This is billed as a "multi-cooker" but it's not one of the electric pressure cookers that also have a low, brown and rice cook setting. The Philips Multi-Cooker is a sort of rice cooker on steroids and its main application is to cook your dinner while you are out or while you are at home with other things to attend to. Since you should not leave a stove burner unattended, this is rather like a crock pot--fill it with your ingredients and come back to a finished main dish. You can also cook rice, oatmeal or bake cakes in it.
It comes with the unit and a detachable power cord, a non-stick steel inner bowl, a plastic steaming tray that fits on top (with depressions to hold eggs), a plastic scoop and a plastic spoon/ladle and a recipe book. There is a start guide, but the recipe book is sort of your instruction book; by following the recipes, you learn how to use the settings such as brown, stew/soup and the timer function.
I've made a number of dinners in it and they really came out delicious. I'm not sure if this is a "necessary" kitchen appliance, but if you want to cook foods unattended in the kitchen, it certainly works well. I made some recipes from the booklet and some of my own, and they came out very well. The tagine recipe (zucchini and potato stew) was quick and I loved the taste. It called for "ras el hanout"--a spice mix from Morocco which I happened to have. You can substitute some cumin, cinnamon and saffron or just use curry powder. This is a very easy recipe and you can use up the summer zucchini, or make a vegetable side dish that people who don't like vegetables might enjoy: the potato and the spices make it very flavorful. I substituted raisins for the almonds and found this was so enjoyable that I'll probably make it often. You can add chickpeas to it to make it a complete dinner entree (with protein from the legumes.)
I also made chicken curry--using the browning feature and then soup/stew. I used my own recipe (there is one in the book) and it came out just fine, but I found I had to REDUCE the amount of liquid I normally use. I usually cook this on the stove, and because the lid is sealed in the multi-cooker, the water does not evaporate, nor the gravy thicken as much (similar to a crockpot.)
I did not like the enchilada recipe, but you can modify any recipe or make your own. I prefer to stew up chicken thighs, shred them, and then bake my enchiladas totally covered in sauce. You can do this in two stages--doing the chicken in advance and then assembling the enchiladas and baking them in the pot.
This appliance was probably was designed for the Asian market, where kitchens often lack an oven and the stove has maybe two burners, to save space. Add in that these countries can be HOT, and people work long, long hours and you can see why a multi-cooker is a useful thing to have. But considering the hours I work (long) and that I have no one at home to start dinner, I think this cooker is just as useful for American families as for Asian. You can definitely see its "genetics" come from the ubiquitous automatic rice cooker, a staple appliance in any Asian home and the one countertop appliance I use more than any other. If you are familiar with rice cookers, you will LOVE this. And in fact, it does work as a rice cooker--for larger quantities of rice, due to the size of the vessel.
How Big Is It?
This is LARGER than even a family-sized rice cooker. The cooking vessel (looks like a rice cooker vessel) holds about 16 cups of food. The size is 17" x 12" x 14" and it weighs a bit under 15lbs. So it's on the order of the size of a large crockpot, and it's a bit taller. However--it will not hold a huge roast the way some of the oval crockpots do.
The vessel is non-stick. It has an LCD panel to set the time, cooking mode, etc.
What Can You Cook In It?
You can steam vegetables or rice, boil pasta, bake cakes or breads and make your own yogurt. There are 10 preset programs: Slow Cook, Steam, Fry/Sauté, Rice, Risotto, Stew/Simmer, Bake, Yogurt, Reheat and Boil.
After you have finished cooking your dish, the cooker keeps it on a "keep warm" setting, much like a crockpot. There is a pre-set timer, however, you MUST remember, food sitting IN it before you cook it will spoil, depending on what it is.
The cooker comes with a book of recipes. Some look very tasty. They have a European flair--tending to the French Provencal and Italian (cod with rice, brussels sprouts with bacon and sausage, pasta bolognese, risotto with proscuitto and parmesan.
I do not make a good risotto--never comes out the way I like, but this recipe is very good and none of that standing around, doling out the broth by spoonfuls into the pot. If I could find better prosciutto and parmesan in this rural backwater where I live, I think it might have come out even more delicious. One does what one can...I have to drive to Philadelphia or even Hammonton, New Jersey to find "real" parmesan and prosciutto.
I was fairly impressed with the recipes--mostly these are winter fare but most were things I'd be likely to make (honey lemon roast chicken, enchiladas, curried chicken.) I was a bit annoyed that the cookbook, which is a nice bound, glazed cover book of 75 pages (three languages per page) was bent to hell because it was stuffed on top of the cooker. I tried rolling it to straighten it, but it still has a wavy curve to the pages. I'll have to leave it rolled up with a rubber band to try to fix it. Careless. It could have been tucked into the side.
The recipe book isn't long, but it's good--and you can adapt one recipe to another fairly easily. The book has big, colorful pictures, which make it look very appetizing.
The desserts are fun: Nanaimo bars look good. These are Canadian in origin and named after Nanaimo, British Columbia. They are layers of crumbs, nuts, custard, coconut and chocolate, which this machine steams. (I was under the impression Nanaimo bars were constructed and not baked.) There are baked apples, jam, and a muffin with an Oreo cookie as the base.
I'd be likely to try this for kasutera cake, a light sponge cake popular in Japan.
Summary
This is not exactly a crockpot but has some advantages: it is programmable, it can brown and cook without all the extra water that crockpots gather up and it cooks unattended. The disadvantage is the cost compared to a pressure cooker multi-cooker (less) and a crockpot (a lot less--those are able to be bought for well under a hundred for even a luxury model.) It will not heat up your kitchen. And it's not small--this will take up counterspace and need to be stored somewhere unless you leave it out. That means an underneath cupboard or in a pantry.
It's not a pressure cooker. Pressure cookers can cook a soup or stew in minutes, and are efficient. Some of the multi cooker pressure cookers do more in a way than this cooker.
One use for this you may not have considered: if you are undergoing kitchen renovation, it can take a long time and you may have no stove or oven for weeks on end. This can be used if you have a sink handy, as an emergency kitchen set up and you can still make home-cooked meals for the family without a stove or oven. It might pay for itself compared to weeks of eating out, which is expensive and not as healthy, generally speaking.
The Philips Multicore allows you to cook healthy homemade meals every day at the touch of a button. Use one of its 10 automatic preset programs to cook anything from yogurt to quinoa to ribs. The Multicore uses a ceramic pot, smart heating technology and temperature control for optimal and evenly cooked results every time.
- Enter your model number above to make sure this fits.
- Can prepare a limitless variety of meals- 10 functions (Rice/Quinoa, Risotto, Oatmeal, Stew/Soup, Slow Cook, Boil/Steam, Brown/Sauté, Bake/Roast, Yogurt and Keep Warm)
- Unattended and automated cooking- The unique construction of the heating element allows for micro movements of the liquid inside the pot which means there is no need to stir constantly throughout the cooking process
- Perfect results every time- Smart heating technology and temperature control for optimal and evenly cooked results
- Cleaning is fast and easy thanks to the completely removable lid and Nano ceramic non stick coated inner pot
- Saves counter space- takes the place of your slow cooker, yogurt maker, rice cooker, steamer and stovetop
