Tefal Cook4Me Touch CY9128
VerifiedMPNs: 824034 and CY912823 reviews
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My experience with Tefal Cook4Me New Model CY9128 – I bought this top of the range model specifically for the supposed WiFi connection capability, which should provide many hundreds of extra recipes via WiFi. If the item hadn’t been spruiked as having that capacity, I would have bought a cheaper model. Wishing I had done this now, as I have wasted 3 full days trying to connect it via WiFi. The WiFi… Read more
part is working fine, but there is nowhere on the Tefal App or their website where to insert the Association Code generated by the Cook4Me to give me access to the hundreds of recipes online. So, just wondering if anyone out there has bought this model and successfully paired it online??? If not, perhaps this part of the item is faulty/inoperable. I would like to provide the manufacturer with an accurate review, especially if this part of the item is a dud. I think this item only went to market in February of this year. Many thanks for any help provided. Tefal Customer Service was very reluctant to help, and only sent irrelevant information, assuming I was in the wrong. I bought the original Cook4Me many years ago, so am fairly familiar with it.
Tefal Cook4Me Touch- 4.5 stars – Tefal Cook4Me Touch-Pressure Cooker I am giving this item 4.5 stars out of 5, and the only reason it misses out is because I would like to be able to easily add my own personal recipes into the library. First up, this is a smart/digital/Wi-Fi pressure cook appliance, and while the ‘pressure cook’ concept is the same as a traditional one, you… Read more
operate this very differently. You need to have Wi-Fi, a smart phone or computer, an email address and be prepared to go through the digital set up process with Google Play and Apple Store, if you are an Apple user. Sounds daunting? Don’t be concerned. The appliance takes you through each step clearly. You just need to press the buttons it tells you to.
Instruction Manual: You need to download this onto your phone or computer or watch YouTube videos. There is no hard copy supplied with the appliance.
Packaging: Tefal could do much better. Too much landfill foam when there are cardboard recycle options that could be used. Unpacking/Set up: 15 minutes remove all labels, set up and plug in
Design: It's a large electrical appliance and takes up considerable space on the benchtop. The digital screen can be tilted upward, which is essential to be able read the screen prompts and recipes.
Set up Screen Prompts: Excellent – follow these. Asks to set wifi – or do later, I chose set now. Found my wifi quickly, asked for password – all worked – very simple Select time zone – UTC? Coordinated Universal Time (never heard it) Google search tells me it is same as GMT. Screen shows you the time, here in Melbourne it is UTC+10hrs. Cookies: (personalisation) accept I accepted Audience Measurement and Personalisation. Link Cook4 to Tefal Account: Download from Google Play – a lot of different ones, should indicate to look for Cook4Me SEB Install on phone and open, Click Tefal accept cookies Then screen on phone shows: Welcome to Cook4Me App – follow the prompts, create account with email, press ok Asks for an Association Code which will be sent to phone – enter this into screen Next screen “Association Succeeded” press ok Screen Shall we cook today? Phone Let’s begin All up took around 40 mins to set up. I feel like I’ve just done an instruction guide with personality.
Cooking: The Screen tilts up so it’s easy to read. Choosing from the meal library on screen: As it was the 1st recipe to appear on the “dinner” screen I chose Moussaka as 1st time user and 1st dinner. Tells me I need the EXTRA CRISP attachment – what is that? I google it. A rather large looking attachment that is placed into the Cook4Me Touch. As this unit doesn’t come with it, that leaves out any recipes in the library that require it. This appliance needs to be ordered in addition. 2nd choice “dinner” screen: Veal Ossobuco recipe- ingredients so disappointing (onions, thyme, chicken stock, tomato, white beans, and veal of course). Who makes this dish without the fundamental basics of celery, carrots, bay leaf? I could make it my own way, but I’m searching a recipe in the list that is good. 3rd choice: Lamb Shanks in Red Wine- looks promising. I followed the screen prompts, and the result was excellent. Lamb was tender and fell of the bone. Flavour and sauce are great.
Create My Own Recipe: Pork Vindaloo Curry with Cauliflower and Eggplant There was no library recipe for this, so for 30 mins I tried My Creations in the App. Found this to be very frustrating as screen kept saying there is an error in the recipe, but it didn’t tell me what the error was. Gave up on Create My Own, for now.
What’s in My Fridge: I gave up on this also, as it couldn’t offer any suggestion using what was in my fridge, being pork shoulder or pork leg.
Send Recipe from Mobile to Cook 4ME Touch: I used the app on my phone and found a Lamb Rogan Josh Curry in the recipe library. I expected it would be a similar cooking process for the pork vindaloo I wanted. I sent it from my phone to the appliance. This WiFi procedure was very simple and worked. Following the steps on the appliance which included using the BROWNING mode. The result was delicious. Perfectly cooked pork curry with my selection of vegetables included.
Steaming Basket: Easy to use, follow the prompts. Delayed Start: I didn’t use this function Cleaning: is very simple, following directions and some components are dishwasher safe. The unit didn't have lingering smells after I cleaned it.
Summary: In my experience, this appliance is terrific, simple to use and produces tasty meals. Wi-Fi communication between phone and appliance is excellent. All the cooking options and directions, based on the available recipes I used, give excellent results. I would recommend this item to people who are happy with the library recipes unless you are comfortable improvising. I’ll look further into adding my own recipes to the library and update this review if I’m successful.
Multi function cooking appliance with smart technology – TEFAL COOK FOR ME TOUCH I am part of the Ambassador Program and was asked to review this product. I have used electric pressure cookers before and it is one of my preferred cooking methods especially during the winter months when casseroles and soups make up a large proportion of meals in my household. The Tefal Cook4me Touch does everything… Read more
from stir frying, stewing or slow cooking, steaming to pressure cooking.
If you are a novice cook it would be a great way to learn, as it takes you through how to prepare the ingredients, and then step by step, guides you through the cooking process. I tried 2 of the recipes already downloaded onto the appliance and they turned out well. My only concern in following the instructions on the screen is that when it was time to brown the chicken pieces for the Coq Au Vin, it took about half an hour to get them to a nice golden brown. I guess the default setting in the recipe is a low heat. I would have done them on high so as to cut the time down. Browning or stir frying as Tefal call it on high, browns meat much more efficiently.
Just a note that following the instructions step by step on the screen doesn’t allow you to go back and forth within the recipe to check ingredients etc. The only way around it I found was to reload the recipe. Was frustrating, but being aware of it the next time I measured and prepped the ingredients before moving on to the cooking process.
As an experienced cook I mainly used the manual mode so I could cook as I would on a stove top. I like that you can do all the cooking in the one pot, the browning or stir fry mode works very well and the non stick bowl is great. For me the stewing function is a little redundant when there is pressure cooking available, however if you like to prepare your meal 6 hours before and let it stew all day then it does that very well also.
I found it a good size and not too bulky on my bench top. Cleaning is a bit fiddly as the lid for pressure cooking has several pieces that need to be removed for cleaning. But it is dishwasher safe so that is a bonus. The outside is quite shiny and just needs a wipe over after use and there is a condensation collector that needs to be emptied after use. I found that there wasn't any residual smells in the appliance after cooking with garlic and spices etc.
If you are into technology then this appliance connects to the internet and has an app for your phone where you can download recipes etc.
BEST FEATURES
All cooking modes have low medium and high settings.
