The new Nomiku is circulating chilled water to cool down the bubbly. Temperature is listed in Celsius. (credit: Megan Geuss)

It’s Thanksgiving in the US, and much of our staff is at work in a kitchen instead of an office space. Over the years we’ve tested various culinary gear from ice cream makers to rapid homebrewers to various apps, so for the holiday we thought we’d resurface our look at one of the early smart sous-vide machines from August 2014.

Nomiku, a small company founded by culinarily-inclined couple Lisa and Abe Fetterman, launched a Kickstarter this week to raise money for their second retail-ready sous-vide machine. The new machine, which will have a Wi-Fi connection and the ability to integrate with a companion app, was funded in under 12 hours. That’s impressive for a Kickstarter, but even more impressive considering how relatively obscure sous-vide still is outside of fine-dining and high-tech circles.

Sous-vide is a method of cooking food in a vacuum-sealed bag in precisely temperature-controlled water. Preparation usually requires a very long cook time, but it allows food to cook at a much lower temperature, which many people find makes meat more tender and vegetables better-flavored because they’re all cooked evenly throughout. Although the method was discovered hundreds of years ago, it has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in the last decade thanks to “the scientific cooking movement,” as the New York Times called it in 2005: “Cryovacking, which is more often called sous vide (French for ”under vacuum”), is poised to change the way restaurant chefs cook—and like the Wolf stove and the immersion blender, it will probably trickle down to the home kitchen someday.”