal, and hasn't had the scratch to purchase something like this. Were I to win, I'd give the immersion circulator to him.
I want to use it as an alternative to the crock pot so I can have something delicious hot and ready when i get home from work. It could also be used to re-heat pre-cooked and bagged veggies for Thanksgiving!
I'd love to explore the effects of time in sous vide cooking. The typical approach is to cook something at x degrees for y minutes until it's been cooked through, then pull it out (and maybe pan-sear it etc.) But a fair number of foods continue to undergo slow reactions at a temperature of x degrees, so it'd be really interesting to leave them in longer, for varying lengths of time, hours, days, and compare—do a series of vertical sous vide tastings, in effect, to get a handle on the effects of time in sous vide cooking.
I would love to receive this item to gift to my amazing husband, Will, who is also a chef and a HUGE fan of Michael Ruhlman and friends! He would LOVE to have this tool in our homey Cleveland kitchen(and I'd love to reap the benefits of this wonderful gadget)!!
I'm a graduate student in English, so neither now nor in the foreseeable future can I/will I be able to afford an immersion circulator. The reason I bring up my "profession" is that one of the topics I work on is the intersection of food and aesthetics. A recent paper (hopefully to be presented at a conference in the spring!) is on the intervention of contemporary, science-based cooking in the producer/consumer dichotomy formulated by Walter Benjamin, Fredric Jameson, and Giorgio Agamben. As I see it, chefs like Adria, Blumenthal, and Achatz collapse the dichotomy and bring the consumer more and more into the role of the creator, while at the same time they defamiliarize food, creating a consumer who is also a producer of something that he or she doesn't really even understand.
Sorry for the crit-theory babbling; here's the point: as I can't really afford to eat at the restaurants that do this kind of work, owning an immersion circulator would allow me to experiment on my own with at least one of the kinds of cookery that has enabled these chefs to do what they do, and therefore to experience first-hand what to this point I've only been theorizing.
Also: steak! And braised bacon!
I am in the middle of making my own sous vide rig from a crockpot & thermocouple etc out of Cooking for Geeks, but would love love the polyscience one! Perfectly hard/soft 'boiled' eggs are my first target, but I am also dying to try this on the salmon we get direct from the fishing boats. I don't have a good sous vide book yet, but I'm also wondering if custards would work well in sous vide, if you could figure out how to get them not to stick to the bag. I am excited to experiment!
I want one so I can be as pretentious as Marcel from Top Chef All-Stars and talk about "oh I never grill pork chops, I cook them _sous_ _vide_"
Seriously? I need one of these things desperately!
I'd just want to experiment to learn how to use it, then work on awesome skirt steak for fajitas and duck breast for, well anything I can get away with putting duck in.
I want one so I can be as pretentious as Marcel from Top Chef All-Stars and talk about "oh I never grill pork chops, I cook them sous_
vide"
Seriously? I need one of these things desperately!
Dear husband, who is the ultimate kitchen gadgeteer, already has a PolySci sous vide outfit, and cooks just about everything this way. So I'm not entering for the give-away. Just want to say that to date his single greatest success (from my POV) is tri-tip, rubbed with a SouthWest mix, cooked rare all the way through, then smoked (with the PoliSci smoking gun, of course,) then flash-seared. Mmmm...heaven in a pan! Important to note, though, that there are serious cautions involved with sous vide cookery - food is held in the danger zone for extended periods of time, and care MUST be taken.
Plain and simple...I just want to cook better for my family.
It's why I read this site.
I would like to start with doing fish and then try some of the many other things that I have read about. How fun to experiment! Thanks for the chance to win!
Well, our son is due in March, and I bet I could make some awesome baby food with with this...baby. Of course, all of the other revolutionary things we could start cooking at home would be icing on the cake!
I'd love to try making brisket sous vide. I'm a plain old Catholic boy who missed the "able to make brisket like his bubbeh" gene. I attribute that mainly to the lack of a proper bubbeh... I just can't get brisket tender no matter what I've tried. This, however, seems like it'd do the trick! And it would fascinate the heck out my engineer boyfriend!
We're connected with a really innovative and - at times - underground artisan food movement in Detroit. I'd like to get this so other "food pioneers" can play with it and develop new techniques and delicious Detroit-oriented specialties (BTW McClure's Pickles is one of the group - born here.) A thriving community could experiment and share successes and bombs.
Thanks for the thoughtful giveaway! I think whoever gets it needs to be required to post their chow!
I want to cook eggs at all differente temperatures, and taste a whole rainbow of yolky deliciousness.
Although not that exotic or original, the first thing to go in there (probably before I finished reading the instructions) would be a pork belly. Then, maybe short ribs or the venison I've been trying to get my brother-in-law to share with me--vensison would do well in there, right?
Hah, anything from Under Pressure. That beautiful book has been flipped through time and time again just waiting to offer up it's gifts to my kitchen table.
But Pork chops from my hometown heroes at Caw Caw Creek are probably first on my list.
Liver...with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
I would enjoy learning how to use it, and could leave behind family meals when I'm at my restaurant cooking for others!
Wow, never heard of such a thing but sounds awesome. I think the idea of cooking short ribs for days sounds intriguing.
Thanks!!