Very quiet while in operation.
Releases steam automatically once pressure cooking time has elapsed. Sounds an alarm and then vents the steam.
Feels secure when you lock the lid into place before starting pressure cooking.
Love that it connects to internet and you have access recipes that take you through step by step how to prepare and cook the recipe that you choose.
Comes up to pressure in a reasonable amount of time, but I tend to use warm/hot liquid when I can, and has a time line so you know where it is in that process.
Setting time for length of cooking is simple.
Interface on LCD is intuitive, and easy to use. Timer counts down when you have set a cook time and up when you reheat or stir fry.
Has alarms and bells for when something has gone wrong and it tells you on the screen what the problem is.
Love the “in my fridge” option where you select ingredients and it presents recipes that contain those ingredients, and will guide you through step by step in how to cook it.
Interior cooking bowl has handles which reamain cool, so makes taking it out of the appliance is a breeze. The non stick surface is great with a dimpled bottom so nothing sticks and cleans very easily.
Beeps when it is done cooking and then goes into keep warm mode. Great if you are not ready to serve up, food stays hot until you tell it to stop.
THINGS TO BE AWARE OF
When pressure cooking is done, it immediately releases the steam, so you must ensure that the vent is facing safely away from anything because the steam coming out is quite ferocious.
The appliance doesn’t allow you to stew or stir fry with the lid closed. It will run for a couple of minutes then sound an alarm saying the lid is closed and will stop cooking. This isn’t helpful when trying to sweat vegetables for soup which requires a cover. Small issue, but for someone who makes a lot of soups it was problematic.
A Game Changer – I was presented with a Tefel Cook4me to provide a review. This are my honest and unbiased thoughts. I am not always a fan of technology. It seems to often make things more complicated than less. I was extremely sceptical about why a pressure cooker would need to be computerized. The Tefel Cook4me is basically an electric pressure cooker, except… Read more
it is SO much more. It is about the same size as a traditional slow cooker and has an elegant, modern design and oozes quality. It looks so good on the kitchen bench that it lives there permanently. Which is super convenient, because I use it more and more as I continue to discover just how versatile this cooker is. The Cook4me is a wifi enabled cooker that allows your mobile phone to connect with it, using the Cook4me app. Here are some of the key features: 150 recipes for meals cooked in under 10 minutes Over 500 recipes in total Full colour, adjustable touch screen Filter to find recipes quickly e.g.: search “Chicken” and all the chicken recipes are available. You can also search by meal occasion or cooking time. Recipes can be saved to your “Favorites” folder for easy access. Some recipes have a video detailing steps etc. If you are like me, you can also just wing it. Place the Tefel cook4me into manual mode and you are good to go. The cooker also has a steam mode and a steam basket is included. Great for quickly cooking fresh or frozen vegetables, dim sims etc in just a few minutes. Potatoes cook in no time at all. What I really like about the cook4me is that it is so simple and easy to use. It is very intuitive, if you can navigate a smart phone then this will be super easy for you to navigate through. You can brown meat in the unit, then add sauce and/or liquid and you can cook just like a slow cooker does but really fast. For example, lamb shanks don’t take 4 hours, they take 40 minutes! After you have cooked, you can place in “keep warm” mode so you can serve whenever you like. It is great for entertaining because everything can be cooked before hand and kept warm. The cook4me is also very easy to clean, with the removeable pot dishwasher safe. The cooker does release steam, so you may want to consider using it under your rangehood. I have cooked lamb shanks, pulled pork, Indian curries, casseroles, soups, mashed potato and more. There is absolutely nothing I dislike about the Tefel Cook4me. I thoroughly recommend and would buy another.
The Cook4Me is great, but the app needs a bit of work – Let me start with I love a "connected" device. I'm a gadget girl and any household device that lets me do things with an app instantly ticks boxes for me. And the app, while good, has a bit of work to be great, but I'll get to that later. First off, the multi cooker is packed well, and easy to unpack. It isn't compact when setup, that's for… Read more
sure, so it's definitely not something you would leave sitting around the kitchen if you have a small kitchen space. For someone who has never had a multi-cooker though, I did have to look up how to open the lid of the cooker to access the inside. It wasn't intuitive if you've never had or used a multi-cooker before. Minor thing, but just something to note. It does look nice though, no complaints from an aesthetic perspective.
Getting it set up and connected was easy enough using a pairing method with the app, so long as you have decent wifi in the kitchen area. Nice and simple. This is what you need when it could be less tech-savvy people using it. I could imagine some kitchen areas may have problems though as kitchen white goods tend to cause problems with wifi signals.
The recipes are a bit limited in some areas. We are primarily a keto household and their list of recipes was limited (12 keto recipes in total at the time of writing). They really need to expand their selection more for low-carb and keto recipes. Don't get me wrong, the recipes in there are delicious mostly, but there are not many of them to choose from in some categories.
For someone who doesn't cook a lot, making meals in the cooker is easy, and using the app has pictures, easy explanations, and simple steps. We made the Lettuce Cheese Flan, Mozzarella stuffed chicken, stuffed peppers, and apple and caramel cake. In each case, the prep time was quite quick, and even the cooking time for a lot of the meals was quick. I think the longest time it took to cook was a bit over half an hour. Each meal was delicious, the flavours were retained well enough and everything was nice and soft. I did look at trying the Moussaka but turns out you need an extra part to make it, some crisp lid component, which is a shame that it doesn't come with by default.
The downside is it's a non-stick pot and we have pet birds at home, so our usage was quite limited. Using non-stick products in our home is something we try to avoid as much as possible as the fumes from its use are carcinogenic to our birds. We had to make sure we had everything ventilating and doors open when using it, which meant in winter the house got cold. So whether we will keep using it is something we are still unsure about as we love our birds and don't want to make them sick.
Now as for the app. The app is pretty simple to use, I'll give it that. There are only just over 500 recipes in the app though, and they're categorised. That might seem a lot, but if you have certain dietary requirements, that reduces your number of available meals. The other problem is you can only have one login for the entire unit. So if there is more than one of you at home who wants to use it, you need to have a shared login. Ok, I understand that's not a dealbreaker, but it would be good if you could pair the device to multiple logins. The app does have a great feature where you can enter some ingredients in your cupboard/fridge and it will find recipes you can make with it. That's really handy if you just want to cook something without going shopping first. There is also a shopping list feature, but if you are already using another app, it's kind of pointless. If you could export the list to other apps, like Bring! for example, that would really enhance the experience with the app. And what would really make the app next level is if it had the ability to import recipes from other locations. You can create your own recipes though and it's fairly simple to enter recipes into it if you know what you're doing and it's a multi-cooker or pressure cooker type of recipe you're entering.
Overall, it's a good device to have available in the kitchen if you are not a big home-chef type of person (and we are not). It makes cooking something quicker and easier which I guess is the target market for it. It only loses points for me because it has a non-stick surface and the app needs some development. If you are concerned about non-stick carcinogens, then you need to take that into account with this device. If that is of no concern to you, then this is a great cooker!
