Tefal OptiGrill review with intelligent steak cooking sensor
At one time, a wonderful gadget with an external sensor appeared on the market, which monitored the readiness of grilled steaks and sent messages to a smartphone. In Tefal went the same way. Steaks are obtained as a textbook: fried crust, which does not allow a single drop of juice to flow out, and the juicy middle of the desired degree of roasting. We tried to fry patties, a piece of tuna and lots and lots of steaks. Oh yes, and zucchini too!
Tefal OptiGrill grill is positioned as a device that allows you to automatically prepare the steak of the ideal degree of roasting. In this case, “ideality” everyone defines himself - someone loves with blood, and someone drier, so Tefal engineers developed a special sensor that determines the degree of roasting meat and converts it into a color signal for greater clarity. And it works not only with meat. There are special programs for fish, burgers, sausages, and besides this the mode of preliminary defrosting.
It sounds all tempting and intriguing, and even more tempting is that the grill can fry everything without human intervention. Of course, you will have to put food there and get it, but you do not need to constantly monitor and check the degree of roasting, as it happens when cooking steak in a pan.
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The size of the grill is small. It does not take up much space on the kitchen table, and at the same time it is quite enough in size to cook two large pieces of meat.
The fact that the grill does not take up much space is good, because it is rather heavy. This is not the device that you often need to get and clean - it implies a constant stay on the desktop and, of course, use. And you want to use it often. And to a greater extent this is due to the speed and ease of preparation - it can easily fry two kilograms of zucchini without butter for 20 minutes. And most importantly, it will be delicious.
The grill handle, on which the control buttons are located, is made of heat-resistant plastic and is very comfortable to wipe it - there are no recesses. Plates with a non-stick coating snap off and can be easily removed in order to be washed in a dishwasher. You can fry them without using oil, which we did. But if there are concerns, individual products can be lightly smeared with sunflower oil using a brush.
There are several pre-installed programs in the grill, for almost all occasions and for different types of foods.
Hamburger - for making a hamburger, i.e. buns with a chop and other goodies.
Bird - allows you to cook juicy chicken meat on the grill.
Panini / Bacon - designed for toast, hot sandwiches. On the same program, you can fry ham and bacon.
Sausages - with this program you can cook, sausages, sausages, kupaty, pork chops, pork belly, lamb, nuggets, etc.
Meat - this program is designed to cook steaks of varying degrees of roasting.
Fish - in this mode, you can fry as whole fish of medium size, and steaks. On the same program, you can fry other seafood.
Each of these programs can be modified using a button with a snowflake denoting preliminary defrosting. In the grill, you can shove frozen chicken fillet, and it will defreeze it, and then fry, focusing on the sensor readings and the thickness of the piece.
Well, if you want something unusual (the fact that it is not provided by the programs), you can use the manual program. However, the algorithm of its work is somewhat different from the algorithm of the firmware.
When using one of the preset programs (for example, steak cooking), you must first turn on the device, select the desired program and click OK. Then the grill goes into pre-heating mode, during which the indicator starts flashing purple. It takes about 7 minutes, which is quite long, especially when you do not know in advance what to wait, and all this time you are closely looking at the flashing indicator until it is complete. After the "purple flashing" was replaced by "purple", you can lay products. As soon as the meat is placed inside the grill, the indicator turns blue. This means that everything is going according to plan, and the preparation has begun.
Then you just need to follow the color of the indicator, which will indicate the desired degree of roasting, and at the right moment remove the ready and flavorful steak (or not the steak). It’s good that you don’t have to sit next to the appliance and keep a close eye on the indicator - when moving to the next level of readiness, the grill emits an audible signal, which is very convenient to navigate. Squeal - means continues preparing, there were already three squeaks - it means it's time to get it.
When cooking in manual mode, everything is not so convenient, but you can fry whatever you like. For example, in order to fry zucchini it is necessary to set the desired cooking temperature using the thermometer key, focusing on the color indicator (in this case, the redder the higher the temperature is set) and fry, marking the desired cooking time and focusing on the second hand hours, or on your intuition.
In our case, we fried zucchini. The temperature was set to orange, at which one portion was cooked for a couple of minutes.
