T3 - UK (2022-02)

MORE HIGH-

TECH KITCHEN

AIDS

VACUUM-PACKED LUNCH

24 T3 FEBRUARY 2022

Horizon

IT’S A WRAP

Sous vide made simple with Zwilling

The mystical and French-sounding art of

sous vide cooking is one of those culinary

techniques that goes in and out of fashion.

The phrase literally means ‘under vacuum’,

which straight away makes it sound rather

complicated and scientific. Then you look

at the equipment involved – a big, steamy

water bath that looks like a medical

device, a vacuum sealing machine the size

of printer and a welter of thick plastic

bags of various sizes – and you may well

think, ‘I’ll pass, thanks’.

However, there is another way. It’s

rather chic, involves the absolute minimum

volume of gear and serves up the same

excellent results as a full-size sous vide

oven. It’s the Zwilling Enfinigy Sous Vide

Stick (£129, zwilling.com).

Firstly, a quick refresher on what sous

vide is. The process involves vacuum

packing food – most classically, meat and

fish – in the aforementioned plastic bags.

The main purpose of this is to waterproof

your dinner, because it then goes into the

water bath to cook. The clever part of this

is that the water temperature is set to

exactly the right heat to make your meat,

fish or vegetables cook perfectly.

Again the most obvious example here is

a steak, which reaches medium rare when

its internal temperature is in the region of

55 ̊C. So if the water is at 55 ̊C, that is the

temperature the steak will eventually

reach and not one centigrade more.

Mwah! Chef’s kiss. Although you then will

probably want to sear the steak in a pan

or attack it with a blowtorch, as this

cooking process makes it come out

looking a little raw.

Anyway, the Enfinigy Sous Vide Stick

does away with the water bath part of the

deal, and lets you use any pan of your

choice. How? Because it contains a

heating element and a thermometer.

Stand it in your pan of choice and it will

heat to whatever temperature you like and

then keep it at that level for as long as

you like – sous vide can be quite a slow

process, as you can imagine.

To accompany, it just so happens that

Zwilling also makes an excellent vacuum

sealing system called Fresh & Save (£69).

It’s brilliantly compact, with a handheld

pump that sucks the air out of Zwilling’s

Fresh & Save bags via a valve.

We put the Stick to the test and found

it made cooking steak, chicken and fish to

absolute perfection laughably simple. The

other benefit of sous vide is that because

the food is already shrink wrapped, it can

easily be cooled – an ice bucket is

recommended – then frozen and saved for

another day. Et voila: cordon bleu meals

are ready whenever you need them.

RÖSLE

Possibly the best

pair of kitchen

tongs you’ll ever

serve up with. Hold

them upwards

and touch the tips

together and they

lock, magnetically!

Point them

downwards and

give them a squeeze

and they spring

open! As cool as that is, the

main attraction here is that

they are truly excellent tongs.

From £30, roesle.com/en

CORAVIN PIVOT

We recently covered Coravin’s

Champagne-specific wine-

preserving system but this is

probably of more use to most

people. It seals your partly

drunk bottle of red or white

wine (non-sparkling) and

blasts in just the right amount

of gas to preserve it for up to

four weeks. It then serves as

an aerating pourer, too.

£140, coravin.co.uk

EPICUREAN SPATULA

This is a precision tool,

made from the same stuff

as skateboard ramps. As

such it is indestructible and

dishwasher-proof. However,

because it is made, in effect,

of paper – albeit paper super-

compressed into a wood-like

form – it is perfectly safe on

non-stick pans.

£14.50, epicureancs.com

IMAGE SOURCE: ZWILLING

IMAGE SOURCE: EPICUREAN

IMAGE SOURCE: CORAVIN

IMAGE SOURCE: R

ÖSLE