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I had great success cooking sous vide with a rice cooker, sousvidemagic controller, and a foodsaver. The one thing that impresses me most is the support at FreshMealsSolutions where I bought my sousvidemagic temperature controller. The guy's name is Frank and he is very knowledgeable and helpful with any questions about sous vide.

Check out the article (on line) Wall Street Journal Aug. 30,08 "Trying Sous Vide at Home" and the video showing step by step sous vide cooking using a rice cooker/PID Temperature Controller(Sous Vide Magic). I also have a Sous Vide Magic from Fresh Meals Solutions, a Foodsaver, and an inexpensive rice cooker(B&D with a hole for occasional stirring), and I truly enjoy experimenting with different sous vide dishes. The technical support from Mr.Hsu at Fresh Meals and his knowledge in sous vide cooking is outstanding. My Lawyer friend in UK is using the the same setup. Good luck!

I was asking the same question like you a few months ago, and followed the posts here and find sous vide a fascinating way to prepare delicious and healthy dishes, because it can preserve natural nutrients, which otherwise would be destroyed by high heat or loose the natural flavor in water. I find that sous-vide is quite a practical way to cook at home, because you can now vacuum pack food ingredients with Foodsaver and use a rice cooker (mine is a 20 cups Tiger JCC-2700) as a water bath provided its temperature is controlled by a temperature controller(I use SousVideMagic which is very economical compared to the other water baths). The people there are very supportive and knowledgeable about sous-vide cooking. I even got a Pork Belly recipe from SousVideMagic people which I posted yesterday upon request from another eGullet member, Rich. My family loves sous-vide cooking, dinner is always ready when we get home and even if we are late at times the food is never over-cooked!! . Hope my personal experience is helpful to you.

I am salivating, having just eaten this dish for the first time in China recently. Would you mind posting the recipe?← Hi Rich, Here's the recipe from freshmealssolutions.com (SousVideMagic). This dish is quite rich, I suggest serving it with steamed Shanghai Bok Choi Good luck, and let me know how it turns out. Braised (Sous-vided) Pork Belly in Master “Red” Sauce Ingredients For marinade One slab of pork belly, about 2-3 lb (preferably including bones) 1/2 tablespoon white pepper 1/2 tablespoon five-spice ½ cup dark soy sauce 1/2 cup Shaoshing rice wine 1 cup vegetable oil for pan-frying For sous-viding sauce 2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger 1 tablespoon minced garlic 2 tablespoons chopped green onion 1 piece star anise ½ tablespoon ground Sichuan peppercorns 1 big lump of rock sugar to taste 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce 1 cup preserved Chinese vegetable (Mei-chia) soaked, rinsed and chopped. (optional) 1 cup chicken/pork bone stock (gelatin quality) Preparation 1.Rub the pork belly with marinade and leave for 3-4 hour. 2.Pat dry marinated pork belly with kitchen paper towel. 3.Heat the oil in a large frying pan until hot. 4.Brown the rind side of the pork until crisp 5.Brown the meat side slightly 6.Put the whole belly in an elongated sous-vide bag. 7.Prepare sous-viding sauce-- First brown ginger, garlic and onion and then add remaining ingredients and marinade and simmer for 15-20 minutes until sauce reduced by half and let it cool. 8.Add the sauce to the bag containing the pork belly. 9.Vacuum and seal bag with chamber vacuum machine. If you use Foodsaver, you may want to chill the sauce into gelatin first. 10.Set water bath temperature to 88C and sous-vide for 8-10 hours depending on how soft you want the texture to be. You can try 80C for 12-16 hours for less fat melt but more silky smooth fat texture. 11.Serving: Place pork rind up on a deep dish. Reduce sauce by boiling until thick and pour over pork belly. Garnish with fresh coriander.[Moderator note: This topic continues in Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment (Part 4)]

I have been following this forum for a couple of months since my friend introduced me to sous-vide cooking. Before I bought SousVide Magic, I did some research on both SousVideMagic and Auber about their PID controller. Basically, they are the same machine. Personally, I found that SousVideMagic's website has many useful info on sous-vide cooking with rice cookers and the support I got from freshmealssolutions.com has been great. The support guy there is quite knowledgeable in sous-vide cooking; he even helped me with a pork belly dish by giving me the recipe for the "Red" sauce using ginger, rice wine, star-anise, Sichuan peppercorns, five-spice, dark soy sauce and rock sugar. My family members are the guinea pigs, and they love the adventure. This is my first post, I hope I can contribute a little since I have learned a LOT from this forum.