Zucchini turned out roasted on the outside and juicy inside. The main thing is not to forget the sacred secret of the ideal zucchini - the circles should be the same thickness. And so that users who are far from cooking do not go crazy and do not go hungry due to the fact that they cannot guess how long a particular product should be fried, the grill has a sign that indicates the recommended colors of the temperature indicator and cooking time.
The grill plates not only have the traditional grill stripes, but are also coated with a non-stick coating, so you can fry without oil. In order for the juice to flow when cooking and toasting does not turn into a quenching, the plates are slightly inclined. A good find, the main thing to see in time at the bottom of the box is a special pan, which should be placed under the grill. And so that the meat does not roll off the inclined plates with non-stick coating, they have small protuberances that help the pieces to stay on the surface.
When cooking several servings or different foods one after another, there is a small nuance. In order for the sensor to work properly, the plates must be cleaned each time before use. The manual says that before cooking each serving of steaks, you must perform the preheating procedure. But the grill can delay this process, and the remaining juice from the previous portion of steaks will begin to burn. Moreover, if, at the preheating stage, a new batch of meat is put on the grill, it will start preparing.
Now a few words about the taste of what is on the grill. And it turns out delicious. What marketers call the “smart cooking sensor” works. The steaks are cooked like a textbook and recipes from the best cooks - fried crust, which does not allow one drop of juice to flow out, and a juicy middle of the required degree of roasting. We tried to fry patties (on a burger program), a piece of tuna, and lots and lots of steaks. Everything turned out just fine - juicy, not overdried and evenly roasted over the entire area.
And what is important in the modern rhythm of life - very quickly. A couple of steaks are roasted for no longer than five minutes. This means that you can come home from work in the evening, turn on the grill for five minutes and perform the preheating procedure, and after another five minutes there will be ready-made steaks. After that, in 10 minutes, fry the zucchini on it and we will get a tasty, healthy and, most importantly, meat dinner.
A similar story with breakfast - you can fry toast or make warm sandwiches almost without opening your eyes and continuing to inspect dreams.
In short, it is very similar to the fact that this grill from Tefal will fully take root in the kitchen and take the place of a food processor. And in this case, the claims of marketers about the "ideal degree of cooking" and "intelligence" can be trusted. It doesn't matter how it is called, if it gives good results.
Tefal OptiGrill grill is positioned as a device that allows you to automatically prepare the steak of the ideal degree of roasting. In this case, “ideality” everyone defines himself - someone loves with blood, and someone drier, so Tefal engineers developed a special sensor that determines the degree of roasting meat and converts it into a color signal for greater clarity. And it works not only with meat. There are special programs for fish, burgers, sausages, and besides this the mode of preliminary defrosting.
It sounds all tempting and intriguing, and even more tempting is that the grill can fry everything without human intervention. Of course, you will have to put food there and get it, but you do not need to constantly monitor and check the degree of roasting, as it happens when cooking steak in a pan.
')
The size of the grill is small. It does not take up much space on the kitchen table, and at the same time it is quite enough in size to cook two large pieces of meat.
The fact that the grill does not take up much space is good, because it is rather heavy. This is not the device that you often need to get and clean - it implies a constant stay on the desktop and, of course, use. And you want to use it often. And to a greater extent this is due to the speed and ease of preparation - it can easily fry two kilograms of zucchini without butter for 20 minutes. And most importantly, it will be delicious.
The grill handle, on which the control buttons are located, is made of heat-resistant plastic and is very comfortable to wipe it - there are no recesses. Plates with a non-stick coating snap off and can be easily removed in order to be washed in a dishwasher. You can fry them without using oil, which we did. But if there are concerns, individual products can be lightly smeared with sunflower oil using a brush.
There are several pre-installed programs in the grill, for almost all occasions and for different types of foods.
Hamburger - for making a hamburger, i.e. buns with a chop and other goodies.
Bird - allows you to cook juicy chicken meat on the grill.
Panini / Bacon - designed for toast, hot sandwiches. On the same program, you can fry ham and bacon.
Sausages - with this program you can cook, sausages, sausages, kupaty, pork chops, pork belly, lamb, nuggets, etc.