A Slow Cooker on Steroids! – Product Review – Tefal Cook4 Me Once again, I’m grateful for having the chance to review another product for ProductReview as part of the Ambassador program, this time being for the Tefal Cook4Me Touch. Our household hasn’t used a pressure cooker before (though we know people who do, and swear by them), let alone a ‘connected’ one that has access… Read more
to an online database of Tefal, and user-created, recipes. We do, however, own and regularly use a Thermomix, which does share some similarities(more on this later), along with a slow-cooker as well. Initial impressions: The unit has a tidy form-factor, presents well, has a footprint similar to a family size rice-cooker, with a contemporary gloss black finish. In other words, it looks quite comfortable sitting on a bench in a modern kitchen. Sensibly, the built-in screen (for viewing recipes) tilts upwards for easy viewing and is large enough. The supporting app presents well, and is easy to setup your ‘account’ and subsequently connects to the unit readily. You could be ready to start cooking within 10mins of opening the box. The lid opens up to reveal a deep, non-stick cooking bowl which is also used for pre-browning some ingredients (which saves pulling out saucepans or frypans). The lid locking mechanism should be easy for all types of hands to be able to lock/unlock. Using this cooking system feels very similar to that used by Thermomix (but substantially less expensive). Basically, you go onto the app, pick a recipe you want (where you can generate a shopping list), and the unit starts prompting you through each cooking step. As expected, the cooking process itself, is relatively quick, compared to conventional cooking (imagine a slow-cooker on steroids!) Things like rice (risotto, paella), barley, and potatoes (potato bake) take around 8-10mins. So dishes that contain these items are noticeably quicker to get onto the table, and don’t need the lengthy preparation often involved. We trialled 7 dishes from the Tefal-branded recipes including Beef Bourguignon, Chicken Paella, Chicken and Chorizo Risotto, Chicken and Barley Soup, a Potato Bake and Chop Suey (user-created), feeding a family of 5. So long as you’re cooking with ingredients that normally require preparation on the stove, as mentioned above, you’ll definitely notice the faster cook time. For dishes that you might normally use a slow cooker for, cooking time will be measured in minutes, not hours. You’ll also be free of the concern of having an appliance running during the day, when you’re not home. Only 2 issues came up for us with the cooking process itself. Firstly, some dishes would throw an error, which generally relates to more fluids (water) being required(the unit uses steam pressure for the cooking process – too little fluid lowers the pressure). Just open the lid, add a little water, close and continue. Note that some ingredients will absorb water whilst cooking, and some recipes may not allow for this. Secondly, at the end of cooking the paella dish, by-the-book, and the unit went through it’s depressurising cycle, some of the liquids came squirting out of the release valve, and out the condensation trap at the rear. Made a heck of a mess inside the unit as well, getting down around the heating element too. Fortunately, the cooker is reasonably easy to disassemble enough to clean everything, which in itself is a good thing to know. (Though we would rather have read that, than had to do that!). A small point on aesthetics. Glossy black surfaces show everything, and it won’t take long for a crime scene detective to have a field day pulling fingerprints off the lid. (Just picture the screen of your mobile phone when it’s turned off!) Generally, the dishes we cooked required all the ingredients to be prepared before the cooking started. Some ingredients needed to be browned first, which can be done in the cooker like using a regular fry pan. In some cases, the cooking bowl needs to then be emptied for the next step. The large, heat-proof handles make this easy. Being non-stick, make sure you have long-handled scratch-proof cooking utensils available as well. The app (which has just been updated to a new one), functions well. It makes searching for recipes relatively easy. You can even search by just what’s in your fridge (sorry, no beer recipes!) We did find that in a couple of cases, some of the ingredient quantities shown on the app, didn’t correlate to what the screen on the cooker asked for. The discrepancies mostly related to the amount of stock required, but it did seem odd that the phone app, and the unit were different at all. We did notice also that you couldn’t always access the ingredients list mid-way through a recipe on the cooker screen, meaning that having your phone handy will often be useful. The Thermomix cooking system uses a very well thought out, step-by-step progression through cooking a meal that is fool-proof. The Cook4Me Touch cooking process isn’t quite as well refined on-screen, sometimes leaving you a little unsure of which step you’re at, especially if has thrown an “add water” error, where it will reset the cook time back to the start. Overall the Cook4Me Touch provides a cooking system that makes it easy to explore different recipes, and relatively easy to execute, with a cooker that looks at home on the modern kitchen benchtop. The initial setup, and communication between the app and cooker is very straight forward, save for some minor recipe discrepancies. Cooking with it, and cleaning it, is straight forward. The on-screen cooking guide can use some refinement, which, being software-based, can be done over time.
The comparisons to the Thermomix system (not the hardware itself) may seem a little unfair, however if you have used both, you’ll quickly appreciate that the Cook4Me cooking system has very similar traits, though less refined in some aspects, however it will still appeal to many if the Thermomix is out of their reach. Where the Cook4Me does shine, is when dishes need lengthy ingredient preparation/pre-cooking, and it effortlessly slashes those times. The choice to purchase one will depend on what you already have to cook with, and if it will add that new dimension to cooking and recipe selection you’re looking for. It may even be worth exploring the recipe database before buying. Having said that, if you want more recipe choice, generally faster cooking times, less cookware per meal, and easy clean-up, then it would be very hard to overlook.
- +3
A very decent pressure cooker which tries to be many additional things with varied success – I’ll be honest, I’m always incredibly wary of anything that claims to be multi-use; my immediate expectation when I hear that claim is that it’ll be an item which does lots of things poorly and nothing really well. I was surprised to learn this was a $600+ piece of equipment, and on unboxing it excitedly wondered “Wow! For that price, this must be… Read more
really special. What amazing new creations can I cook with this?!”
The answer to that question is: nothing you can’t cook with things you’ll likely already have in your kitchen (an oven and a cook top, for instance) with the addition of a pressure cooker.
I excitedly plugged it in and turned it on, muddled through the setup without going to the website (bugger that, don’t have time) and realised the manual which comes with it is glib at best. It’s more of a sales brochure than a set of operating instructions. Managed to connect it to my wifi eventually, and scrolled through the recipes.
The provided recipes are… meh. Simplified (I’d imagine) in order to cater to the functionality of the device and remove as many extra steps as possible keeping it a one-pot kind of deal, and a little on the bland side. That mostly works for your average stew or slow-cooker kind of dish, but browning meat and taking it out then adding other ingredients kind of defeats the purpose for me. There’s a neat function to search by ingredients you have at hand and find a recipe to suit… and it sounds better than it is. I typed in beef mince and found a lasagne recipe among other irrelevant suggestions, got excited and tried to make it.
Once I drilled into the recipe it gave me a warning about this recipe requiring the “Extra Crispy Lid”. Flipped through the brochure, nothing mentioning this lid setup in there. Being new to these bulky, complex looking multi-cookers I figured it might be something you configure with the appliance lid itself. No. It’s a whole other piece of electronic gadgetry you need to separately purchase in order to crisp the top of things like in your oven… Your oven. That thing you likely already own and don’t need to replace with a bulky and annoying plastic adjunct appliance accessory. Why the review team would provide this appliance to be tested without an accessory which half the decent recipes in this device actually require is beyond me. With this accessory, it could be a super handy appliance for catering to small families or couples, and would expand the type of cooking you could do. But for an additional $150 on top of the $600+ purchase price for the unit, I certainly won’t be buying one.
