$499, available at major department and electrical stores.
THE APPLIANCE
Unlike most rice cookers with a fl at base, the 1.8-litre Tefal Pro Rice Cooker has a curved one, designed for heat to flow in a circular motion rather than from the bottom up, for more even cooking.
There are four rice functions – white, brown, glutinous and Japanese – and each can be adjusted to your preferred rice texture, from soft to crispy.
Aside from rice, there are 12 cooking functions, from common ones like Steam, Slow Cook, and Porridge, to more unusual functions like Clay Pot, Baking/Dessert, Small Quantity and DIY.
WHAT I LIKED
Fluffy rice The Pro performed admirably in delivering fluffy grains of white rice. It also cooked brown rice, Japanese rice and glutinous rice equally well.
One-pot cooking Using the Clay Pot function, I stir-fried mushrooms, Chinese sausages and chicken chunks in the rice cooker (with the lid open) before adding uncooked white rice and water, and setting it to cook. I missed the thick crust that cooking in a claypot gives, but the thin, crispy edge around the rice was rather nice. Thanks to the non-stick pot, I did not have to scrub any sticky bits out.
A useful DIY function You can set the cooking temperature at between 40 and 160 deg C, and the timer from five minutes to nine hours. It works great for making perfect soft-boiled eggs – 35 minutes at 60 deg C. I also cooked Glutinous Rice with Pork Belly with this mode, from a recipe provided by Tefal. I sweated onions at 160 deg C, stir-fried pork belly, and mixed in uncooked glutinous rice before adding water. To cook, I switched to the Glutinous Rice mode. Another one-pot wonder!
Simple baking My basic chocolate cake turned out well.
Skipping presoaks I used the Porridge function for tau suan, and the beans came out perfectly al dente after 30min. I could skip the usual hours of presoaking the beans.
A neat display panel The Pro comes with a minimalist display. By default, only the rice functions are shown; the other modes come up only when you hit the Menu button.
WHAT COULD BE BETTER
The rice functions lack a countdown timer, which is useful when you have a hungry family waiting for dinner.
VERDICT
A reliable and versatile rice cooker that whips up desserts, stir-fries and one-pot meals equally well.
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$599, from major electrical stores.
The Kenwood Multipro Sense FPM810 is a food processor with a 1,000-watt motor, a built-in weighing scale and an armoury of attachments to tackle any kitchen need. The attachments include a knife blade, slicing and grating discs, a julienne disc, a dual whisk, a dough tool, a folding tool and a citrus juicer. It also comes with a heat-resistant glass blender and two shatterproof bowls – a 3.5-litre one, and the other a 1.7-litre.
Grate, slice and dice
The grating-disc attachments, 2mm and 4mm wide respectively, saved me a ton of elbow grease. With the speed on high, the processor grated 1kg of raw potatoes within a minute, with less wastage than if I’d hand-grated the spuds.
Slicing was also no issue: The disc finely reduced a whole carrot to thin slivers, although the very last 1cm could not be pressed into the blade from the feed tube.
The julienne attachment was more of a novelty, though. The cucumber that went through it came out in short strips – a functional but not very pretty result – and with lots of juice extracted.
The mini bowl and blade were useful for mincing small amounts. The blades made quick work of half an onion, but anything less than three garlic cloves rendered the processor impotent as the cloves simply bounced around whole.
Did it blend well?
I tasked the 1.6-litre glass blender to turn frozen strawberries and fresh bananas into a smoothie, but it didn’t do too well. Even though the blender was only one-third full, it could not properly whizz up all the berries and left chunks unprocessed even after ran on high speed for two minutes. Pulsing reduced the chunkiness, but this made the smoothie splatter up the sides of the jug, which meant a lot of scraping to get my drink out.
The dough, though?
The food processor boasts a baker’s suite with a dough tool, whisks and, unexpectedly, a folding tool. The accurate built-in weighing scale takes up to 3kg of ingredients – no more switching bowls just to weigh something.
The dough tool was no-nonsense and effective, creating pizza dough in a minute with little wastage. You can easily modify the recipe by adding ingredients through the feed tube into the bowl as it kneads.
