Caruso

Resurrecting this thread with a question about the versatility of these outdoor burners. For the next year I'm in a townhouse with a weak gas range and no venting exhaust fan, but with a convenient uncovered back deck. Would a portable unit like the Eastman Kahuna be able to handle not just wok cooking, but also cooking (or at least searing) steaks, chicken etc on cast iron and stainless steel pans on a regular basis? I've seen precious little on these units being used for anything other than wok cooking and turkey frying. Beyond it being possible, is it practical or a pain in the butt?

Has anyone here played around with trying to fool the Breville Smart Oven into keeping its elements on full blast (without cycling) for toast?

A couple years ago I was responsible for Thanksgiving turkey and had extremely good luck with a very high heat and relatively short cooking time method - the result had more in common with a perfectly roasted chicken than the Thanksgiving turkeys I grew up with. I mean, it was amazing. I'm handling turkey again this year but lost the recipe. Can someone point me to a good recipe for this method? I think I had my oven cranked to like 475 or even higher, but don't remember the cooking time and what I allotted for carryover. This year I'm cooking a pretty small turkey too - a 9.75 lb Petite. Any suggestions? I've got a reliable Thermoworks probe thermometer so am hoping that I can hit this one out of the ballpark.

So I saw this great looking recipe for Billi Bi (mussel and cream soup) at nytimes this week (can be found here, but with annoying auto-opening accompanying video) At the end of the recipe they have you drop an egg yolk in the hot soup, but warn you if the soup is too hot, the yolk will cook into strands instead of acting as a thickener. I've got a thermapen, so wonder if anyone here can tell me what temp I need to make sure the soup is down to before dropping in the egg. Thanks.

I can't swear to it, but I am pretty sure that this is a revision. When I read it a day or two ago I remember being struck that the writer gave the impression that he had used the app and that there was no mention that the app was not yet available.

Not necessarily any fault of the Anova, but I thought the NY Times writeup and accompanying video were sloppy and not very helpful to the layman. And I was suspicious about the writer's reference to the iphone app. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I suppose he may have been given access to a pre-release version of the app, but he should have said that to avoid the suspicion of cheating on his research. Overall the journalism seemed a little shoddy even for a fairly light lifestyle/tech topic.

I'm surprised at some of the responses here that seem to imply that accurate temperature measurement is just not that big a deal. Of course after trial and error I could very likely figure out how to get good results with an out of whack immersion cooker (assuming it was at least consistent), but wouldn't it be better to ensure that it is accurate by testing and calibrating it with a trusted thermometer? Without that, you can't even say what temperature you like for a "perfect" medium rare because frankly you can't accurately say what temperature your circulator is setting the water at. Generally speaking, I'm all for the "Just cook, man" approach, but for certain sous vide recipes, I think you need a more exact approach. For instance, there are times when you are aiming for minimum doneness for safety reasons, and two degrees can matter a lot then. If at all possible, I'd like accurate temperature control on my immersion cooker when cooking meat that way.

I agree tenths of a degree are not important for most sous vide applications. I'd just like a way to make sure mine is not off by 2 degrees when aiming for perfect medium rare on an expensive cut of meat. I'm guessing 5 or more degrees and it will be obvious there's a problem even without a thermometer, but 2 degrees might not be as obvious, while still compromising what you're trying to achieve.

I'll hopefully be receiving an Anova Precision Cooker sometime in the next month, and after seeing all the complaints about temperature accuracy issues on their customer forums, now want a reliable and accurate way of checking its temperature accuracy for myself. I see a lot of people using the thermapen - is that the consensus choice? And once you have one, are you just supposed to have faith that it is calibrated correctly? I've read that temp inaccuracy is non-linear, so that measuring accuracy at the temp of ice water and/or boiling water won't necessarily tell you anything about accuracy at sous vide temps.

I used my Searzall for the first time yesterday on a raw flat iron steak bought from Whole Foods. Would have gotten a thinner skirt steak but they were out. I'm not sure of the thickness, but would estimate my piece ranged from 1/2" to 3/4"across the approx 10" length of meat. Rested it on counter for an hour to bring internal temp up a little, and then brushed it with canola oil. I didn't time it, but think it took about six minutes to finish both sides, and then rested for five more minutes. Ended up medium rare on the thinner side and very rare on the thicker area. The whole process produced far less visible smoke and grease in the air than my usual cast iron sear method, and the house did not reak of oil and meat (although interestingly my smoke alarm still went off). Pretty happy with this first attempt, and anxious for my Anova Precision Cooker to arrive so I can sear some precooked thicker cuts.

Amazon sold out the excess supply. For kicks I checked ebay. There's one with a current high bid of $449 right now. Ridiculous!

"At some point" ended up being yesterday! I should have it tomorrow and am excited to try it this weekend. A quick search of youtube and the web shows lots of people finishing SV steaks with the Searzall, but I wonder if anyone has taken a thin cut like a skirt steak and cooked it start to finish with it.

I came very close to canceling my Precision Cooker preorder (which could be a pain, as they charged my card the second I hit the order button) and jumping on this Amazon deal today, but decided that the ergonomics of the new one is worth the extra $40 and decreased wattage. At least that's what I'm telling myself...

Can't find any info on when/whether these will be available for sale to non-kickstarter backers. Anybody here know?

FYI the Vacmaster Pro305 has been discontinued. Their website says they'll be releasing a replacement model soon.