I've already used the demo model at W-S to cook 48-hr short ribs, soft-boiled eggs, pork chops, wine-poached apples, potatoes in duck fat, a whole turkey breast for Thanksgiving, and a creme anglaise for good measure. Out of all of those, I think the pork is hands-down the most delicious. Never again would there be dry pork in the kitchen.
Beef, beef, beef! I'd love to be able long-cook the tough cuts. And it would be nice to finally put my copy of Under Pressure to use.
I have been dying for one of these units for so long, and we finally just redid our apartment a little so that there's tons more room in our kitchen for one! I want to try it with everything, from fish to lamb to vegetables to eggs!
As a chemist, I would use it as a heating bath for my rotovap. 🙂
oh man, this would be the first step towards actually using some of the more complex recipes in a few of the cookbooks i have, hahaha...i'm far too lazy for trying to maintain low temperature water baths in a stockpot, but far too enthusiastic not to have considered it...
I'd love to be able to do sous-vide ribs!
I would donate the circulator to my school so that we could keep up with the cutting edge technologies in food preparation. I also would love to poach an egg in its shell and take the toughest piece of meat I could find and cook it for 2 days to see what kind of flavors I could develop.
I'd use this to get rid of my need to try to sous vide in a cooler.
I always thought that the perfect steak could be had by using a combination of a sous vide machine and a blowtorch - And I already own a blowtorch!
I imagine that Ruhlman's Corned beef (Shameless, I know!) would be even better sous vide....
I would buy Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide, and make everything I could, if I won that Sous Vide Immersion Circulator!
Fish... steak.... pork..... I'd look forward to excellent steaks and short ribs. Do you think this could do a whole pig in a bathtub? Just wondering. I'd be happy to try it and take pictures!
I want to win it so I can cook my way through your book!!
Thanks for the offer!!
I would use it to bring peace, love & understanding to all the world.
And probably for preparing octopus.
My fiancee has been enjoying my cooking a lot lately. Mostly been inspired from my parents when I had worked in their restaurant for many years and due in part to watching Top Chef & No Reservations. I think it would be great to learn a new technique of cooking and add a new skill on the belt.
I would look forward to making some lovely steak and pork tenderloin with it or even Sous Vide a turkey for holiday meals!
I would start cooking healthy foods once I get my hands on one of those! Endless possibilities in cooking sous vide for a culinary student like me! I will be able to add and infuse flavors more efficiently.
As a pastry chef, I am just dying to play with this thing! (Only the savory bad boys get to have all the fun.) I have heard about the 63 degree custard egg, and want to experiment with intensifying the flavor of sauces, creams etc, as well as trying it with tempering chocolate. Please Michael, this would be so cool! Give a sweet gal a chance!
I'd like a Sous Vide circulator to cook my eldest daughter a la Jonathan Swift. It would save me from a pre-teen and feed the rest of the family
Sous Vide is the holy grail of cooking.
I want this for my son. Please! Please!
My fiancee has been enjoying my cooking a lot lately. Mostly been inspired from my parents when I had worked in their restaurant for many years and due in part to watching Top Chef & No Reservations. I think it would be great to learn a new technique of cooking and add a new skill on the belt.
I would look forward to making some lovely steak and pork tenderloin with it or even Sous Vide a turkey for holiday meals! Whatever it is I plan on a sous vide version cooked meal!
I really want to see if I can come up with a way to make custard in a sealed container instead of dealing with the oven.
There's the obvious choices - amazingly succulent rare- to medium-rare beef (that my wife would enjoy immensely). I'd also be interested to see how a galantine or some other contained terrine/forcemeat would fare. Or traditional puddings (not the Jell-o kind, the moist cake kind).
Probably most importantly, to be honest, is that it would give me a way to cook and hold food while I worked on side dishes. That way, I could get my timing better and serve everything hot at the same time.
As an engineer with a mother and boyfriend who're both pretty serious amateur chefs, it's hard for me not to enjoy cooking, both as a venue for geeky chemical/thermodynamic experimentation, and as a great way to bond with the people I love. I would love to see their faces if I was the one to bust out a fun new gadget for a change. As far as specific dish objectives, I'm thinking it could make a pretty fantastic corned beef and cabbage - St Patty's at my place would never be the same!
The perfect egg. Then fish, fish, fish.
I really would love to experiment with my own circulator - Pork tenderloin sous vide with garlic and herbs sounds awfully good.
I would use it to step up my cooking game, make a perfectly medium-rare lamb loin, sear it with a woodsy mushroom crust, and impress my date so I can eventually get married and get my mom off my back!
(in the meantime, I'm off to try the hacked version with my rice cooker!)
This would be quite the step up from my beer-cooler sous vide...thing. I can't wait to cook up some pork belly and see if the fuss about the 65-degree egg.
I want to try using this machine to make some delicious brisket, that would be shared with friends and family in the holiday spirit. 🙂
I work part time in a small, casual fine dining restaurant on the South Shore of Massachusetts. It would be awesome to be able to donate this piece of equipment to the restaurant. I have moved on from ideas of living the life of a full time cook but have been lucky enough to still be able to be creative in my cooking a couple days a week at the restaurant. It would be amazing to explore some new techniques with this piece of equipment.
