The Anova Precision Oven is worth the investment
This post is part of our ‘This Is Fire’ series, where our editors and writers tell you about the products they can’t live without in the kitchen.
After I burned out the control panel on my stove from adding steam when baking bread, I started searching for alternatives. Most steam ovens (otherwise known as combi ovens) were large, expensive commercial beasts. I thought I had struck gold when I found a small countertop oven that boasted about steam. It didn’t live up to that promise and quickly found its way to the donation pile.
When the Anova Precision Oven was born, I clicked the “buy” button so fast I nearly sprained a credit card. Not only does the oven cook and bake with steam, but it also has the ability to do bagless sous-vide cooking!
Anova Precision Oven
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- Precision temperature control
- Steam up to 100% relative humidity
- Great for baking
- Can do bagless sous vide
- There’s an app for that
- Eats up countertop space
- Can release steam when cooking
- Not inexpensive
The Anova Precision Oven (or APO to its users) cooks with two different steaming modes. The sous vide mode uses wet-bulb temperature control, which is a bit technical but it basically measures the temperature of the water in the oven. Wet-bulb cooking can only be used for temperatures at or below the boiling point of water, much like sous vide. The second method, convection, measures air temperature, just like a normal oven.
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Bagless sous-vide cooking has come in handy for larger foods that would be difficult to stuff into a bag—I’ve used it for beef roasts and leg of lamb. I’ve also used the APO for sous-vide cooking crème brûlée in jars, and the result was excellent.
There’s an app with recipes, but I’ll admit that I mostly use it for looking up time, temperature, and technique rather than strictly following the recipes for spices and flavors. One recipe I tried was for bagels, where the steam feature replaces the usual boiling. The result was good and the method was easier than boiling before baking.
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I also use steam rather haphazardly when cooking and baking—sometimes just 10 or 20 percent steam when baking a cake, or 20 to 50 percent steam when cooking meats or vegetables. The interesting thing about cooking with steam is that since water is a better conductor of heat, things tend to cook faster, but they don’t dry out. Unlike cooking with sous vide, adding a little steam doesn’t inhibit browning, like the roasted carrots and potatoes that got 20 percent steam recently.
Of course, it’s been fun to bake bread with steam, which creates a super-crisp crust, and it’s great for croissants. Adding steam to the oven for proofing has also been very successful. Unlike proofing on the counter, there’s no need to cover the dough in the humid oven.
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Since this oven releases steam during some of the cooking modes, it’s best to set it on a surface that won’t be damaged from heat or moisture. It’s never created a puddle on my counter (and the drip tray seldom needs to be emptied) but it’s something to consider. The water comes from a large reservoir on the right side of the oven. For filling, there’s a pop-open tab on the front of the reservoir, or the whole reservoir can be removed.
The APO can also cook without steam, fulfilling its destiny as a countertop convection oven for baking, dehydrating, toasting, and air frying. Additionally, the heat source can be set from the front control panel for top heating, bottom heating, top-and-bottom heating, back heating or back-and-top heating.
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While the oven isn’t as large as my home oven, it’s got plenty of space. I was even able to use a portable rotisserie inside the oven to cook a whole chicken. A whole turkey might be a tough fit, and half-sheet pans are too large, but otherwise this oven handles all of my usual baking gear.
To satisfy my inner geek, the oven is compatible with Alexa and Google. It’s handy to tell Alexa to preheat the oven while I’m prepping the food, and asking for timing status from the TV room satisfies my couch potato tendencies. The oven can be controlled and monitored from the app as well.
This oven was a new product when I bought it, and although there have been a few glitches along the way, I’ve never regretted the purchase. Updates to software and firmware roll out regularly, so the oven just keeps getting better.
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