The claim: T-fal 10-in-1 Rice & Multi-Cooker offers 10 cooking programs, including rice, risotto, reheat, oatmeal, slow cook, steam/soup, yogurt, baking, browning and keep warm. Features include Fuzzy Logic technology that auto-adjusts settings during cooking for the perfect temperature, a touch-pad control panel design with adjustable cooking timer, and the ability to preset up to 24 hours in advance. The 2-millimeter thick, nonstick ceramic inner pot can hold up to 10 cups. Accessories include: a steam basket, rice spoon, soup spoon, spoon rack and measuring cup.
Cost: $99.99
Where: Bed, Bath & Beyond
The new T-fal 10-in-1 Rice & Multi-Cooker may do nine things too many. The cooker should have concentrated on one form of cooking and not try to combine rice, slow cooking, steaming, baking, yogurt and more. To be honest, I never tried the yogurt function, but something didn't seem right about cooking rice and yogurt in the same machine.
The rice I cooked was OK, but not great. It was difficult to measure the appropriate amounts of rice and water. My broccoli was nicely steamed, but steaming broccoli shouldn't require a $100-plus machine. Setting cooking modes and times was unnecessarily complicated because of the all options. If I had this in my kitchen, I'd still use a sauce pan and the stove for most of my cooking.
I have never really entertained the thought of owning a rice cooker until recently because of my wife's insistence of us getting one. She's from the Philippines, and she's been using them for years. I rarely made rice, but as she makes it daily, I figured that when this one came up for testing, we'd try it out.
I always made my rice in an ordinary pan, which suited me fine, but the T-fal Rice & Multi-Cooker promised to do all of that and more. My wife liked the size of the unit because it was able to make a sizable portion. However, she said that it was difficult to understand the instructions to get it to do what she wanted. She was able to get it to cook OK. But heating it back up again was a bit more difficult. In fact, she ended up burning the rice.
She didn't try cooking anything else in it, as she wasn't comfortable trying it.
I have noticed, however, that her clamoring of us getting a rice cooker has abated. I guess I know which one not to buy when she brings it up again.