What WOULDN'T I use it for!!! Aside from the applications in my workplace kitchen, being able to tinker around with sous vide in the confines of my home kitchen would be heaven on earth! I have considered the Sous Vide Supreme (more affordable, and I am a huge fan of Richard Blais...although not as big a fan as I am of Ruhlman!), and I have seen the book detailing how to turn a crock pot into a sous vide, but if you have the chance to get a PolyScience IC, why not go for the best?
I would give it to my sister and wait for the dinner invites to start coming.
It would greatly replace my DIY version scrapped together from ebay parts.
WHAT WOULDN'T I DO WITH IT!! I think it would be the perfect tool for the organic/locavore foodie. Already being friends with my local organic pasture pork and grass-fed beef farmers, I would be less hesitant in buying the entire animal, especially regarding the inclusion of offal. Appreciate and explore the Nose-To-Tail. As well as accepting the tougher pieces of venison from my hunting friends (cause how many really offer you the back strap?). Exploring all the pressed meat options with transglutaminase. Also completely intrigued about compressed fruit applications. As well as retaining nutritional value in my vegetables!
sous vide cakes! who wouldn't want to bake a cake underwater?
I just loaded my freezer with an antibiotic-free, grass-fed half beef and whole lamb from a wonderful family farm here in Eastern Idaho. While I love the grass-fed taste and health benefits, the meat is lean and can be sensitive to direct high heat. This beautiful machine would be put to great use in my kitchen to turn the otherwise-impossible-to-cook cuts into a succulent, tender dishes. I'd start with the 'london broil' cut of beef, nearly inedible even when gently braised, and bring it 130F in the circulator before giving it a quick sear on a ripping hot grill. As for the lamb, I'd mark the chops with grill marks, lightly drizzle with oil, hit them with salt and pepper, and then place them under vacuum with a bay leaf. I am salivating at the thought of how awesome they would be coming out of the circulator!
I cook almost every night of the week and love to experiment with new dishes and techniques. I've been itching to give sous vide a try but don't really have the storage space for a sous vide supreme nor can I justify the expense of a proper circulator. I'd definitely give steaks, fish, and eggs a try. I'd also pick up a copy of Under Pressure and scour the web for other ideas.
I have a list of experiments I would love to try with an immersion circulator. So far, I've been pulling off sous vide on a stove top with a large stock pot on a small burner. I've been messing around with steak, pork shoulder (143 f for 20 hours is amazing, but tough to pull off with my set up), poultry, eggs. I'd love to experiment with mollusks next - what works best for squid and octopus and clams. And I haven't even started with fruits and vegetables yet.
I would love to try the duck pastrami recipe...or perhaps some fingerlings with herbs and butter, some carrots and celery and some locally made sausge. Garnish with some creme fraiche with a little horseraddish folded in. I think I would end up doing a rack of lamb with rosemary for a nice Christmas dinner. Yum. Happy holidays!
I'd use it to cook duck breasts, thick dry-aged steaks from Bryan Flannery, long cooking pork belly and/or jowl at higher temps.
Also- perfect poached eggs!
i'm obsessed with recreating dishes i had in restaurants. currently, that means the soft poached egg from momofuku ko. so far attempts have involved coil immersion heaters and latte frothers, which works exactly as well as it sounds like it might.
Aside from using it for most meats, I might be interested in trying to infuse liquors... Homemade Aquavit comes to mind. Potato vodka, caraway, dill. mmmmmmmmm. or Gin!
How does it work on baby seal? I understand that it can still be quite tough.
Politically incorrect, but still pretty funny. My sister won't eat veal but beef is just fine. Hmmm, let them grow up and then kill them? And free range hotdogs .... no problem there for her either. I don't know. Either you eat other animals or you don't. Just be straight about it. Still, baby seals??? Gosh, even I can't go there. But I understand it in a weird way.
As a stay-at-home dad I spend a great deal of time every afternoon driving our kids places when I should be home making wonderful healthy dinner and having a SV machine would go a long way in helping me keep great food on the table as my kids get older.
Currently, I use a big stock pot but I can't control the temp as well as I would like. If you google "sous vide turkey" and look at the images, my stuff is on the first page. I wlll be glad to sing the praises of this device far and wide if I win.
I'd like to try making a pork boa sous vide rather than steaming. I imagine it would create a less sticky outside and possibly more tender filling.
I would love one...always wanting to try new things....my son calls them food toys!
An immersion circulator would help me overcome one of my biggest regrets: I don't get to use my blowtorch enough.
I'm a chef at a school and we teach cooking classes and a cooking summer camp. I'd love to use this for cooking classes and our cooking summer camp. This isn't something we could justify purchasing but it would be great to be able to use in our kitchen.
this would be the coolest Christmas gift ever!! for myself of course. can't wait to cook everything in it!
Sous vide sausage. OK, that was a suck up, admittedly. And it's on the brain since I just got my wine fridge, dehumidifier, etc. to cure some salami. OK, that was a suck up too, sorry about that. The real use for the circulator: Ribeyes, whole eggs, salmon, salmon, salmon, and lamb chops. Plus experimentation: what happens to shrimp or squid?
My three year old son loves using the circulator I made out of spare parts and duct tape with me, and it's great for him because the low heats aren't as dangerous and he loves checking on things as they cook. Unfortunately, the one I made is lousy, so a real one would be really great for him - and for me.
