Cook sous vide directly on your hob

What is sous vide?

Sous vide means “under vacuum”. It is a cooking technique where the food is submerged and cooked in a water bath at a precise temperature while vacuum sealed in a food grade plastic bag. With sous vide, you cook food at a low temperature over a longer period of time.

With Ztove, you can cook sous vide directly in your pot. Therefore you avoid buying too much extra equipment that takes up space in your kitchen.

Why sous vide?

Sous vide can produce juicy, tender and tasty food. You will quickly learn which temperature gives the best result for a given ingredient. You can also use sous vide to prepare food in advance. It’s so nice when guests arrive that you only need to add the final touches to your cooking – as everything is basically ready to go.

You get predictable results, and it tastes great and is fun to experiment with.

This is how sous vide works on Ztove

Ztove’s hob talks to Ztove pots and pans via Bluetooth. At the bottom of the pots and pans is a temperature sensor. This means that you can set the temperature you want, and the hob will only supply the energy needed to maintain the exact temperature you have chosen.

For example, when you set your Ztove pot to 58 ºC, there will be a heat loss of about 3 ºC from the bottom of the pot and throughout the water. This means that your water temperature is 55 ºC.

The warmer temperature at the bottom will rise upwards, pushing the slightly cooler water down to the bottom and thus circulating the water around the item you are cooking in the same way as you would with a sous vide wand.

With ‘sous vide mode’ you can ensure that the food is cooked equally and evenly. You can set a temperature from 0-250°C and set the timer in the Ztove app. Be aware, that the temperature can only go as low as room temperature unless you have a cooling element.

In the Ztove app you will find many sous vide recipes. Among other things, you can find recipes for:

Ribeye sous vide
Potatoes sous vide
Pork cheeks sous vide
Chicken sous vide
Many other recipes, including vegetables cooked sous vide.

With the Ztove hob, not only do you get a sous vide tub and wand in one, but there are a myriad of options – including rice cooker, deep frying, automatic programmes and much more – that can make your life easier while achieving the same great results.

Temperature and time are crucial for the result

When you cook food at a lower temperature than normal, the food needs a correspondingly longer time. Depending on various factors such as the raw ingredient and the amount being cooked, the time and temperature will vary.

3 things you should try with sous vide

We’ve cooked many things with sous vide in our kitchen. We suggest that you try the following 3 preparations:

Ribeye sous vide

It’s often a mixture of a bit of science, instinct and experience that determines how well you cook your steaks at home. All that in addition to the quality of the meat, the thickness of the cut and its internal starting temperature. With sous vide, you can get a consistent colour and temperature throughout your steak, while ensuring a flavourful sear. See our recipe here.

Potatoes sous vide

Did you know that a lot of good things are removed from potatoes when you boil them? If you cook potatoes at a lower temperature for a longer period of time, you retain good minerals and vitamins that would otherwise be boiled and cooked out in the water.

There’s also the advantage that they never boil over and you have a much larger window of opportunity to cook them without undercooking or overcooking them.

Whole chicken sous vide

When you have a whole chicken or duck, it can be difficult to get an even cook on all parts. Usually, the breast needs a longer cooking time as it can dry out quickly. The thighs are smaller but more fatty and can stay juicier at higher temperatures.

By cooking the whole chicken sous vide, you just need to make sure that your skin is crispy when you serve the chicken. The sous vide method ensures that you get a chicken that is delicious, flavourful and juicy all the way through. Afterwards you can put it in the oven at a relatively high temperature to ensure crispy skin. Find the recipe here.

Benefits of sous vide

The sous vide method offers a number of benefits, including nutrient preservation, versatility in cooking both meat and vegetables, and the ability to turn cheaper cuts into tender and flavourful meat.

Preservation of nutrients

Sous vide prepares food at a lower temperature in vacuum sealed bags, which helps preserve the nutrients in the food. This is because they are not lost in the same way as with traditional cooking with high heat.

Sous vide vegetables

Sous vide is not only reserved for meat, it’s also a great way to cook vegetables as they retain their natural flavours and nutrients in a unique way. Sous vide vegetables retain a deliciously crispy texture without tasting raw. They remain juicy and full of flavour.

Some simple but very delicious vegetables you can cook sous vide are:

• Carrots
• Parsnips
• Beetroot
• Asparagus broccoli
• And many more.

After cutting them into equal pieces, place them in either a vacuum bag or a tightly sealed bag along with flavourings such as rosemary, garlic or olive oil.

Afterwards, lower the bag into a pot of water heated to the desired temperature and cook for the specified time. It is important to adjust the cooking time based on the thickness and density of the vegetables. Ztove also makes it possible to lower vegetables or meat directly into the tempered pot, without sous vide containers or other equipment normally used in the sous vide method.

Cooking cheaper cuts of meat

If you buy some of the cheaper cuts of beef, for example, you’ll find that they have a tougher texture if you simply fry them in a pan. The sous vide method is perfect for making these cuts tender and juicy. It opens up a whole new opportunity to enjoy cheaper and lower-fat meat without compromising on flavour.

Disadvantages of sous vide

The sous vide method has many benefits, but there can also be some potential downsides.

Time-consuming

Although sous vide helps to make your meat more tender and juicy, it requires a longer cooking time compared to other cooking methods. It’s much the same as with simmering dishes.

Sous vide equipment

Sous vide requires basic equipment such as a sous vide wand, airtight bags, temperature sensors and clips. This equipment can be expensive and take up a lot of space in your kitchen.

With Ztove, you can cook sous vide directly in your pot while preserving your kitchen counter space.

Try delicious sous vide recipes at home

Whether you want to impress your guests or family with delicious food or want to improve the quality of dishes for yourself, you should experiment with sous vide technique. It can be used for both meat and vegetables. It’s almost only your imagination that sets the boundaries.

We had Karsten Tanggaard on the show to talk about sous vide with and without plastic. When we say sous vide without plastic, we’re actually talking about a burst of salt and sugar brine, but the cooking technique with Ztove is the same.

Karsten Tanggaard is the author of some of the best-selling sous vide books in Denmark. You can follow the recipes in his book 1:1 with Ztove kitchen systems.

Purchase The Sous Vide Handbook (DA version)