Mumsnet users review the Tefal Cook4Me Connect

[JustineBMumsnet]

This is the feedback thread for the 30 Mumsnetters who have been testing the Tefal one-pot digital cooker Cook4Me Connect (RRP £319.99).

Here’s what Tefal have to say about the product: “You don’t need to be a masterchef to achieve delicious meals in no time! Tefal have innovated again, and now give you Cook4Me.

Cook4Me is a one-pot digital cooker, ideal for parents looking to make fast and fresh meals:
- It is easy to use and intuitive: Cook4Me comes with 50 built-in recipes, and features a digital screen with guided cooking steps.
- Cook4Me cooks under pressure, which means you will save a lot of time. For example, after browning and pre-heating, it cooks a Chicken Tikka Masala in 3 minutes, a Thai Green Chicken curry in 4 minutes and a Risotto in 9 minutes (and no need to stir!)…
- It is the ideal all-in-one cooker, with up to 6 cooking manual modes: not only does it pressure cook, but it also steams, browns, simmers, gentle-cooks and automatically keeps your food warm. Its dishwasher-safe bowl can feed 6 people, perfect for the whole family or for batch-cooking.

Cook4Me comes in a standard version, with 50 built-in recipes (RRP is £269.99), and in a Connected version, that works with My Cook4Me app, giving access to over 100 recipes (RRP is £319.99).”

Testers, please ensure that you’ve tested the digital cooker using both the recipes and the manual/ingredients modes and then give your feedback by answering the following questions as well as completing the survey we will email to you.

1. How easy or difficult did you find Cook4Me Connect to use?
2. Which recipes did you try? What did you think of them?
3. What were your thoughts on the cooking results of the Cook4Me Connect?
4. Would you recommend the Cook4Me Connect?

All who give their required feedback will be entered into a prize draw where one tester will win a £100 voucher for the store of their choice (from a list).

Non-testers, please answer the below question. All non-testers who answer the below question will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £200 voucher for the store of their choice (from a list).

• Is there a recipe you’ve never dared to cook and would really like to be able to make in the Cook4Me?

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

You're probably right! I haven't actually used it yet! A stand would make sense...

Non tester. I have never tried making congee before and I love to try making it in the Cook4Me.

I mean I haven't used the steamer bit, not the Cook4me.

Someone on one of the Cook4me FB groups mentioned you can look up extra French and Australian recipes on the machine if you change the settings. I will investigate- but have any of you tried that?

Non tester:

I've always wanted to try slow roast pulled porks but live in fear I'd create a dried up heap of bristles

Ah, ok. A stand makes sense. I just found the instructions very weird! Thank you

Non-tester.
I would love to be able to make any kind of Risotto as all previous attempts have failed spectacularly! Would be nice to cook one that's edible for a change.

1. How easy or difficult did you find Cook4Me Connect to use?

Very easy, although steaming veg has me a bit confused. Does it go in dry, or should I put water in the pot?

It's very big, and finding a place on our worktops has been difficult as we have cupboards over them, so when it's in use it has to sit precariously on the edge so I can open the lid.

1. Which recipes did you try? What did you think of them?

Risottos and sweet and sour pork were delicious. I can't believe how quickly the pork cooked - I honestly expected it would be raw in the middle as it was only on 2 minutes, but it was perfect. I'm doing soup at the weekend.

1. What were your thoughts on the cooking results of the Cook4Me Connect?

Really pleased so far.

I would like to see recipes available which don't use jars, though.

1. Would you recommend the Cook4Me Connect?

Yes and no. It's a marvellous bit of kit which is making such a difference to our teas - we are very time limited for eating together as we don't get DH from work until 6, leaving an hour for tea/baths/books/bed, but this has made things a lot easier as I can feed more quality food. It's very, very expensive though and without the product test would have been beyond our means - there is the negative!

Non-tester: proper hardcore long slow chilli con carne! Good big chunks of beef and everything else nice and fresh!

Non-tester, I would love to maple a proper rice pudding. My mum used to make them but mine always end up going wrong.

regular you can skip through the cooking steps already completed if you have to go back to the start of a recipe. Just keep pressing OK until you reach the stage you need. You don't have to wait through browning again etc.

I agree Shelagh about being able to go away and leave it without things being burned. Often I'm making dinner and doing two other things at the same time. I managed to burn sweet corn last night! I think it's one of the big advantages of the Cook4Me.

Non-tester: would love to try a risotto. When I have one in a restaurant they've been fab but feel my cooking skills aren't up to it at home!

Thanks Welsh - it didn't let me skip through the pre-heating at all which was by far the longest time. You are right, I could click ok quickly on the browning stage but I do think an option to pause and restart would be better.

Non - tester. I'm a chocoholic and would love to be able to make melting middle chocolate pudding!

For steaming veg just add 200ml of water in the bottom of the pot and then add the steamer with veg in it.

There is an option to use on the C4M that you choose timings on but don't forget the pre heat stage like I did.

Non tester.

I would like to be able to make really tasty curries, stews and hotpots. I love wintry food until summer comes round when I want to be able to make spicy dishes. Tagine. Biryani.

This machine looks fab.

I haven't managed to work out how to fix the steamer stand yet. 😳

. How easy or difficult did you find Cook4Me Connect to use?

Really easy to use, it sets up easily and connects well. I am not the best cook and have always struggled with timings so ive found this really helpful. The on screen instructions are great as i can follow as i go along. Its really easy to clean as well which is a huge bonus as when i first saw the machine i thought what a nightmare it would be too clean!