My New Year's resolution for 2010 was to eat in a more healthy fashion. I'm weaning myself off of boxes, packages and pre-prepared foods. In the meanwhile, I'm opening up the world (and art) of cooking to my 10-yr old niece. Together, we explore and prepare meals for the family while developing the necessary skills to properly nourish ourselves. Simply put, I would use this wonderful tool to prepare healthy meals for my family.
It won't make me cook healthier or more often, but the cooking experiments... oh how they will get stranger and more exciting! Will it be the only thing i cook with? No. Will i use it to make things solely for the reason that it seemed like a good idea at the time and i hoped it to be delicious? Yes. Many times yes.
I'm totally going to make steaks every night.
A nice constant, hot circulating foot bath comes to mind first. However experimentation with wild culinary ideas would be the main focus.
I live in NYC apt. with a very tiny kitchen; it was once a closet.
It has a two burner cook-top and a microwave/convection oven.
I love to cook and the logistics get harrowing.
I do a lot of Dutch Oven, low-heat cooking and, I've been thinking about how sous vide could not just replace that but expand what I do as well as make life easier. I wouldn't have to do the sous vide at the kitchen counter but find space elsewhere in the apt.
Certainly, it could easily expand my repertoire.
I'm thinking that my husband needs a gastronomy-themed Christmas this year. Cooking for Geeks, the molecular gastronomy starter kit, and the sous vide circulator. If that actually happens, I plan to experiment with novel applications for chocolate.
I have been itching for one of these ever since I did a stage at a restaurant this past summer. Sous vide rabbit ballotine: rabbit leg stuffed inside the saddle with garlic and rosemary, was my favorite dish at the place. Of course I didn't make it as a lowly stagier, which is exactly why I would like to get my hands on one, so I could try and recreate it at home.
I love this blog, thank you Ruhlman for all of your posts. They are invaluable to me.
I've put off cooking as a serious endeavor for a long time, but have recently been getting back to it. Especially some of the "less normal" methods, like charcuterie. I'd love to have one of these to experiment with. Thanks for doing this.
I grew up in Bavaria eating Kidneys and Liver and Sweetbreads and Tongue and I know that with this fabulous machine I could make them taste so sensational that even my American family will swoon and beg for more.
I love your blog.
WANT!
I'm finally moving into a house with a bigger kitchen! Sous Vide me!
just the ability to cook sous vide would be awesome. been wanting to do this since I saw it on iron chef america several years ago.
I remember the days of using a Daisy Seal-a-Meal for food saving and cooking a la early style sous vide. Would love to have one to use in my business as well as at home.
Sweet Jeebus, what wouldn't I do with it?! Cook some salmon with compound butter, tenderloins with wilted arugula, and start playing with my chemistry set with this bad boy! Happy Holidays dude.
My vegetarian wife who has not eaten meat in 25 years promised she would eat it if I won this because of how tasty the meat is after cooking.
Anything I can. Must work better than my zip lock bag in a Dutch oven method.
I hear that it makes awesome eggs - would love to try
I would love a Sous Vide machine. I am busy mom and always at the edge when it comes to dinner time as I am usually returning from some class or other. It would be great not to have to rush and worry about dinner. I am also studying to be a pastry chef and it would really be a blessing to my busy schedule.
I'm exploring the world of slow cooking as we speak. I was previously a great lover of the pressure cooker. It worked so fast, everything was so tender! However, last weekend it exploded in my face.
A hefty hospital bill and a crapload of pain meds later, I'm being drawn to a gentler, more subtle approach to cooking food. My raw skin and my traumatized psyche are only ready for the gentlest, calmest, most soothing activites in the kitchen. Some nice soft bread dough, some pillowy gnocchi, overnight stock slowly bubbling at the lowest possible safe temperature. All I've managed to cook so far has been waffles.
Sous vide would give me an entirely new avenue to explore. For instance, the steaks currently taunting me from my kitchen counter could be delicately cooking away in a vacuum bag right now. Instead I'm deciding whether I can tolerate a smoking, spitting cast iron skillet in order to sear them or my poor husband is going to be begged to grill them in the 40 degree weather.
i would love this just to be able to give it to someone that loves to cook in my family
I have been craving an immersion circulator for a while now. While I love the precision of the cooking, I'm also so inspired to try infusions with more delicate flavors a la the Ideas in Food blog. I would need a vaccuum sealer too, but this machine is the the key!
Sous vide is amazing! I am a recent culinary school grad and am still haunted by an amazing kumquat-raspberry dish that a very talented fellow student had me try over a year ago (they had cooked meat, vegetables, and the amazing fruit in a make-shift SV circulator and baby sat everything for hours one weekend in the dorms). I would love to try to recreate it (and experiment with the sous vide method for custards, chocolate, cake...oh, the possiblities are endless)!
Michael, I am currently a student at Le Cordon Bleu in Dallas and I practice as many of my newly learned techniques at home on the weekends. Winning an amazing tool like this would afford me the opportunity to hone my skills in a classic technique which is being newly rediscovered. This would be a great reward for lots of hard work by an aspiring chef. As far as innovation, I think my first experiment would be a cowboy ribeye steak, with herbs and duck fat....then seared on a blazing grill.