I’ve never been a gadget person myself, and prefer to keep it simple (and less space-consuming) in the kitchen. I’m constantly astounded at the new appliances constantly being brought to market, all with the same implied promise of simplifying your meal preparation. It’s almost like there’s a whole generation of people who simply don’t understand you can steam food on a regular cook top with a very simple and inexpensive pot-and-steamer setup. The claims made for this appliance will have you thinking you can just plonk it anywhere in your kitchen and start cooking, but in reality it needs to be under a range hood. If pressure cooking, it releases an incredible amount of steam afterwards, and if you’re open-lid frying or sautéeing, you’re going to end up with greasy steam condensing on your ceiling. I’ve seen houses with ceilings like this. I’ve never understood why people do it.
That being said, I have longed for an electronic pressure cooker for some time, the main reason being safety. I have a nearly-3-year-old who’s tall enough to reach things on the deepest bench top in my kitchen, and the stove. And boy does she like to fiddle. The safety features on this are great – locking lid, warnings if something’s amiss, auto depressurisation with audbile alarm, and I can put it on and mostly forget about it while it cooks. That is, unless there isn’t enough “hydration” in the pot to come to pressure, which is about half the time. I have some experimenting to do with this to find the balance. You don’t always want everything to finish up in a liquidy sauce.
The true measure of an appliance to someone who is experienced, confident and enjoys cooking, is how effectively you can use it without instruction or a recipe. Is it intuitive enough to “wing it” and just throw things in? Yes, the Cook4me is once you find your feet and get a feel for how each of the cooking functions operates.
Recipes I’ve so far cooked off the cuff without recipes or measurements in this appliance are:
• Chicken bone broth. Got the same result from 3 hours combined cooking as I normally do from 48 hours of fiddling around with a stock pot on my fascist cook top which insists on turning itself off after 6 hours “for safety”. (1.5 hrs is the max time for a pressure cooking session, so did two of those back to back). • The most divine butter chicken I’ve ever created. I am seriously proud, I didn’t realise it could taste this good. • Lasagne which was a total flop – too complex for this, couldn’t get the pressure function to work without adding too much liquid. Needed the extra crispy lid to finish off the top. Bleurgh, just a total write off. Next. • Incredible pumpkin soup. Absolutely incredible. The velevtiest and best-tasting pumpkin soup I’ve EVER cooked, and made from one of those strongly flavoured blue type of pumpkins that no one likes. Pea and ham is on the schedule for testing over this icy cold long weekend. I am genuinely excited for that. • Plain basmati rice. Don’t rely on the only plain rice recipe in the library – its measurements are for rice to serve approximately 45 people. I scaled it down to enough for three and it dried out too quickly, so I’ll go with my own tried and true proportions next time. It just took sooooo looooooong in this. Could’ve perfectly cooked it on the stove in a small saucepan in 10 minutes. • A made up san choy bow kind of thing with pork substitued for beef. It is very nice. The texture the pressure cooking creates makes food very moreish. • I tried caramel-butter popcorn out of sheer curiosity. Total failure. I am convinced this could work with just buttered popcorn though so I’ll keep experimenting… • Golden syrup dumplings. Um… YUM. That is all. And add more butter into the dough than usual to create something fluffier and meltier like brioche.
GOOD • Makes incredibly tender meat. But so does any pressure cooker. • Excellent as a small steam oven. Great to refresh already cooked foods, like roasted meat, without drying it out. I’m excited to attempt a steamed zucchini slice with this if I can locate a small casserole which will fit inside the steamer basket. It could theoretically make a great souffle too, although mine was a rubbery failure. • Would be fantastic for camping, motor homes, temporary facilities (in a hired venue or for a family function) or the shack. Anywhere you have less than ideal cooking provisions. Renters also might find this really useful if their slum-lord doesn’t provide a properly functioning kitchen in return for the $900/wk rental charge. • On this newer model the screen tilts upwards so you can read it without bending down. It did take me a while to realise this. Doesn’t tilt quite as much as would be comfortable if you’re over 6’ but I’m guessing the range of motion is limited and manufacturers have to draw a line somewhere. But definitely useable without bending over and squinting. • I already know it’s going to replace my slow cooker. I was dubious about this, I figured you can’t do better than cooking things slowly, but wow does this create just a way better flavour!
BAD • I’ll say right off the bat: I don’t like non-stick pots. For the environmental and health aspects, but also the fact they do not remain non-stick when used with heat. Over time, this pot surface will degrade and become difficult to clean, and render the entire appliance usless unless I can buy another pot insert. • Makes some very simple and quick recipes very complex and much more time consuming than traditional cooking methods. Rice, for example. • Sometimes on startup the keypad for the recipe search function doesn’t work, or is very slow. • Doesn’t hold heat well. I’ve never been a fan of electric, thermostatically controlled devices for this reason. The temp will drop off once you add things and sometimes struggle to get back up again quickly. • Many of the recipes require other steps not involving the Cook4me so not sure how convenient that really is. • The interminable “pre-heating”. Ugh. Takes forever, and if you change functions, say from high stir-fry to pressure cook, even though the pot should already be nice and hot it still seems to sit there warning you it’s “pre-heating” forever. By the time the pot’s pre-heated, your dish will already be cooked. Can easily lead to over-cooking. • Requires the purchase of an additional “Extra Crispy” lid to be truly multi-use. (Additional $150). • Many irritating warnings. I feel it’s made for dummies, maybe it is? The successful notifications sound like warnings; I feel a bit like “just shut up and get on with cooking my food, appliance.” And the buttons are touch-sensor buttons, and sometimes hard to get to work.
In summary
I’m going to take a stab and say this appliance is aimed squarely at the “can’t cook, won’t cook” market. If you need things to be spelled out, can’t ad-lib recipes, have no real understanding of basic food chemistry, and want something relatively set-and-forget with good safety measures, then you’ll love this. I actually do love the fact I can cook delicious slow-cooked style recipes, only better, without having to be as organised and planning ahead. I can leave cooking til relatively last minute, and I could put this on and feel safe leaving the house briefly while it cooked.
I guess it’s competitor is something like the Instant Pot which I confess I knew nothing about but had seen it mentioned a lot in the media. The instant pot is much, much cheaper. But it doesn’t guide you through recipes.
An excellent and worthy replacement for your slow cooker. Although, you may struggle if you’re used to a very large basin in your slowie – most butchers french-cut lamb shanks now, so space is not as much of a concern for bone-in cuts as it used to be. But you won’t fit a family sized shoulder or turkey legs in the Cook4me pot.
I would question how much you need a small screen on a device to find recipes on the internet. If you are familiar with this digital method of reference, you’d probably be comfortable using your phone or tablet which would be a lot less awkward to use and you already own those, so weigh up how much you’d actually pay for this functionality.
All in all, a very good and very safe pressure cooker, but with the added and unnecessary expense of a bunch of other claimed functionalities which really don’t count if you can already cook.
Ah Tefal, you've got me cooking now – Being a small family with a household of 3, its a chore to think up something to cook every single night. I always want something simple, yet a recipe that uses readily available ingredients and steps that don't require utensils which I don't even own. In this case, you would see the same meal not once, not twice but maybe three times a week.… Read more
How would I jazz things up and make cooking and meal times a lot more exciting?
Tefal's Cook4Me Touch is one hell of a beast. With its hefty weight and black finish, this pressure cooker really stands out in a modern kitchen. The 5" touch screen is a bonus but I did encounter moments where the screen would be unresponsive, lagging and one time I even had to switch it off at the powerpoint because it just stopped responding. I never had this problem again 24 days later.