1. Which recipes did you try? What did you think of them?

Molten chocolate puddings - we did this first because they looked so nice and they worked out really well, little bit sickly but tasted well and were as described, i was hoping that it would be all able to be made in the cook4me but the prep wasnt too time consuming. Ds thought they were too sickly but is excited to try different flavours.

Chicken tikka masala - Sooo nice! dp is very very fussy and has been known to leave things he claims to like because they were slightly different from the last time round and he loved this. simple to do, all cooked well and flavours were good, great for mid week easy meal which would normally take me a lot longer, only complaint with this one is that it was very thin sauce so i added cornflour to thicken it up on the keep warm setting.

Korma chicken wings - This was my favourite, really creamy and like a takeaway korma - clean plates all round and in around fifteen minutes too, it was one of the easiest things i made but did turn out a little runny again perhaps its something im doing.

Tomorrow am going to try one of the veg recipes or a risotto so i will report back..

Manual is good and easy to program meaning i can do some of our favourites faster when things are hectic, the keep warm function has been great with everyone coming in from schools and work at diffderent times, nothing dries out or goes hard which is what i was expecting.

1. What were your thoughts on the cooking results of the Cook4Me Connect?

It was good everything is sufficently cooked but not overdone and the food is really hot even when on keep warm function, the only issue i had was watery sauces which required either cornflour or extra time thickening. The portion size option is great because i know there will be x amount leftover for dinners or freezer so am taking the opportunity to batch cook for busier weeks.

1. Would you recommend the Cook4Me Connect?

I would recommend it yes for busy families, the kids all being older have got involved and said how easy it is to use and for them to be able to prepare stuff. I would like to see a lot more recipes available over time and perhaps some kind of recipe share which im not sure you can do yet as otherwise for the cost of the machine it would be a bit limited but im sure these will come with time as people experiment with the machine more. Very handy for quick meals but would like to see less jar sauces and more stock ingredients as i think it defeats the point abit.

I think once the metal part underneath is attached to the bowl it just sits inside the main bowl it doesnt hook on to anything. To attach the metal stand you need to squeeze the two sides so it clips into the slots :)

non-tester: it would be a curry for me too. I love Indian food and I cook a basic curry, but I have always been scared of trying a korma or biryani or something more adventurous. The consistency of the sauce is never quite right, and I never know how long to cook it for/ what temperature. Cook4me would have helped me to be more confident about cooking and trying out new recipes.

1. How easy or difficult did you find Cook4Me Connect to use?
Really easy to use, the app was quite straight forward and it was useful to be able to go through the steps before actually 'playing' the recipe. I set up the bluetooth really easily and it was ready to go in seconds. The longest time was taken getting it out of the delivery box!

2. Which recipes did you try? What did you think of them?
We tried:
Thai Spicy Chicken - this was delicious and we'll use this recipe a lot because apart from the Thai red paste, it was all store cupboard ingredients.
Molten Chocolate Cake - not so successful with this recipe, I think I need some different ramekins (ones with smooth sides to slide the cake out) and to use dark not milk chocolate. However, the cook timing was way off and I had to recook the mix for another 4 mins or so. I will try this again but it wasn't an immediate success.
Greek Lamb - delicious. Never cooked lamb before and it was perfect, even the children liked it.
Own recipe chicken curry on manual settings - I used my own (slow cooker) recipe and swiped the browning and cook timings from an existing recipe on the app. Turned out brilliantly and the chicken was really juicy.

3. What were your thoughts on the cooking results of the Cook4Me Connect?
The main meals have been excellent but I haven't managed to have success with the puddings. The browning seems to take ages but the advantage is it's all in the same pot so saves on washing up.

4. Would you recommend the Cook4Me Connect?
Absolutely for people who don't particularly enjoy cooking or lack confidence and I would absolutely recommend it. It's really broadened my repertoire already plus it's a great time saver for dinners in the evening, I am however trying to get into the habit of preparing the ingredients in the morning so it's ready to go on as soon as I get home.

Improvements
Some things I think could be improved...
(a) a browning timer on the recipe mode, it does have one on the manual mode
(b) pre-heating time isn't included in the recipes and it does add significantly to the timings which affects the making of additional sides. When you're waiting to pre-heat before browning and then before cooking, it's quite a while when you add it up.
(c) an easy way to add more cooking time to a recipe, for example when cooking beef. I know the recipe will result in a medium-rare joint when I want well-medium. It would be helpful to be able to adjust the time when you set it off to cook.

I forgot... I also did the chilli salmon which was also amazing. We did bigger fillets so again, could have done with being able to easily adjust the cooking time, but it was fine in the end. I never would have cooked salmon before having the Cook4Me, there was virtually no washing up too and this was a big hit. We'll definitely be using this recipe again.

What I love is that the recipes aren't really fancy food, they're easy to make basics. I quite like that you use jars as the basis for lots of the sauces as I don't usually make things from scratch, but it would be nice to have more recipes that are fully from scratch.

Non-tester.
I'd need a chef to pop in and make a nice spring green risotto, or some Dahl. Followed by something lemony.
Obviously I would never get round to using it myself.
(Looks at Instant Pot which has only been out of the cupboard once since I bought it a year ago.)

Non tester

Would love to try a tagine!

Non tester

My friend raves about her slow cooker and all meat dishes she does with the meat being soooo lovely & tender.
So for me something like pulled pork or maybe a gammon joint where the meat would be succulent & fall off the bone.
Yum!