Design studio Swift Creatives has come up with a smart cooking system called Sous Swift, that uses a sous-vide water bath to prepare restaurant-quality food with minimal effort.
The sous-vide technique involves cooking food in an airtight plastic bag immersed in water, usually at a low temperature over many hours.
The method, which is associated with some of the world's top restaurants, produces food that is cooked evenly all the way through with no loss of moisture.
While there are a few sous-vide appliances already on the market, Swift Creatives believes that the addition of a few key features makes its Sous Swift device as easy-to-use and accessible as microwaving.
The appliance can be programmed with a delayed start, meaning users can pre-load the machine in the morning, or the night before, and come home to a cooked meal after work. It has a cooling function, so ingredients are kept cold until cooking begins.
"With the Sous Swift, we wanted to be able to bring a luxury format of cooking into the home, without having to transform your kitchen in order to do so," said Swift Creatives co-CEO Carsten Eriksen. "This product would allow its user to cook restaurant-style food at home without having to learn the tricks of the trade."
The studio believes the increasing sophistication of people's culinary experience has created an appetite for this kind of product in the home.
The appliance is built into a kitchen countertop, and its cover folds down to allow the surface to be used for food preparation.
It has three cooking compartments whose temperature can be independently controlled, as well as a vacuum for sealing food packets. An underwater camera allows users to observe the progress of their meal without having to open the device.
As a supplement, Swift Creatives imagines a service that would deliver pre-prepared vacuum-packed meals. Its packaging designs for the concept service show sachets of tikka masala, ratatouille and tofu, and rice as examples.
Both the delivery service and appliance controls could be accessed through an app. Eriksen said the team had embraced sous-vide cooking over the course the project development.
"Being a foodie and a home chef myself, I have been cooking using sous-vide for several years and was already familiar with the basics of the technique," Eriksen told Dezeen.
"During this project, the team cooked different dishes from two-hour tenderloin meals to 24-hour cooked duck legs, which are always exceptionally juicy and tender."
Swift Creatives won Dezeen and Samsung's TV Ambient Mode competition with its kinetic mobile design earlier this year. The international studio has offices in London, Copenhagen and Aarhus.
Among other designers to have taken an interest in sous-vide is Iftach Gazit, an Israeli creator whose Sous La Vie bags are intended to be cooked in the washing machine.