Just got a cheap one from a family member. Been curious a long time so it's fun that i finally got one. It has a small basket, 1.2 liter, which sounds a lot, but can't hold more than a relatively small meal.
However, this is actually a positive for me, since i live alone, i cook most of my meals for myself. and since about 2 months ago, i started focusing on my diet, and eating smaller portions, so that actually fits quite well.
My specific version (Menuet) has 800 watts power usage and goes to 160-190 celcius. It has no heat regulator. It has a small disk with holes which rests about 4 centimeters above the "floor" to provide air flow, and gather substances.
I take it as a challenge to see how creative i can get, to fit ingrediens into that basket, ingredient size and all that. I usually cook very simple dishes and don't get advanced unless i have visitor/s, so this is the one dish i tried today, others may post what they do regularly or anything related.
Three whole medium sized champignon/mushrooms in the bottom.
Two cheese sausages cut up in pieces around and above it.
4 medium sized potatoes cut into 1 cm thick staves put on top.
Did not use oils or butter, or any spices. I salt+peppered it when it was done. Could probably have used some oil or butter, but maybe another time i will test that out.
Logic is that the heat comes from above, so i wanted the ingredients needing the most and longest cooking on top, protecting the more easier cookable ingredients. That is part of the challenge too i imagine.
Went for 15 minutes, automatic off function, and waited 10-15 minutes for it to cool off. It turned out cooked, but slightly undercooked, so next time i think 20 minutes is just right. It actually did cook well and functions quite well, for very simple meals like this. I can understand however how some may call it the scourge of a kitchen, since there is so little cooking involved... just cut it and put it in there.. but, there is also challenge involved.
I had to squeeze it quite well in there... so i should probably have cut the mushrooms in small cubes to make it fit better. I can see that a lot of the challenge is to get things to fit into that basket. So cutting things into relatively small cubes is probably the best tip here.
Tomorrow morning i am going to try to put a slice of (frozen) bread in the bottom, crack two eggs on top of that, and put bacon on top of that again ^^ That's going to be fun ;D Going to go for about 10 minutes. It takes 3 minutes to come to full heat, so about 7 of those minutes are 180-190 celcius. It should be enough. Some of the eggs may drip to the bottom, but that should be okay since it is non stick. And some of the bacon fat may drip down and actually cook the eggs.
I want the bacon on top, because that is the ingredient that needs the hardest cooking. I'll report back tomorrow when the mad experiment is done ^^
This post was edited by Taurean on Aug 10 2023 04:36pm