The twin whisk tool wasn’t as effective. A good portion of the flour in my cake batter was left at the bottom of the bowl, just out of the whisks’ limited reach. A good chunk of soft butter also wasn’t broken up and incorporated. But it made a quick meringue successfully.
The folding tool was my favourite – it gave me airy, fluffy cake batter, and didn’t flatten the meringue.
VERDICT
It delivers on flexibility, speed and convenience, although it is on the noisy side. Every attachment is likely to be useful in some way in any kitchen.
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$299 for appliance; capsules are priced from $4 each at Tangs at Vivocity and Tang Plaza, and www.tangs.com.
HOW IT WORKS
About the size of a large capsule coffee machine, the bread maker works like one too. Fill up the water tank, pop in a bread capsule and hit the start button. The bread mix and water are combined in the machine’s baking bowl with the help of a kneading paddle.
Once the mixture is ready, the baking automatically starts. I love how my kitchen was filled with the aroma of fresh bread; the machine beeps when the loaf is ready.
I like that there is a timer for me to decide when I want the bread to be ready. The night before, I popped the capsule into the bread maker, set it for 8am, and woke up to a warm loaf for breakfast.
THE BREAD
I baked two loaves – Puro (white bread) and Country Love (multigrain bread). Puro turned out crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. It was very satisfying, especially with a bit of peanut butter and jam.
Country Love was a chewy loaf with a thick, crunchy crust. The dense bread was heavy and tasty. I enjoyed the roasted, slightly bitter after taste of the grains and seeds.
CLEANING UP
It took me 15 minutes to clean up after my baking session. I had to wash the baking bowl and empty the water tank, and brush out residual baking mix from the machine. To do that, I placed a tea towel into the baking compartment and used a brush (included with the bread maker) to sweep up the remnants from the nooks and crannies onto the tea towel.
VERDICT
A step up from conventional bread makers as all you need to do is pop in a capsule. But bread lovers would miss the freedom of coming up with their own recipes.
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$1,398, available at Robinsons The Heeren, Robinsons Jem, and Tott.
The Magimix Le Patissier is a multi-tasker that performs a wide range of kitchen tasks, from grating, slicing, shredding, chopping and blending, to making smoothies, whisking egg whites, and mixing pastry dough and cake batter.
WHAT I LIKED
• It’s fast. It sliced its way through starchy potatoes and watery cucumbers readily, and shredded both hard root vegetables and leafier greens like cabbage equally well. I couldn’t seem to put food in it fast enough!
• There are two chute sizes – a small one that’s just right for carrots, and a wider one for halved onions and potatoes – so I didn’t need to waste time with extra cutting.
• My smoothies took just a quarter of the time it usually takes in my regular blender. Thanks to the Blendermix attachment, I got a smooth mix without having to scrape down and stir in the sides. It crushed ice well too.
• It whipped egg whites to stiff peaks in less than half the time it takes with a handheld mixer, and even heavier bread doughs were ready in a jiffy.
• I loved that the whole assortment of blades could be neatly packed away in the small accessories box provided.
• Two recipes books come with it, one of which also contains the manual. I appreciated that the recipes told me exactly which bowl and attachments to use. Even the blades are clearly labelled.
WHAT COULD BE BETTER
• Just two small quibbles about the food-processing function: I couldn’t get onions chopped as fi nely as with my own food processor, and the potato slices made for slightly thicker chips than I’m used to.
• The whisk attachment didn’t mix meringue so well. I noticed some sugar sticking to the bottom of the windmill looking whisk, and I struggled to scrape them in fully. In the end, I had to carefully scoop out the rest of the meringue from the sides of the bowl, avoiding the granular bits in the centre.
• Each bowl and attachment needs to be placed over the central protruding shaft and locked into place before you can start a task. I had no problems with processing food but I ran into difficulties when it came to baking. When I placed ingredients in the mixing bowl before fixing it onto the machine, I found it tricky to fi t the bowl and dough blade properly over the shaft, without some of the dry ingredients “jumping” up and spilling.
VERDICT
A reliable workhorse for most cooking and baking needs.
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$2,999, available at Harvey Norman, Courts, Best Denki and Gain City.