I teach 5-7 cooking classes each month, typically 10-12 students per class. We have discussed sous vide on several occasions and actually tried it but found that we simply could not control the temperature closely enough. This would be a great way to expose more people to the possibilities of sous vide and to experience the actual process in a hands on cooking situation.
That device has go to make some seriously good popcorn! 😉
I used to work in kitchens, and have had to take a break. So, no circulator for me to play with! I'd love to have one so I can develop my craft while I'm away from the professional kitchen for a few years. In particular, I'd love to experiment with poaching things in different infused oils, as well cooking grains and beans sous-vide.
I saw this circulator demonstrated at Williams Sonoma, and I've been scheming to get my hands on one ever since. I want to team it up with my smoker and grill to make the ultimate BBQ: first a warm (200F) smoke over pecan and hickory (or apple or maple or...), then a loooong bath in the circulator, then a quick pass over the grill (or under a torch), to develop a crust.
I'm talking smoky ribs that fall off the bone, but still retain their porkalicious charm. Hickory-kissed brisket so beefy, tender and juicy your knees will buckle. Rosemary-and-garlic-rubbed pork butt, scented with oak, that'll make your eyelids flutter and your grandmother swoon. Bacon.
Yep. (Checking Lipitor supplies.) That's what I have in mind.
I would love to give this to my husband. When I am widowed during ski season I tend to eat things that are not so good for me and would really enjoy pulling almost ready dishes lovingly prepared by my husband. His love of cooking is right up there with skiing so I know he would enjoy using it.
I would love to try to first smoke some proteins for short period and then sous vide it... could also be fun to try to make preservatives like jam, marmalade etc. maybe even try making some different confit…and of cause perfectly boiled eggs…
Man, what working woman (or man for that matter) wouldn't want this?! The idea of cooking the perfect piece of meat and then just browning/crisping up the outside when it's time to eat is just too appealing. It would certainly put a new spin on cooking for the week on the weekend, that's for sure!
I want to lie. I really do. But I have to be honest: the first thought that goes through my head is me reclining on the beach, a beautiful woman draped around each arm, sucking down caipirinhas like they're going extinct. All funded of course, by my chain of bang-it-out sous vide emporia -- hocking beef duos and "butter poached" Coho salmon to the rubes and rubettes in the DC Metro area.
Alas, it is not to be. Being too much of a nerd/idiot I would forego certain Kanyedom in favor of culinary integrity, God knows why.
I want this thing. I want to make food with it and feed people with it.
I want to be able to look at any protein, vegetable, fruit, nut -- whatever -- and be able to say, "I've tried cooking that in every way imaginable."
I want to debone a bird -- maybe one of the local Virginia pheasants I can get at this time of year, or grouse -- and I want to stuff it with a farce comprising its own innards, blood, junpier and chocolate in addition to the usual farce components. It'll cook beautifully and evenly in the circulator. Maybe I'll stud it with black Tennessee truffles. Maybe not, I don't know.
I want to do a chicken ballotine stuffed with swiss chard, the white and dark meat making a mosaic like a chicken yin yang. I'll roll it into a log, seal it, poach it and chill it. Then I'll deep fry the whole thing until the skin gets crispy. Maybe I'll put truffles in it; I don't know.
I do this thing which I stole from Ryan Farr where you debone a pig's head, trim it, cure it, inlay the toungue, roll it, tie it, poach it, cool it then slice it thinly. It's like pig's head pancetta -- phenomenal, porky, fatty, delicious. He sous vides it. I roll mine in cheesecloth and take up meat station's oven for 5 hours. Ryan Farr is the smarter, better man. I want to do it like he does it. Then when I get bored, do something else. Maybe with veal. Or lamb. Or goat. Or fish. I don't know.
Vegetables! I want to...
...I need this thing. I want one of my fellow cooks to ask me, "Have you tried so-and-so?" And I want to be able to say, "Yes. I've tried cooking that in every way imaginable."
I have no clever ideas but I sure would like one of these babies.
I have a wonderful friend who loves to cook and has had a really tough year. I know he's been experimenting with sous vide for a while. I think this might be just the pick me up he needs to end this bad year on a high note. I know he would get alot of use out of it and some really great dishes would come out of his kitchen because of it. (Plus, I would get the benefit of enjoying them the next time i visit ) Thank you! 😉
I pointed this fine instrument out to my wife while at Williams-Sonoma, with one word: "Christmas". I've watched the various videos, already have a vacuum bagger machina, have "Sous Vide for the Home Cook" on the book shelf (the Keller text is on my wish list)...and then she tells me (with a smile) that she doesn't "think I'm ready for sous vide". What the heck is that supposed to mean? That she doesn't coveat a perfect prime New York, or phenominal short ribs, or pan seared chicken breasts that aren't dry at the edges? I think not! We must conspire to prove her...mistaken.
I would use the circulator to cook lamb to perfection.
I would love to have this to cook a wonderful and impressive meal for my boyfriend!!! He went to cooking school and follows this blog religiously. I would love to show him that I can cook something fancy too. It would take some work, but it would be great! ... and it would be so cool to win it from this blog!
I would love to try to make pulled pork another way. I usually use the crock pot, but that is really just a more crude sous vide.
