My Codlo device arrived on Wednesday. This is a gadget that turns a rice cooker or slow cooker into a Sous Vide bath. The Codlo plugs into the wall, and the cooker is plugged into the Codlo. Setting the cooker to its “High” setting means that it is always on, and so the cooking is controlled by the Codlo turning the power on and off.
Slow cookers are great for what they are meant for, but they are fairly imprecise – in fact, most have no temperature control at all, they just work in a set amount of power at the High, Slow and Warm settings. The Codlo allows temperature precision within fractions of a degree, using a self-learning algorithm that adapts itself to any pot.
Last night, I already had a pizza lined up, so it was tonight that I gave it my first try-out, with a chicken breast.
The Codlo recipe book suggested a temperature of 63C for chicken, which is way lower than I have ever cooked chicken before. But I checked with other resources and they concurred. The difference is that rather than just cooking to the desired internal temperature, and then plating up, the Codlo takes the chicken to temp, and then holds it there for an extended period.
The recipe book said to cook for 1 hour, once the bath temperature is reached. I decided to err on the side of caution (cos this is all new to me), and did 90 minutes.
When the chicken breast came out, it looked nice, if pale; this is where I got my frying pan nice and hot and seared it for a minute both sides.
Texture was perfect, and the breast nice and moist. The whole cook was fairly anticlimatic, as I merely did what the instructions said, and it worked.
I also tried a chicken breast with my Codlo controlling the slow cooker tonight (and added a little searing at the end). It wasn’t quite as stunning as the eggs I managed the other day but it was well cooked even if the details blended into the arrabiata sauce and pasta (pp30-31 of the recipe book) that I served it with – a reliable way to serve up a dish containing chicken as a protein with little more effort than a plain pasta and tomato sauce.