WHAT IT IS
Think of the LG Styler as a steam- and drycleaning closet or cabinet for apparel, soft toys and bedding. It can take three garments on the hanging rack, and a pair of pants on the inside of the door. The middle shelf comes off to accommodate long dresses. The styler also deodorises and there’s a holder for scented sheets, so everything smells great.
HOW IT WORKS
The programs Called cycles, Refresh, Sanitise and Gentle Dry use a combination of heating, steaming and drying. Refresh and Sanitise involve all three; Gentle Dry only dries.
The functions The LG Styler comes with a chart of recommended cycles for different fabrics. These range from 20min for a light Refresh to 150min for delicates on Gentle Dry. Use Refresh to spruce up clothes like cardigans and jackets, Sanitise to freshen soft toys and duvets, and Gentle Dry to dry damp towels. The hanging rack vibrates quickly to shake out creases and dust.
The add-on cycles You can download more programs – like Air Fresh for silk, which uses a lower temperature than Gentle Dry – from the LG Smart Styler app (free on Google Play) onto an NFC-enabled smartphone (sorry, iPhone users). Just tap your phone on the styler’s door to transfer the programs. It stores up to two downloaded cycles, and dumps older ones.
USING IT
I placed my things in the closet, tapped the touchscreen to choose the cycle and load (from light to heavy), then pressed play to start. For the Refresh and Sanitise cycles, I had to fill the water tank (good for three to four sessions) to generate the steam. I usually emptied the drainage tank at the same time.
WHAT I LIKED
1. It removed the musty odour from my office cardi well. The vibrating hanger smoothed most of the wrinkles from casual wear, but I still had to iron work shirts.
2. I loved the Sanitise function. It sterilised my stuffed toys, duvet, bags, winter wear, and even a yoga mat. My toys and sweater came out softer and fluffier, too.
3. The Gentle Dry function was a spa treat for my towels. It made them all soft and luxurious.
WHAT COULD BE BETTER
A. Indicators to let me know I needed to refill water or clear the drainage tank would have made this friendlier to use. Cycles would stop midway when the tank ran out of water.
B. A more informative touchscreen and intuitive app would have been great, too. It showed only Download 1 and Download 2 instead of the actual functions. I had to check my phone.
VERDICT
It’s no substitute for your iron, but it’s great for refreshing not-too-dirty suits and delicate wear (less dry-cleaning), and sanitising bedding.
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$999, available at Mayer showrooms.
The Mayer Steam Oven MMSO26 is a 26-litre countertop model that offers four functions: steam, grill, convection (with fan), and a steam-and convection combi. It has a temperature range from zero to 250 deg C, and the timer can be set for up to 60min in five-minute intervals.
There is also a Stay On option, which keeps the oven on indefinitely – good if you’re doing low-and slow braises or thick roasts that take more than an hour to cook. The one-litre water tank is good for 45min of steam cooking.
USING IT
Steaming
• I tested it with some frozen pau, and they came out fluffy and heated right through without being soggy. Perfect!
• I also steamed chicken breasts, which started to dry out after 10min, so perhaps cooking for 8min would have been better. That said, it’s hard to set the analogue timer outside the fi ve-minute intervals – and perhaps I should have taken advantage of the Stay On function.
• The water tank was easy to remove and put back. You can flip the cover open while the oven is in use to top up the water, but you’re unlikely to need it. A full tank is usually enough.
• Sometimes, a little water pooled on the floor of the oven. There’s a rubber gasket I could have pulled to let it flow into the secondary catchment tray (below the oven cavity) that traps excess water, but I found it easier to simply soak it up with kitchen towels.
Baking
• The butter cake I made on the convection setting domed just slightly although the top didn’t crack – a sign that the heat distribution is fairly even.
• I struggled with the wire racks. I couldn’t slide them in and out, and ended up shoving and yanking them instead. I got them right after 10 or so times.
Roasting
The oven is roomy enough to fi t a whole mediumsized chicken. I gave the steam-and-convection function a go, and my bird emerged moist and tender with crispy, golden-brown skin.
CLEANING IT
It was so easy. All the inside surfaces – other than the fan vents – are fl at and smooth. To loosen any gunk in the oven, I could also run a 10-minute steam cycle for an easier wipe down.
VERDICT
A reliable oven that steams and bakes well.
