Meet Mellow, a sort of kitchen robot you can program to make your soft boiled eggs at an exact time and keep food cool until it needs to be cooked. The vision behind it is to create easy-to-manage tools for home chefs so they can “relax” and let the food cook itself. Sounds tasty.
It works by refrigerating the water – and the items in it – until it’s ready to cook. The machine then raises the water temperature to 195 degrees Fahrenheit and circulates the water around the vacuum-sealed ingredients until they’re ready to eat.
You don’t need a vacuum sealer and the kit includes resealable plastic bags. A built-in scale weighs the food and sets the time and temperature based on food type. In short, you drop food in, press a button on your phone, and come home to a really nice steak. The real smarts are in the app which can figure out what you’re eating, remind you of recipes, and ask you if you’d like to try new variations on old favorites. You can also set the cooker to turn on at a certain time and notify you when your food is done.
Created by Catarina Violante and Ze Pinto Ferreira, this simple looking machine costs $400 in pre-order and may be worth the price. Given that it’s sort of like a programmable coffeemaker crossed with a really nice cooking device, you get a lot of value in a small package and, as a sous-vide convert, let me tell you that a good sous-vide steak or chicken breast is amazing and the strangely crisp yet cooked vegetables that come out of these things are great.