As a budding home cook, it would be fantastic to experiment with and see what kinds of desserts could be made with a sous vide machine. The use for meats and veg is great and I would get tons of use out of it for that, but learning to use it for desserts would be spectacular!
I would just cook with it. a lot...
Well, it's either I win or I end up making a $800 investment in a kitchen appliance.
Wow. Here's hoping for some holiday luck... Ever since I first heard about cooking sous vide, I've wanted to try it and now I have counter-space to use it.
The very first description of sous vide was of tender, medium rare beef short ribs. Having braised short ribs for a long time, the idea that they could also still retain some pink and still be tender has canvassed many pathways through the neurons in my brain for years.
Of course, there are so many things to do with an immersion circulator and short ribs may be a bit cliché and obvious, but that's the truth. Fish, veal, etc. will have to wait.
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Steaks. Lamb chops. Burgers. Would love to have one of these.
I would cook everything in Under Pressure.
I was having a hard time figuring out what to give the men in my life, both avid cooks. My son had asked if we still had a pressure cooker, which alas I sold at a garage sale. These two have one thing in common, cooking! Their discussions revolve around how to cook meat. My husband keeps falling short on the tenderness, fall off the bone scale, partially because he is a cheap Scotchman. My son, buys the best, Miles Market and Mister Brisket (which slays us since we help support him!) It sounds like this marvelous machine would guarantee success and create harmony in the Scott household.
PS-we live in Cleveland Heights!
Pork loin. Pork Chops. Chicken Breast. Perfect vegetables.
A big thing people neglect with sous vide is the convenient storage aspect. There are many meals that I could make ahead of time and then freeze the bags. Then when I want an instant luxury meal I just need to take one out of the freezer and put in straight into the circulating water. Normally I would thaw first to avoid overcooking the edges but that is not the case with sous vide where you set the temp you want it to be cooked.
I would also love to make confit de canard. You only need a spoonful of duck fat instead of several cups to cook it in. I can finally do Thomas Keller's recipe which calls for the legs to be cooked for a very long time at 190F but my oven doesn't really go that low.
What a great way to infuse flavors without adding(too many delicious) fats! I would love to experiment with it on many different meats and even veggies.
As a student at Le Cordon Bleu in Las Vegas, I was fortunate to see Chef Rene Mathieu of the Chateau de Bourglinster, Luxembourg, presentation of Sous Vide dishes that he did at the school during the World Gourmet Summit, and were transfixed by the possibilities. He showed us Birch Bark Smoked Organic Eggs, Salsify Mousse, Cepes and Grilled Chestnuts (Amazing flavors and textures!!!!!) and Roasted Scallops with Bone Marrow and Herring Eggs, forgotten Vegetable, Chevril Roots Mousse and Bay Leaf Jus (Incredible!) which truly turned us on to the possibilities of Sous Vide style cooking. So Michael, while you are hanging out with Tony Bourdain over the holidays, please think of us poor students who will have so much in student loans to pay off and toil everyday in the hopes of being able to join the culinary world and choose me! I can assure you that magnificent dishes would be the result and would try to take it as further as possible to create new flavors and textures too!
As an older student who has had small Mom & Pops but desperatel y need a degree to compete in today's market, I can offer experience, a great palate and technique and unmeasured curiosity into all things culinary. Won't you help me go even further? It would be great.....
Also, would you be interested in a guest speaking engagement at our school? Need an intern, I am available! Want to be a mentor? Let me know, you'd love it at our school, we have great energy.....
I've always wanted to try one of these for cooking pork, chicken, veggies... well, pretty much everything. Unfortunately, most of the ones that I would like to own are cost prohibitive.
Well, my wife would say that I would use it to add to our copious supply of kitchen gadgets, but, more seriously I think I would use it to cook 'cheap' meats like flank and hangar. While I can generally cook these OK, they tend to benefit from marinades and seem to be a little less forgiving than, say, a dry NY Strip or Ribeye. (I find these easy and relatively forgiving to cook if you use the Francis Malman technique). I've also heard that sous vide can do wonders for exact cooking for vegetables. I think it would just be nice to plop a bag in water before I leave work and come home to a nearly fully cooked meal.
In addition, I'm a bit of a tinkerer, so I think I would try a few things just to see if they fail. Could dough work? Doesn't seem like it, but I'd try.
Pork tenderloin, stuffed with apricot. And so many other new things I'd love to try.
I would use this machine to show my old fashioned boss what is really happening in the modern food world, and the benefits of what looking forward can do to the entire scope of a restaurant. I think his first serving of a sous-vide organic grass fed beef brisket would shatter the foundations of his frozen-beef-patty world. Please help me bring sous-vide cooking and modern kitchen techniques to TOLEDO!!
This would probably make quite a fine hot tub for my cats. 😉
In recent years there has been leaps and bounds in culinary technology and what many call "avant garde" cuisine (or molecular gastronomy). While many of these technologies and techniques are new to most, the vast majority are still very approachable and within grasp. As technical acuity has gained importance in the restaurant world, this has been paralleled by the significant decrease of proficiency found in home cooks. I'm not saying that the two are related. However, the lack of technical prowess and even willingness to cook is something that is rapidly disappearing from our homes, mostly due to the outsourcing of family meals to fast food restaurants and frozen foods. And we are quickly seeing the negative effects on our health, families and society.