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$1,699, available at major department and electrical stores.
The Bosch Maxximum Sensor Control Kitchen Machine is a stand mixer with attachments to turn it into a blender and a food processor – a machine to do everything, from mixing cake batter to chopping onions.
THE CAKE MIXER
Easy to add ingredients A roomy spout on the mixing bowl made it easy to pour in ingredients like milk and chocolate chips.
No scraping down needed Cake batter and pizza dough were both evenly mixed. I didn’t even have to scrape down the sides of the bowl, as with other cake mixers.
It’s splatter-proof An effective splash-guard prevented ingredients from “jumping out” during the mixing process.
A handy auto-whip function The Sensor Control function detects when cream or egg whites have been whipped into stiff peaks and automatically stops the machine. But it didn’t do well with just a small batch of egg whites (I used just two), stopping prematurely. I continued beating the eggs using the manual function.
THE BLENDER
Great for smoothies It effortlessly blended ice, bananas, strawberries and milk into thick slushies.
THE FOOD PROCESSOR
Hard to assemble It was hard putting the attachments together. Not all the parts of the machine were labelled in the instruction manual. The diagrams were tiny, and instructions were vague.
A narrow chute I had to cut large potatoes and carrots lengthwise to fit the elliptical shape of the chute – this ruled out the round slices I prefer. I had to push hard to get the ingredients down too.
Good shredding options I liked that there are both coarse and fine options. But the last bits – about 3cm – of lanky veggies like carrots fell atop the blade and were not shredded.
Great slicer and grater I sliced cucumbers and potatoes, and grated hard cheese, and all were evenly cut and grated.
Lacks a mincing disc There is no dedicated disc for chopping garlic and onions finely. The grater disc mutilated my onions – they emerged wet, flat and coarse.
Easy to clean There are no hard-to-get-into crevices, so cleaning up was a breeze.
VERDICT A great cake mixer and blender, although the food processor had some misses – might be worth the investment if you lack the space for three separate appliances.
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$2,399, is available at Best Denki, Gain City and Harvey Norman.
The Hitachi Superheated Steam Microwave Oven MRO-NBL5000E is a multitasker with a 33-litre capacity and a 350ml water tank. It’s a microwave, steam oven, convection oven, and bread maker.
These accessories come with it: one microwave-friendly ceramic tray, two steel trays for baking and roasting, a collapsible grill tray with lid, a bread making attachment, a cup and spoon set, as well as oven gloves.
WHAT WE LOVED
Bread making attachment. It worked better than some stand-alone bread makers I’ve tested. It had compartments for yeast and extras like nuts and dried fruit.
Just like a conventional bread maker, I can prep my ingredients at night, set the timer, and wake up to freshly baked, tall loaves with good bronze crust, relatively moist and fluffy insides, and evenly distributed chopped walnuts and raisins. I also baked a pound cake, which would have turned out less crusty if I had chosen the “Lo” setting for browning (others are “Med” and “Hi”).
• Convection oven. Cookies placed in the centre of the tray came out just slightly browner than the rest. Otherwise, my baking projects generally turned out great.
• Roast chicken program. This uses a Superheated Steam and Grill combo – my fave functions. The chicken skin was golden and crispy, while the rest of the chook, including the breast meat, was tender.
• Built-in recipe programs. There are more than 200, with a good mix of Asian as well as Western savoury and dessert ones in the operating manual-cum-recipe book. The handful I tried turned out nicely.
• LCD touch panel. This is easy to navigate and tells you which trays to use for each program – important as the steel trays aren’t microwave-safe.
• Pre-heating feature. The oven beeps when the desired temperature is reached, so I didn’t have to guess. Pre-heating was also fast – just 10 minutes.
• Cleaning programs. Different ones for cleaning the inside, clearing the drain pipe, and deodorising the interior. All this makes maintenance a cinch.
WHAT COULD BE BETTER
Too many programs and choices. I was overwhelmed.
Gyoza program. It was supposed to be a model of how the Steam Grill function uses the new Super Grill Tray and Lid attachments to make perfectly steamed gyoza with a crisp sear on the bottom. The gyoza was indeed juicy and moist, but the browning was uneven. A good handful hardly browned at all, while others were burnt and hard.