Technology has come a long way. With new innovation and Tefal implementing Wi-fi connectivity to the multi cooker, you can search recipes, receive updates and send info from the Cook4me app which I will explain further into this review.
Initial set up was simple enough. Add your Wifi network, and time zone. It was strange as I was not able to find my Adelaide time zone with the selections I was given.
So what did I decide to cook up the very first night that I received this through the post? My mind was running wild, researching the recipes that were all well thought out and simple to follow - straight from the cooker itself. It really is that convenient. I thought I should start off with something easy first to get the hang of it - bear in mind, I've never been much of a cook.
Every time you begin, you're introduced to a screen where the pot needs to be preheated. Initially, it'll take around 5 minutes before you can start throwing ingredients in so it's best to be preparing, chopping etc while that's happening or you'll be standing there twiddling your thumbs. Times may vary of course depending on the temperature of the cook pot itself. The preheating can be manually stopped by a simple touch of the start/stop function just below the touch screen.
My household eats a lot of rice, a staple dish, mind you. So I started off cooking rice. Push aside the rice cooker that I've been using for months. Let me tell you, the rice cooker is a well known brand but its not a cheap cooker either and all it does is cook rice. To cook 2 cups takes me 45 minutes with that rice cooker and I find that disappointing. Compare it with Tefals Cook4Me Touch..... 8 minutes. I kid you not, this was impressive. The rice was cooked to perfection. In fact, a lot better than the old rice cooker that I used. I think its time for retirement.
The 2nd night, I cooked a pasta dish called Chicken and Mushroom Fusilli, another recipe that I discovered on the Cook4Me app. The steps to cooking was simple and straight to the point, all flourished with pictures. Another bit that impressed me was you don't need to boil the pasta as you can just add the dry pasta with all the ingredients and it took only 8 minutes! I've been raving this cooker and the cooking times to a lady at work who is an avid cook and even she was astounded by the short amount of time it takes.
Protein can be cooked straight from the cooker, you don't need a separate frypan for it therefore reducing the amount of wash up - and that's a plus because I'm not a fan of washing the dishes.
I could spend all day talking about the recipes I've whipped up and I've never cooked so much in my life, let alone healthy meals and dishes that are so simple that I could memorise them as theres a lot of them that don't require a lot of ingredients yet they still pack a lot of flavour into it.
So how big is the cook pot? Its 6 litres but to give you an insight, I was able to fit a 1.1kg brisket inside without trimming or chopping to fit the circumference. Since we are on the topic of briskets, 55 minutes was all it took to cook to perfection. A protein I have never attempted to cook or eaten before and now that I'm glad I did.
If you do use recipes that you find on the cooker/app, you can select the amount of people - be it 2, 4 or 6 servings and the measurements will adjust accordingly. Of course, you can make little modifications here and there to your liking. Recipes that require browning and/or cooking prior to pressure cooking displays a timer which is convenient when you're cooking beef. Pressure cooking time is already predetermined within the recipe so all you need to do is get up to that particular step, close the lid and hit the START button. At the end of the pressure cooking cycle, the steam will automatically be released. Steam releasing time will vary depending how long it had been cooking. The keep warm function will kick in until you decide to serve up.
Clean up is no big deal. The cook pot is dishwasher safe but I just use the old method of detergent and scourer. The inside lid comes off as well into 4 seperate parts which all needs to be cleaned after every use. A simple screw bolt that holds the lid, pull out the other parts and then reassemble. Everything is labelled so if you forget how to put it back, Tefals got your back. Don't forget the condensation drip tray on the back as well. I always forget that but you'll get a reminder anyways when you stop the 'keep warm' function.
I want to talk about the Cook4Me app that I managed to download to my Apple iPhone. A quick signup for an account and you're ready to explore. At the time of writing this review, there are 564 recipes to look up. A lot of these recipes are submitted by home cooks and approved by Tefal. Recipes can be searched in many different ways - ingredients, recipe name and author. You could also search for a recipe based on what you have in your fridge or pantry. As an added bonus, there are cooking guides for the right method on how to prepare your ingredients properly.
When you do find a recipe that you're interested in, you can instantly save all the ingredients with a touch of a button and it will instantly create a shopping list for you. You can delete, add and tick off ingredients one by one. The world is your oyster. Wondering how much time you have left before you can start serving? You can view that on the app as well. It will take you through every step of the way, pretty much a mirror image of what it shows on the touch screen of the Cook4Me Touch, only that you can be on your couch and don't need to get up and check, providing both devices are connected to the same Wifi network. Though the app can be buggy at times. I've experienced many times before where the timer would get stuck but rest assured the timer still counts down normally on the pressure cooker.
I've also experienced once where the recipe wouldn't appear on the cooker yet, it was right there on the app. You can send the recipe from the app to the cooker if thats the case.
Most recipes are rated up to a maximum of 5 stars. Cooks like yourself can add comments or suggestions to that recipe. I usually see what others have to say before deciding on the recipe. Sometimes I follow peoples comments by adding additional ingredients to make it even better.
Tefal has really changed my mindset in cooking more often. Ever since the first use of the Cook4Me touch, I've been making a lot more meals and not just the usual boring pasta and same old every week. Now I will be looking forward to cooking up something special for my parents and in-laws.
This cooker is highly recommended for someone who doesn't have a lot of time to prepare or to clean up afterwards. However, the price is questionable as many of us probably can't justify spending $600 on small appliances.
Oh and also try making the Teriyaki Meatballs. They're to die for.
If you hate cooking, this will definitely be your friend – I was given the Tefal Cook4me pressure cooker to review and I must say I’m pleasantly surprised by how much I like it. I HATE to cook. I have always hated to cook, don’t get me wrong, I love to eat, but cooking is so much effort and I work long hours and generally just can’t be bothered with all the effort and then all the dishes and whatnot so… Read more
a pressure cooker is something I actually already tried in the past since it drastically reduces cooking time and the amount of fry pans etc needed to prepare a meal for a family of four.
Now being majorly against cooking I wasn’t prepared to spend too much on such a device and the old saying ’you get what you pay for’ is definitely true in this case, the pressure cooker I bought before this one was scary and complicated. I used it maybe 3 times before hiding it away in the cupboard, forgotten forever.
This one is definitely user-friendly. My first go I went with something easy. My kids love those chicken pieces that come pre-marinated from woolworths/coles and I figured I can’t go wrong with that. I managed to fit the entire 12 pieces into the cooker and after a couple of minutes of pre heating the chicken stock I used manual mode to select 20 mins of high pressure cooking and left it to do its thing.
It turned out perfectly and unlike when I cook them in the oven, I didn’t have to rip up half the pieces of chicken off the baking paper that had stuck to it. That was a major win in my books (I told you- I’m no chef here okay!) everyone agreed they turned out much better too, no dryness, just absolutely perfect.
My next attempt I decided to browse the available recipes before shopping so I could try something a little more ambitious now that I felt confident with it. Honestly I found following along with included steps on the little screen to be kind of confusing and unnecessary though the meal did turn out better than I could have ever done on my own. I’d still rather just google something easy and go with that. But if you’re the kind of person who actually enjoys cooking this may be something you find more useful than I would.
Overall I’m quite happy with it though, I especially LOVE that it does all the pressure releases on its own, the way I can check how long is left on the cooking from my phone with the tefal app and the fact that its quite easy to clean. I am just about to use it again right now. Definitely something I’ll get a lot of use out of.