My goal, in winning the immersion circulator, would be to consider the home cook. As a young culinarian and gastronome I would ask specific questions, and then seek out the answer. What role would such a technology play in the home kitchen? How can immersion circulation be used to make pantry staples and make cooking an easier and more likely occasion? A circulator is a fairly simple contraption, how can we make it less frightening for people learning about this new technique? How can cooking sous vide inspire people to get interested in cooking?
I have had some experience working with circulators in restaurants. It is a great method for cooking many things. For instance, you are not likely to overcook your meat in a matter of minutes in a circulator like you are in the pan. For this reason, Sous Vide is something that should be particularly enticing to home cooks and beginners. it is also great for making things like flavored oils and vinegars which can help with other parts of the meal. This is a brand new frontier for home cooks, but it is one that we are seeing come to fruition very quickly. First with the release of the Sous Vide Supreme and now the more accessible PolyScience machine. On the horizon I can see an immersion circulator on every kitchen counter in America. it is something that can be used to intrigue, inspire and motivate people to cook. But not just to cook, to change their lives... for the better.
I watched a video of Grant Achatz making turkey using the sous vide method. I would start there and experiment with meats at first. Mostly fowl. I love to cook and love to try new things. This would open up my options immeasureably. Thanks for being so generous with your readers. As if your words were not enough. (Anyone have any tissues? I have something brown on my nose.)
I'd use it for vegetables. I know that primarily, most SV techniques and recipes have used meats, but I would really love to try some interesting vegetarian recipes.
I would use this machine for those 72 hour short ribs everyone talks about... I would resist every temptation to start UnderPressureatHome.com
I just got Thomas Kellers Under Pressure book and I have been looking for a circualator, this would be awesome to have! Thank you!
I'm drooling over the idea of cooking meat for 72 hours!! I would like to make osso bucco in an immersion circulator along with short ribs. The thought of cooking pork belly that's melt in your mouth perfection is making me drool as I type this. PICK ME! 🙂 Thanks!
I cook a fair amount of game (pheasant, grouse, venison, duck, elk) which are low in fat and so must not be overcooked. However older animals can be tough so it is nice to give them enough time to break down a bit. I imagine this would be the ideal tool for such a job...
Married to a wonderful girl from Eastern Europe I am always trying to find adaptations for my recipes that she can enjoy. SO many of my techniques are based on American style "get in, get out, get on with it" preparations I need something like this to support me in my attempts to keep her here. So my marriage really depends on you sending this right away. No pressure.
I'm a professional and I know my owner would never spring for one. Side note totally off topic...I made head cheese this week! Way too much fun.
This thing looks amazing. Probably not everything tastes better after having been immersion circulated, but I really want to play with one and cook lots of different cuts of meat, and eat them very and perfectly rare.
I'm a professional and I know the owner would never spring for one. Side note totally off topic, I made head cheese this week. Looked awesome. Little wierded out by pork jello, but I have never been prouder.
Great concept. Something I would really love to try.
Choices, choices ... I think something different rather than something unique. How about makinge an inside-out carbonara. You know pasta with the egg still runny!
I've been studying this type of cooking for a year. Can't afford good quality equipment at this time, but would love to have this. Thanks for the chance at a quality device.
I am a Culinary School Instructor in a school in the little old Midwest city of Columbus Ohio. I would love to experiment with this with my students! If I had the circulator, I could share it's love with hundreds of interested students and other Chef Instructors.
I recently had the opportunity to use sous vide to cook some salmon. The best part was that when it was finished and the fish was cooked perfectly all the way through, I then threw it skin-side down on a nice hot frying pan and it made the most brilliant crispy skin I had ever experienced. And it all happened so fast, the skin was crispy and beautifully golden before I even knew what was happening! It made me really understand why it was invented to sear foie gras without losing so much fat in the process. Caramelization in an instant. I'd love to play around with this machine more, just based off that one experience. I'm a culinary student in Vancouver, BC right now, so I'd definitely never be able to afford one of these contraptions on my own!
Oh the possibilities....un petit plas magnifique? quelque chose pour la famile? ou un souper romantique???
I'm not a chef, so I can't whip out some grand ideas here. If I won, I'd do my best to be a mad scientist and kick things up a notch in my "normal" housewife kitchen. I'm always learning, even if I'm not the most talented student.
Here at the restaurant we have been "cave man" sous vide cooking for 2 1/2 years... that's right, a hotel pan of water, stem thermometer, burners on the lowest setting and a bowl of ice just in case. I have been wanting to buy an immersion circulator, but refrigerators break down, ice machines stop producing, floor drains back up... But free is a kick ass price.
I've been using the fresh meals solution (PID controller) for a while but truly would love to go further! I've been eyeing these and hope to see one while I visit Dallas over the christmas holidays.
Let's see. How about some 48 or 72 hour short ribs. Serve them as if they were a filet mignon---topped with a loving dollop of bearnaise and served along side a truffled cauliflower puree and homemade, handcut, love in each bite, frites.
I've been reading a bit about this type of device for a while and am itching to try it. The idea of doing ribs with it is enticing!
My kids have been diagnosed with phenylketonuria, so finding creative ways to cook fruits and veggies will be crucial.
The new model looks quite impressive. If I wasn't a poor college student, I'd buy one.
