"Kitchen gadget": New for low-temperature cooking

Sociologists report: fast food and snacks in cafes are losing popularity; New trend - cooking homemade dishes. In 2013, Tiburon Research, commissioned by Psychologies magazine, conducted a study among more than a thousand people aged 15-30 years. The result was simply amazing: 87% of girls and 78% of men said they were against eating out, they like to cook, and they try to do it as often as possible.

In this regard, more and more sophisticated tools for cooking appear on the market. In 2015, the founder of the Museum of Food and Drinks, Dave Arnold, launched a device called Searzall, a culinary tool for cooking meat. A year earlier, an engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced the creation of a Pantelligent smart frying pan, the temperature of which can be controlled through the application.
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The modern market is replete with similar culinary toys. Most often, research laboratories or culinary schools stand behind their invention, but few expected that the game magnate Gabe Newell would take part in the development of one of these devices.

For the uninitiated, Gabe Newell is a co-founder of Valve, one of the most successful video game development companies in the world. On the account of Valve such hits as Half-Life, Counter-Strike and Portal. A few years ago, Newell invested in ChefSteps online cooking school, founded by a group of culinary enthusiasts who share their cooking discoveries with a growing international audience.

The founders of ChefSteps have developed a submersible thermostat for low-temperature cooking, called Joule . So what made Newell invest in a culinary education company and gadgets?

Two years ago, Gabe had a chance to get dinner served by Chris Young (Chris Young) (now director of ChefSteps) and Grant Crilly. Young then worked as a cook at Fat Duck, Heston Blumenthal's experimental cuisine restaurant.

“That food was the most delicious thing I've ever tried,” says Newell. “Both the design and the performance were up to par.”

After seeing the kings of the kitchen of Young and Crilly in the case, Newell's 11-year-old son asked his father to buy him the cooking books of Modernist Cuisine . “For six months, my son read these books before bedtime. Suddenly, he wanted to be a cook, although he had not shown any interest in cooking before, ”Newell says.

Such interest of the son inspired Gabe to talk with Young and the Brits, who at that time were just launching the ChefSteps project. All three quickly found a common language, and Newell decided to support an aspiring culinary company by providing a low interest loan. It is thanks to him that ChefSteps was able to hire a team of 50 people who were involved in the development of Joule for three years.

Joule is the only submersible sealed thermostat, completely protected from accidental ingress of water. Its body is made of impact-resistant food grade plastic with stainless steel elements and is particularly durable. Reliable and powerful engine drives a pump, which, in turn, provides quiet, but at the same time intensive circulation of water. Due to the fact that the device sucks cold water directly from the bottom of the tank, the food is always cooked evenly.

The method of low-temperature cooking ["su-view" - transl. from French “under vacuum”] is widely used by cooks of the best restaurants, and for hipsters, sous-vid has become something of a hobby.

Here's how it works: you put food in a sealed plastic bag and immerse it in water that does not exceed 70 degrees Celsius for at least 40 minutes. Su-view is great for cooking meat: hard pieces are tender and juicy, and it is almost impossible to digest or roast the dish.

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Julia Egorushkina , creator of the gastronomic travel club gourmanism.com comments on :

Home sous view is a delight. With the low-temperature method of cooking, the proteins are heated to the ideal coagulation temperature, the vacuum allows the product to be prepared in its own juice, and the taste is not “washed out”, as when cooking or does not go with the juice to the pan or pan, as when frying or baking.

The technology has many advantages and there are many special recipes. For example, pastrami, without sous-kind, it may not turn out exactly what is needed.

I love new tech gadgets, for me this is an experiment and a challenge, but I still haven't decided on sous. I still have enough slow cookers and ordinary dishes. Sous-vid is still associated with a big hulk from the restaurant, which you need to know how to use, and you just need to get used to the new gadget, otherwise it will gather in the corner.

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The company assures that “Joule is the smallest and, at the same time, the most powerful submersible thermostat in the world”. You can control the device using an application that includes a convenient and intuitive interface, as well as exclusive videos from ChefSteps.

The application was written by Nick Cammarata and Andrew Hsu, who became friends thanks in large part to their knowledge. ChefSteps tries to do everything to satisfy the needs of its growing community and make their cooking experience as simple as possible.

If you look at how other sites structure recipes, you will see that more often than not, this is just a list of ingredients with weights. This is not very convenient. What does the phrase grind 500 grams of apples? How does an inexperienced person know that these are about 3 apples?

The startup team is trying to make the recipes as clear as possible. When professional chefs share secrets, all they need to do is exchange a few words, because they understand what specific terms mean. Can you imagine how bad the recipes will be if they are written by people who can work wonders in the kitchen but are not good at handling the keyboard? It is for this reason that professional editors are working on the texts.

The ChefSteps team is trying to transfer their experience to the cookbooks, providing them with a sufficient number of explanations and video tips, located exactly where they are most needed.



ChefSteps videos about cooking using the su-view method gain a large number of views. And this is not surprising, because the Young team wanted Joule to be stored "in the top drawer of your desk or on the kitchen counter", and not in the far corner of the cabinet along with other rash purchases.

Looking at all the efforts that the guys from ChefSteps are making, it becomes obvious that they are positioning Joule not just as a retail product, but as a tool for their growing community. Can ChefSteps with the help of thousands of audience create demand for a new product? Gabe Newell and his team are counting on it, and these people rarely make mistakes.