Good product with lots of bells and whistles, some of them unnecessary – One main thing about this pressure cooker is that it is really well constructed. The physical design and build obviously had a lot of thought put into it, with the aim to make life as easy as possible. Some small and simple (but HANDY) features include the condensation collector, which sits exactly at the hinge where all the water would run when… Read more
lifting the lid; a timer which tells you how much time you have left at each stage of cooking (without you having to set it); the automatic pressure release; the ability to change the cooking time at some stages and skip to the next stage without exiting the recipe; and also the prompt whether to have the lid open or closed for each stage of cooking.
The recipe library comes in handy - although not so much for its intended purpose of making it easier to find a recipe - because you still spend the same amount of time scrolling through either your phone on the app, or else on the touchscreen, which is slower than your phone. BUT after finally deciding on a recipe, I found it easier having the ingredients and cooking instructions for each step right there on the touchscreen, without having to refer to your phone numerous times. The "In My Fridge" function sounded like a good idea in theory, but was a bit redundant in practice, because it was pretty much the same process as looking for recipes involving certain ingredients on the internet.
In terms of actual performance it works about as well as most other multi-cookers: 1) The "pre-heat" function and pressure release add about 10 - 15 min on top of the stated cooking time in the recipe, although there is a timer bar that lets you see the progress 2) The temperature using auto/manual cooking (e.g. stirfry) was not as high as a stovetop (even if you select "high") in that, the temperature of the added ingredients seem to drop the heat quite a bit and it would take a while to climb back up 3) It would not always create the right consistency in dishes - I followed the recipe exactly for a paella but the consistency ended up being more of a risotto 4) The steaming tray is a bit small, it could barely fit 3-4 stuffed capsicum halves although the recipe called for 8
All in all I found it a pretty good product, which had a lot of forethought and time invested in it. Some "imperfections" were not so much faults, more so that the designers over-reached themselves in trying to make a really fancy pressure-cooker. However it definitely does the job well and is probably the best multi-cooker I own.
This has converted me to pressure cookers – We were having torrential rain every day for the week this got delivered to an obscure spot at our house. When we eventually discovered it the outside delivery carton was so soaked it tore apart in our hands like tissue. The actual Tefal carton was soggy but intact. I was sure the appliance would be damaged, but thanks the the intense packaging -… Read more
it wasn't wet at all, and worked perfectly. This is the first time I've ever been so invested in how a product is packaged!
I was in hospital for the first week after it was discovered. By the time I got home, my teens had set it up, downloaded and connected the app, and started cooking things in it. They taught me how to use it, and were already sold on it. This pretty much won me over to the machine, because they were enjoying experimenting with new recipes and showed me the features like searching for recipes based on what is already in the fridge, or the time you want it to take to cook. The cooking speed is really impressive, being able to do slow cooked meals without the slow cooker time is new to me and I love it.
One of my greatest hopes for this appliance was that it might help one of my teens who has an intellectual disability and I am constantly searching for ways to enable him to be more independent and gain confidence in life skills. I was hoping that the step by step instructions and video demonstrations would enable him to be able to follow along without getting lost or overwhelmed looking at a whole recipe at once. Many of the recipes are too complex for him but I have been able to set up a recipe book in the app of just his recipes, and this means he can scroll through 'his recipe book' and select any of those he wants to cook independently and be walked through them step by step. This is a great benefit for our household.
I do wish the cord was a little longer as I don't want the steam releasing into the cupboards above and the only spot where it can both reach a power point and not hit overhead cupboards, is not a spot that it can live permanently. I would be happy for it to have a permanent benchtop spot if that were not the case, as it has tied with our air fryer for frequent use - we no longer even need the rice cooker which used to get more or less a daily workout in our house. Due to teens setting up and playing around with it initially, we do have two long gouges out of the non-stick coating already, from when the handles were put into the steamer basket thing not quite correctly, and it was slid into the pot and the handles sticking out scratched all the way down and back out again. Sob... Still, once they were pushed in all the way properly, everything fits very snuggly and satisfyingly and feels solid and quality. The fact the handles don't heat up so you can lift the main pot in and out straight away, and how easily the pot fits in the dishwasher for a really simple clean up, make it a winner.
I plan to buy the Extra Crisp lid accessory, to enable us to use this as an airfryer also, and therefore have just the one appliance covering all bases. I wouldn't be willing to fork out the $150 for a lid accessory which will be useless if the cook4me itself ever fails, if I wasn't confident that it feels like a high quality product that we are going to be using frequently for years to come hopefully! I will update in future... For now, we're very happy with the ease of use, ease of clean up, and step by step directions with individual recipe book storage for different family members.
- +2
Pressure cooker convert! – I was asked to test out the Tefal Cook4Me Touch, and to be honest I wasn't sure how I'd go with it, as I've never owned a pressure cooker before. Summary - I absolutely love it. It's perfect for the busy, and uninspired home cook. Considering the size of the meals it cooks, it's really quite compact, and looks great on my kitchen bench. It has… Read more
all the bells and whistles you can think of, including pleasant notification sounds and accessories like a steamer basket. What astounded me most about this machine, though, is the way it works as a cookbook. You can use either the pre-loaded recipes from the touch screen, or sit on the couch and browse through the stacks of recipes in the app. It will even suggest meals based on ingredients that you have. When you're ready to start you just send the recipe to the machine, and it goes through everything you need to do, step by step, and works its magic with the right settings / temperatures and timings. Here's where my only small complaint is - I wasn't sure if the machine would move on automatically when one step was completed, or if I needed to press something. That wasn't really clear how or what to do. But in hindsight, obviously it won't move along until you let it know that you've completed that step to your satisfaction. I've made a few meals and have more saved in "favourites" to try. My Normandy Stew (with some personalisations for ingredients that I had) was a total winner for the family, and made enough to feed us all (note: many dishes have options for 2 or 4, which is convenient). This recipe used stir frying, boiling / simmering an pressure cooking all in one dish, and it did all of that automatically at the press of a button. Be warned, if you've not used a pressure cooker before, the sight and sound of the pressured steam releasing at the end was quite a surprise ... heh heh. Another stupid moment from me - I was annoyed because I wanted to pour the remainder into a container when it was still hot, and thought I couldn't lift out the bowl because it would burn me. Duh, it has cool-touch handles on the inner bowl, so that will never be an issue! They really did design this well. Clean-up was a breeze with the bowl fitting easily into the dishwasher. I must say that nothing would have stuck to it anyway, as it is really excellent quality non-stick material, so I could just as easily have washed it by hand. I haven't noticed any lingering smells, so that's a bonus. The rest of the machine got a quick wipe and it was perfect. Honestly, this little beast will replace half of your kitchen, because you can cook anything in it, with half the fuss and a fraction of the mess. It's well built, simple to operate and turns you into a bit of a chef, even if you are the laziest chef ever. :)
Awesome Pressure Cooker, great kitchen appliance – This pressure cooker is a step above the rest. Lots of positives, a few small negatives, but overall a great cooker Positives: • Machine touch screen, connects to WiFi • Here is also an Ap you can download to your ipad, smart device & phone, which syncs to the cooker • The initial set up to connect to WiFi is very easy and once done, it… Read more
automatically sycs to your WiFi each time you turn on the cooker. • Hundreds of recipes on the Ap and syncs to cooker • Your selected recipe appears on the touch screen and for most recipes, the cooker takes you step by step through the cooking process. Each step is displayed on the screen, automatically heating and cooking to the correct setting as part of the recipe. Not all recipes do this, but most do and makes cooking in this machine very very easy. Also includes a timer for cooking, so you can see how long the recipes has left to cook for each step. • You can also search for recipes on the cooker itself. Enter a search word and will find recipes based on that & save to your favourites on the Ap • Some recipes do not have the auto step by step process, so for these you do need to cook using the manual function, I had a few issues with this but I probably need more practice. • You can update what ingredients you have in the fridge & pantry (up to 10) and then you are provided suggested recipes – brilliant! You can also tailor recipes to number of people you are cooking for, so the cooker will give you the correct amount of ingredients you need and minimises wastage. • Cooking casserole’s, paella & puddings, it works very well and tastes great. Meats are beautifully tenderised and as they are pressure cooked, it cooks quickly, saving you time. • The cooker comes with a brochure with a few directions & if problems, a troubleshooting guide. Easy to clean, the cooking bowl can be removed and even go in the dishwasher.
