Gizmo Guy: Kitchen Cool

For my next career move, Gizmo Guy is thinking about master chef or barista. Not that I've been trained for either pursuit. But two terrific, teched-up cooking tools - the Anova Precision Cooker (for "sous vide" cooking) and Behmor Connected Coffee Maker - make me think I could fool a lot of people, a lot of the time.

Gourmet, done easy. Ever wonder how a high-end steak house serves up a slab perfectly even in color, as tender and juicy as the night is long?

Or maybe you're envious you can't come close to matching the sweetly succulent and buttery perfection of halibut, lobster, salmon, or swordfish as cooked by a pro at a high-end emporium?

The secret, not so well-kept anymore, is that sophisticated food preparers use the sous vide cooking method - and a device like the $179-$199 Anova Precision Cooker - to work their culinary magic. The technique was even the plot twist/salvation for Bradley Cooper's out-of-vogue chef character in the 2015 dramedy Burnt.

French for "under vacuum," sous vide demands you stuff ingredients in a plastic pouch that is vacuum sealed or just zip-locked with most of the air squeezed out. Said contents are then slow-cooked in a pot of water precisely held and frothed (if possible) at a relatively low, never boiling temperature, with the bag(s) clamped to the side of the pot and all ingredients submerged.

Held at 124 degrees, a one-inch-thick steak achieves a perfecto medium-rare finish in 40 minutes, and then, miraculously, holds that same level of doneness even if the cook accidentally leaves the pouch in the warming water for 10 more minutes. Better still, the protein doesn't toughen or lose moisture as it would in a conventional oven or grilling process. And as seasonings/cooking oil in the bag aren't subject to excess heat and dissipation, you use just a pinch here, a soupçon there.

Resembling a hand mixer with an electronic display screen at the top, a plug-in Anova Precision Cooker (and water agitator) hangs inside a large pot using an easily adjusted clamp. The display shows both the current and the target temperatures. (Hint, start with a pot of hot tap water and you're almost there.) Settings can be adjusted with both an onboard wheel or by tapping on a truly "smart" phone app that has easy to master recipes.

The basic $179 Anova communicates with your phone via Bluetooth. The $199 step-up model also takes cues via WiFi, meaning you can turn the thing on/off from across town, if you dare.

One important texture-flavor factor is missing with sous vide cooking, the crunchy searing of meat, chicken, and fish that many people demand. So, as the final step, sous vide recipes often call for the preparer to flip cooked chicken breasts or salmon fillets a couple times in a hot cast-iron skillet, maybe for 30 seconds or so a side.

Or if you're really adventurous like my foodie pal and guidance counselor Gary Jones (the King Cheese at Reluctantgourmet.com), you can scorch up the surface with a Searzel, a handheld, $75 cooking tool that turns a blowtorch into a power broiler. "You just swipe it back and forth over the food a couple times," Jones said. Uh, right.

Coffee break. When Behmor senior business development manager Todd Larrabee brought over the company's latest coffeemaker and bean roasting products to demo, I thought he'd be in and out of my place in a half-hour, not the three hours it took to explain, try the equipment, and taste the goodness.

That's not to say the new app-controlled Behmor Connected Coffee Maker ($299) or its close relation Brazen Plus Customizable Temperature Control Coffee Maker ($199) are hard to master. But these home brewers have much more going on under the hood than an average discount store perc-o-matic.

Caff-fiends who like really hot and bold coffee can step up the temp on Behmor's java between 190 and 210 degrees (many automatic coffeemakers barely hit 190; the Specialty Coffee Association of America only endorses machines that can open up coffee flavors at 197 to 205 degrees.)

Heating water up-top in a wide-open and easily filled stainless steel chamber helps the Behmors rise above. Then the units' oversize showerhead rains water down evenly on a flat basket below, rather than just making a serious dent in the center of a cone basket.

Coffee snobs who craft small batches in a Chemex will also appreciate the pour-over-like pulsing of a Behmor's water flow and the variable presoak setting which allows the coffee to first wake up and "bloom." A double walled thermal carafe keeps your brew hot without burning.

If I do opt to go ballistically barista, I'll likely also invest ($369) in a Behmor 1600 Plus Drum Coffee Roaster. The thing looks like a toaster oven but spins, roasts, and cracks raw beans to just the right degree of doneness (and ultimate freshness) you desire.

takiffj@phillynews.com

215-854-5960@JTakiff