Meat - this program is designed to cook steaks of varying degrees of roasting.
Fish - in this mode, you can fry as whole fish of medium size, and steaks. On the same program, you can fry other seafood.
Each of these programs can be modified using a button with a snowflake denoting preliminary defrosting. In the grill, you can shove frozen chicken fillet, and it will defreeze it, and then fry, focusing on the sensor readings and the thickness of the piece.
Well, if you want something unusual (the fact that it is not provided by the programs), you can use the manual program. However, the algorithm of its work is somewhat different from the algorithm of the firmware.
When using one of the preset programs (for example, steak cooking), you must first turn on the device, select the desired program and click OK. Then the grill goes into pre-heating mode, during which the indicator starts flashing purple. It takes about 7 minutes, which is quite long, especially when you do not know in advance what to wait, and all this time you are closely looking at the flashing indicator until it is complete. After the "purple flashing" was replaced by "purple", you can lay products. As soon as the meat is placed inside the grill, the indicator turns blue. This means that everything is going according to plan, and the preparation has begun.
Then you just need to follow the color of the indicator, which will indicate the desired degree of roasting, and at the right moment remove the ready and flavorful steak (or not the steak). It’s good that you don’t have to sit next to the appliance and keep a close eye on the indicator - when moving to the next level of readiness, the grill emits an audible signal, which is very convenient to navigate. Squeal - means continues preparing, there were already three squeaks - it means it's time to get it.
When cooking in manual mode, everything is not so convenient, but you can fry whatever you like. For example, in order to fry zucchini it is necessary to set the desired cooking temperature using the thermometer key, focusing on the color indicator (in this case, the redder the higher the temperature is set) and fry, marking the desired cooking time and focusing on the second hand hours, or on your intuition.
In our case, we fried zucchini. The temperature was set to orange, at which one portion was cooked for a couple of minutes.
Zucchini turned out roasted on the outside and juicy inside. The main thing is not to forget the sacred secret of the ideal zucchini - the circles should be the same thickness. And so that users who are far from cooking do not go crazy and do not go hungry due to the fact that they cannot guess how long a particular product should be fried, the grill has a sign that indicates the recommended colors of the temperature indicator and cooking time.
The grill plates not only have the traditional grill stripes, but are also coated with a non-stick coating, so you can fry without oil. In order for the juice to flow when cooking and toasting does not turn into a quenching, the plates are slightly inclined. A good find, the main thing to see in time at the bottom of the box is a special pan, which should be placed under the grill. And so that the meat does not roll off the inclined plates with non-stick coating, they have small protuberances that help the pieces to stay on the surface.
When cooking several servings or different foods one after another, there is a small nuance. In order for the sensor to work properly, the plates must be cleaned each time before use. The manual says that before cooking each serving of steaks, you must perform the preheating procedure. But the grill can delay this process, and the remaining juice from the previous portion of steaks will begin to burn. Moreover, if, at the preheating stage, a new batch of meat is put on the grill, it will start preparing.
Now a few words about the taste of what is on the grill. And it turns out delicious. What marketers call the “smart cooking sensor” works. The steaks are cooked like a textbook and recipes from the best cooks - fried crust, which does not allow one drop of juice to flow out, and a juicy middle of the required degree of roasting. We tried to fry patties (on a burger program), a piece of tuna, and lots and lots of steaks. Everything turned out just fine - juicy, not overdried and evenly roasted over the entire area.
And what is important in the modern rhythm of life - very quickly. A couple of steaks are roasted for no longer than five minutes. This means that you can come home from work in the evening, turn on the grill for five minutes and perform the preheating procedure, and after another five minutes there will be ready-made steaks. After that, in 10 minutes, fry the zucchini on it and we will get a tasty, healthy and, most importantly, meat dinner.
A similar story with breakfast - you can fry toast or make warm sandwiches almost without opening your eyes and continuing to inspect dreams.
In short, it is very similar to the fact that this grill from Tefal will fully take root in the kitchen and take the place of a food processor. And in this case, the claims of marketers about the "ideal degree of cooking" and "intelligence" can be trusted. It doesn't matter how it is called, if it gives good results.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/400977/
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