Only a very few negatives, the positives of this machine clearly outweighs the negatives. • The power cord is a bit short, so for me I can only cook using the machine in one section of the kitchen so when the steam vents, it is clear of overhead cupboards. • Not all of the many fabulous recipes available in the menu, in my opinion, not all are best suited to cook in a pressure cooker. I tried stir fry’s and a fish recipe, did not come out as expected. • When looking for recipes on the machine, if I wanted to go back one step to the previous recipe I was looking at, it doesn’t go back to the last step but instead goes back to the main menu, so I have to start the search process again. A bit annoying. • I used the steamer for a pudding, but it really only fitted 2 ramakin’s, I squeezed in 4.
Only very few negatives, but a lot of positives. I’m very happy with this cooker and would recommend it. If you are not a good cook, this machine is for you. With recipe step by step instructions, that includes the machine automatically heating and cooking following the recipe steps, makes cooking in this machine very easy.
Find out how Tefal Cook4Me Touch CY9128 compares to other Multi Cookers
Know better, choose better.
Bleep bloop. Robot pressure cooker totally computes – Note: This review is for a supplied product. The Cook4Me Touch is a great "instant pot" that is total overkill for what it does. I've made casseroles, curries, soups, chillis and more. It's had a good workout. It sits smartly on our bench and has had no wifely complaints despite looking like a ghastly trophy from the robot wars. I can never go… Read more
back to a manual pressure cooker. I have been spoiled. All pressure cooking should be done by robots.
PACKAGING
The product was safely packaged. I was a bit disappointed with the amount of plastic and Styrofoam in the box. More environmentally friendly options are available in 2022.
FIT AND FINISH
This is where the eCook4Me Touch shines. This is a superbly made product.
All parts are engineered well and feel sturdy in the hand. The tolerances are perfect and everything fits together with a satisfying snugness. There is no slop or play to be found. The lid locking system is the best I've come across with an easy to grip knob on the top of the lid. It also has an array of LEDs that indicate if it's able to be opened or not.
The cooking pot is the most robust I've come across and retains heat extremely well.
The touchscreen is clear and bright. The touch interface is responsive and the screen can be angled outwards for improved viewing angles when you are standing above the pot. A really nice touch.
Everything about this product screams attention to detail and high quality. It seems you get the best when paying $700 for an instant pot.
RECIPE SYSTEM AND WIFI
I'm VERY technically capable and it took me a dozen attempts to hook up the app to the pot. I think the stumbling block was the pot didn't have it's region set the same as my phone. I reconfigured the pot and away I went ... finally. A better approach would be to put a QR code on the pot that the app could scan.
You can browse recipes on the pot's touchscreen or find one on the app and magic it across to the pot. The recipe search function is awkward and will return a lot of recipes your pot can't make without a $170 Extra Crisp Lid attachment. There is no way to filter out recipes that require this attachment so you end up kissing a lot of frogs before finding your prince. It's probably a cynical attempt to get you to cave and buy the extra piece.
The app and pot user interface are set out like a glossy food magazine. It funnels you towards using the recipe system which means accessing manual mode can be cumbersome. And considering I use Manual Mode most of the time, this has gotten quite annoying. The UI has been designed to showcase the product features rather than to cater to the user's habits.
The supplied recipes are usually pretty good but not all of them are perfect. Pea soup was a disastrous mess and ended up too runny despite following the directions to a tee. I had to boil down the soup for an age before it hit the right consistency. And then it was too salty from the excess stock at the start. Other recipes were masterpieces.
When following a supplied recipe, the pot will instruct what to do via the screen, change modes when required and set timers automatically. If you have the app connected, you can monitor the stages and be notified upon completion. It really takes the thinking out of it, which may be appealing to somebody who thought spending $700 on an instant pot was a sound purchasing decision.
You can also BYO recipes and use Manual Mode to set the cooking functions and timers yourself, you know, like how every other pot works. I think this is how I will proceed in the future, but I'm a control freak and don't need my hand held so tightly by this gorgeous little robot.
PERFORMANCE AND COOKING RESULTS
Cook4Me has many different modes including stir fry, casserole, pressure cook and keep warm. Most recipes will have you browning ingredients in Stir Fry mode first and then graduating to the Pressure Cook setting to finish off. You can also slow cook with the Casserole mode.
The Cook4Me Touch heats up quickly. Much quicker than my cheaper pot. It retains the heat better as well due to the heavy base of the pot. This thing actually browns the meat in Stir Fry mode!
The feature I love the most is not all the whizz-bang touch screens and wifi connectivity. It's the auto steam release. This thing degases itself when done and it's done in a calm and controlled manner.
Cleaning isn't too difficult unless you ask somebody else to do it. They throw their hands up in the air wondering which pieces come off and which pieces go where when it's done. After doing it once, cleaning is straightforward, unless you have a boil over with pea soup ... OMFG!
The Cook4Me is a little bit fussy about how much liquid it has available to build up steam pressure. It's fussier than other instant pots I have. I did a side-by-side chilli cook off and the Cook4Me begged me several times for more liquid. This happened with a few other recipes that Just Work in other pots.
I did some side-by-side cook offs and the results weren't any different to the cheaper, manual-mode-only pots. The experience was marginally better in that using the Cook4Me is nicer because the it feels like quality every time you touch it. The cooking process seems to "flow" and that means less kitchen stress.
Cleaning is slightly easier with the Cook4Me given the way the pieces easily disassemble and can be washed in a sink or dishwasher. The valves on my old pot were built in to the lid which was awful to clean. The Cook4Me valves come away easily for a quick scrub.
I haven't noticed any residual smells despite cooking a lot of spicy food. It's only been about a month though. My old pot definitely bears the whiff of a thousand meals.
CONCLUSION
I was sceptical about a $700 instant pot. I told my friend I'd give her the "loser" instant pot out this battle and she is going to have to settle for the old manual one that's harder to clean. That's right, I have a STRONG preference for the Cook4Me over my trusty companion pot of the past few years.
If my Cook4Me Touch was lost/stolen/exploded I don't think I'd buy another one though. At $700 it's a bit steep for this tightwad. I don't need all the connectivity features and I'm already an accomplished cook who doesn't need all the hand holding.
