DIY Sous vide cooking

DIY Sous vide cooking:

Jon Kalish reports on DIY sous vide immersion cookers. (In a recent issue of MAKE magazine, we ran a how-to article on building a sous vide cooker for about $75. Here are the full instructions. )

Sous vide cooking was once the province of chefs at fancy restaurants and home cooks willing to shell out close to $1,000 for a water oven. Now, do-it-yourselfers are making their own, inexpensive sous vide cooking rigs.

With sous vide cooking, meat, fish or vegetables are placed in sealed plastic bags and cooked at relatively low temperatures for long periods of time — like 48 hours or so. The juices are saved, and foods don't get overcooked.

People who cook at home with sous vide setups tend to rave about their steaks.
"I do not buy steaks at restaurants anymore, because we can make them much better this way," says Dustin Andrews, a software engineer and self-described "maker" in Duvall, Wash.

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