Lots of fun to play with!
Always wondered what the fuss was about - would love to play around with one of these...
OMG!!! Ever since I saw this being used by the chef at Piccolo I have been trying to figure out what kind of heist would be required to obtain one for my dear sweet roomie:) (he's a grad of LCB--and actually knows how to use it unlike myself. Juls = total kitchen disaster, I have flat biscuits to prove it!) Please PLEASE... PICK ME!!! (shameless begging is not below me haha)
If you DON't win the giveaway, do yourself a favor and get a digital in-line thermostat. you should be able to find them for less than $100. hook it up to a crock pot full of water and you have a poor man's sous vide contraption
I have been eyeing sous vide machines for quite some time but just can't seem to find the extra scratch to justify purchasing one. I put one on my Christmas list but I doubt Santa will be that good to me this year. Since I'm really into creative ways to cook with alcohol, the first thing I would try would be to cook something like rice or risotto in an boozy mixture. Ideally, I would love to create perfectly cooked rice with a tinge of alcohol, for example sake, that hasn't been burned off in the cooking process.
I'm a cook at a 5-star restaurant hotel. Garde-manger specifically. I don't get to play much with the hot stuff as a regular part of my job. I make great salads, for sure. Cold seafood; I kick ass. Grilled chicken for that loosely-based-on-a-Cobb-salad; simple. But I honestly miss cooking hot (or even lukewarm) food. An immersion circulator has been on my wishlist for years.
I've used ICs before. My culinary school's co-op restaurant had one that we got to play with. It's hard to say what I wouldn't do with an immersion circulator. 65°C eggs would be fun. But the big thing that comes to mind, is that I'd love to cook a boston butt 'till it just falls apart. Trimmed, with a few herbs, perhaps a little cider vinegar and cooked sous-vide for hours. That pork would then be shredded and turned into a filling for a ravioli. Some reduced pork stock, tomato paste, shaved parm, fresh basil. Simple, but good.
Plus, owning a circulator would give me something to rub in my chef's face. We don't even have one at the restaurant. 😛
So many possibilities, from cooking vegetables to making jellies to perfectly cooking meat. I'd love to get my hands on this and use it to make a "solid" soup where you infuse all the flavors of a soup into the original vegetable (I'm thinking butternut squash or potato leek). Then serving the vegetable a la ortolon, solo, would be awesome.
Ever since I saw a video, I think posted here, of Achatz doing a sous vide turkey I've wanted an IC. Played around doing it with electric roasting pans and such but was too much work.
If I won this I'd have nothing left to dream about at night and would need to come up with a new acquisitions fantasy-life.
I have been dying to expand my cooking experience by adding sous vide. Something as simple as a beautfully marbled ribeye that you then sear afterwards would be great. Short ribs of course would be classic. But, I think I would try something like osso bucco using lamb shanks.
I know close to nothing about this kinda stuff, but wanna try to make cake using the IC. I wonder if it's possible?
This would be so much fun to play with in the kitchen! Admittedly, this isn't fancy at all, but the very first thing I would do is make a batch of perfect onsen eggs.
My husband would absolutely love one of these! And I bet if we won this, he'd be cooking dinner a lot more 😉
-SOrry, didn't really mean to post twice - can you delete this entry??
I would donate it to the culinary program at Monroe Community College in Rochester NY. I happen to work as the Lab Tech for the program and know the students would benefit from learning about Sous Vide. Our program has had 40% growth in enrollment since 2009 but tight budgets make new equipment a remote possibility.
My husband would absolutely love one of these! And I bet if we won this, he'd be cooking dinner a lot more!! So, I guess getting my husband to cook more would be my innovation with the IC.
I would make short ribs fifteen ways if I had one of those things!
I read a great article about cooking poultry (specifically turkey for your holiday dinner) and have been wanting to try the technique out! what a great giveaway! thanks!
I live in an apartment, with a bottom, bottom, bottom of the line oven/range. It is impossible to maintain temperatures with any level of precision, but especially low ones. I would love to have this to do some slow cooking and braising.
I do menu & recipe development for healthcare - have long thought that using an immersion circulator for sous vide would solve some challenges we have in giving patients the very best possible & most consistent results from humble ingredients - but haven't been able to get buy-in to purchase one. I'd truly appreciate the opportunity to leverage the technology to improve what we're feeding to some patients who'd greatly value it!
There is a tiny studio kitchen in Portland, OR and a modest cook with a love of simple, local ingredients that would love this. Willamette valley pork belly, rogue river salmon...
I would use it to cook duck breasts. It would be wonderful to have evenly cooked duck, done to perfection! Thanks for the opportunity.
I just love the idea of slowly poaching everything in butter!
always wanted to try one. hope i win
There are so many things I would love to do with an immersion circulator, its hard to pinpoint just one. My boyfriend is a very adventurous eater (my Chinese family is tickled pink that he is one of the few white boys they have met who enjoys durian and pork blood), but is convinced he doesn't like cooked fish. If I win I will use this to cook the perfect piece of fish, and convert him to a whole new world of proteins!
I am a Culinary Student at The Culinary Institute of America and would love to experiment more with sous vide cooking. I do own the book Under Pressure and I would love to create some of these tantalizing recipes.
I've been wat