VERDICT When you consider how Hitachi has managed to consolidate so many different appliances, which all work well, into one sleek machine, the hefty price tag is worth it.
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$1,099, available at Home-Fix and Hipvan
WHAT IT IS
The Ecovacs Winbot 830 is a 22cm square robot cleaner that wipes down windows, glass doors and bathroom panels, as well as other smooth surfaces like laminated cabinet surfaces. It comes with three Velcro cleaning pads, a bottle of its own cleaning solution (others might ruin the machine), a remote control, a power adaptor, a 1.5m extension cord, and a safety suction cup as well as tether.
HOW IT WORKS
Setting up is straightforward. Attach a cleaning pad to the machine, spray cleaning solution on the pad, plug in, then place the machine on the window or glass door. When switched on, it automatically sticks to a surface.
The default mode is Automatic, where sensors take a few seconds to map a cleaning route before the machine starts moving. You can also direct its path manually with a remote control. It took about 5min to clean my metre-long square window.
On auto mode, once cleaning is complete, the machine returns to its original position so you can reach it. It stays there and emits loud beeps until you switch it off.
When cleaning the outside of windows, place the machine on the outer side but stick the suction cup and tether on the inside of the window as a safety measure to prevent it from falling off a high-rise window in case you accidentally lose your grip of it.
Very important: I had to be sure to have a good grip on the machine when removing it from the window – especially when it was on the outside – and before I turned it off. Once the power is cut off, it loses its suction power and falls off the glass.
WHAT I LIKED
• It did a comprehensive and good job of cleaning dirty windows and a dusty glass door.
• The remote control let me navigate the robot to corners it couldn’t reach while on auto mode.
• I was surprised to find it worked on other smooth surfaces, too. I used it on the laminated doors of my wardrobe and grimy kitchen cabinets.
• The 2.8m cable and 1.5m extension cord gave it a generous 4.3m working distance from a power point.
WHAT COULD BE BETTER
• While it made windows grime-free, it left streaks from the cleaning solution. These were less obvious after I worked the Winbot on them a second time.
• It was loud. I couldn’t hear the TV while it worked. And I wish the jobcomplete beeps would stop after a few seconds instead of going on and on until I switched it off.
VERDICT A useful machine to clean your windows and glass doors, but there was really no escaping the loud noise it made.
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$3,080, is available at APS Lifestyle Gallery (Levels 1 and 2 APS Building, 9 Muthuraman Chetty Road, tel: 6233-0593) and selected retailers. Find full list of stockists at www. apslifestyle.com.
The Smeg SFP125PZ, a built-in oven, has its own pizza stone, and a rapid-heating function. It also has a quadruple glaze glass door that keeps the heat in the oven while being cool to the touch – even at top pizza-making temperature. What’s more, it automatically switches off when the door is opened, and self-cleans.
Makes Perfect Pizzas
Most ovens have a maximum temperature of 250 deg C, and some even lower. But that’s not hot enough to make a good pizza. The Smeg has a top temperature of 280 deg C, and its pizza stone sits on the heating element at the oven. With the rapid pre-heating function, it is ready in just 10min, and the actual temperature hovers around 320 deg C.
The pizza shovel made it easy to place our thin crust pizza in the piping-hot oven. It was ready in just 3.5min, and chewy with a golden, cheesy top and lovely crusty edges. The stone also gave it an evenly brown and crisp base.
We baked a ciabatta loaf, too, and it was a crisp, beautiful golden brown on the outside with perfect air pockets inside.
Could Be Better With Cookies
Ours were unevenly cooked. Those closer to the back of the oven were cooked through and crunchy, but a few at the front didn’t set properly, and came off the baking sheet as a cakey crumble. The pre-heating, though, was as fast as promised.
Great For Grilling
The oven pulled out all the stops here. Using the fan with grill function, where the heat is focused at the top of the oven, our chicken thighs had a lovely, crispy skin and still moist, tender meat.
We also made toast with the top heating element on low, and were rewarded with nicely browned, crunchy tops with moist, tender insides.
Verdict
It’s hotter as well as safer, and because it works so fast, it is perfect for families, and pizza lovers.
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