But what the Cook4Me has done is raised the bar for my expectations of quality and cleanability for an instant pot. Yes, I have been spoiled. Thank you Tefal for showing this poor boy the bright lights of the big city. I can't go back to the cheapest pots now. Hopefully there will be a middle ground when I need a replacement.
Great machine, love it! – This is an impressive looking machine coming out of the box. It came with quality instructions and included the cleaning process. The cooking bowl can go in the dishwasher, always a bonus. It was a fun and different way to cook. Making a whole meal in one pot is always a winner. The machine I received would not connect to the internet via wifi. I… Read more
didn't try it with the phone. There was a good selection of meals in the library. The meals turned out well and were delicious. It cleans easily and does not retain smells. It has a sturdy construction and presents a fun way of cooking.
Fast, Succulent Meals – Meat prices continue to rise and expense no longer guarantees tenderness. That’s where a pressure cooker comes into its own and Tefal has outdone itself with the Cook4me touch wifi. This multicooker pressure cooks (normal and express), steams, browns, simmers, slow cooks and reheats. Its keep warm function ensures your meal stays hot until you’re… Read more
ready to eat it.
To get the most from the machine, you need to download the app to a phone/device and connect the Cook4me to your wifi. Connection is simple thanks to the step-by-step walkthrough on the Cook4me screen. The app allows you to send recipes to the machine and track cooking progress.
What’s good? - It cooks meat perfectly - fast. Our boneless lamb roast, topside and chuck were fall-apart succulent in one hour. Chicken thigh was delicious in 12 minutes. It perfectly steamed gyozas in 5 minutes. The Cook4me even cooked a decent risotto. - It releases the steam automatically after the cooking time – just steer clear of the release valve. - The recipes are extensive and by selecting one, the machine walks you through the steps. If you need to make amendments, you have the option of manual override. You can cook recipes designed for other pressure cookers. - The 4L usable capacity is large enough for recipes to feed six. - It is dishwasher safe for most elements and easy to hand wash with one caveat. If you have a blow-out (as we did once), the mess can be fiddly to clean. It did retain some smell after use/cleaning.
What could be improved? - Although the instructions state there is a Browning mode, ours was called Stir-Fry mode. - The sensitivity of the typing touch screen is dull. - The machine releases steam intermittently throughout the cooking process. It only emits a sound and provides a visual cue when releasing steam at the end of cooking. In terms of best safety practice, it would be a helpful to include a visual cue onscreen 5 seconds before any release of steam. - Error 15 – needs hydration: this stopped the machine from working but didn’t emit a sound. You only knew of the error by checking the Cook4me. - Include the energy rating. - Control the Cook4me through the app.
Conclusion This multicooker is one antidote to the neverending food price increases. You can cook cheaper meats knowing the meal will be fast and tender. Busy families will love the ease of use and extreme cut to cooking times. Great job, Tefal.
Great looking pressure cooker that won't burn you. Apart from maybe the price! – I was sent this cooker to review as part of the Ambassador program. Sorry to say that I.... don't love this :( I've used pressure cookers before and this unit does not let you do a natural release, it just automatically releases all the pressure at the end of the cooking cycle. There is literally no option to choose natural release which… Read more
irritated me.
The benefit of that is that you can't forget to close the valve, but some recipes call for natural release. Perhaps it could be implemented with a software upgrade? It has Wi-Fi functionality, after all.
It's a beautiful looking unit, gorgeous and the touch screen is pretty, if a little slow to start up. It's easy to navigate, clean up is a cinch and the handles on the side of the cooking bowl are terrific. It makes decanting your food super easy so you don't have to lift/scoop it all out, and no burning yourself, which is a BIG plus.
The non-stick bowl cleans up well and the lid comes apart easily, so I haven't had any issues with residual odours re-emerging on the next use.
The online feature feels gimmicky. The recipes are good for inspiration, but in reality a bit crap. The ingredient lists are a pretty bland. I'm happy to look for inspiration but then end up going to Amy + Jacky or something like that to get a tasty recipe. Again, something that could be fixed with the online capability.
So far I've made old favourites like pulled pork, bolognaise, pumpkin and goats cheese risotto, minestrone soup, baked beans, chicken curry. All good winter food, ready in no time! Pressure cooking chicken really is the way to go, it stays juicy and tender.
It's easy to use and it's handled everything really well. It heats up to temperature quickly. It did struggle to get up to pressure with the bolognaise and burnt on the bottom. It wasn't as large a quantity as I usually make so that might have had an effect.
It beeps at me a lot during the cooking cycle, but only once when it's failed to reach pressure, which seems a bit dumb. I'd rather be alerted to a failure, not a progression.
Overall it's a great looking, functional digital pressure cooker / slow cooker (apart from the natural release!).
It feels sturdy and safe and the locking mechanism is nice and secure. I avoided using pressure cookers for years because I was scared of them blowing up. I feel plenty safe using this one :)
So while I don't love it, I do like it. Just not sure I "seven hundred bucks" like it though.
Not your mum’s pressure cooker – The term “pressure cooker” for me immediately brings back memories of a big old cast iron or alloy pot on a stove top that would have looked right at home in a Red Army mess hall, lid fastened using some form of industrial grade clamp, hissing away while mother made some sort of obnoxious stew that would last as leftovers for days (probably… Read more
because no one ate it).
Consequently when the productreview.com.au team invited me to review the Tefal Cook4me Touch, I pondered how much you could actually modernise a pressure cooker and how much more could you realistically do with one, compared to the items from yesteryear. Just how much could technology bring such a crude and simple kitchen device into the 21st century?
Turns out – A LOT.
Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the Tefal Cook4me Touch.
Tefal states that the Cook4me Touch is a “smart pressure multicooker” rather than a pressure cooker. It has an adaptive cooking cycle that can vary the internal pressure required up to 100kPa (about 14-15psi), temperatures, and cooking cycles. It is more like a Thermo-whatsit just without the shredding/blending function and it can pressurize its cooking chamber.
Straight out of the Styrofoam padded box, it’s a funky looking contraption. I’m not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing; it will depend on your taste with the aesthetics of kitchen appliances however it is quite unlike anything I have seen before in a kitchen. Maybe it is a sign I need to spend more time in the kitchen…
The Cook4me Touch is a robustly made appliance that comes packaged with its own internal pot as well as a steaming basket. Both are dishwasher safe - great news for those of us who hate hand washing. It remains a point of aggravation for me of the number of expensive, fancy-pants kitchen appliances that have inserts and attachments that cannot go in the dishwasher.
The touch screen of the appliance is the master and commander of all you will do with the Cook4me Touch, along with the Tefal app to allow you to access more recipes online. It tilts out and up at you so you don’t have to bend down to read it however I noted that the plastic bezel on ours has a sharp edge all the way around it which is pretty uncool for a $699 kitchen appliance and I can foresee over time that the aperture around the touch screen will eventually fill up with spilt food and other crud, making it quite the mission to keep it clean and hygienic.
The user interface is great, but not perfect and I will touch on that more in a minute (see what I did there).
Cooking
This would be a pretty rubbish review if I didn’t go into detail about how well (or not) a kitchen appliance does its thing – cooking meals.
Using its touch screen you can select one of the pre-installed recipe items or go to ‘manual mode’ if you think you know what you are doing and you just need the appliance to do as its bloody well told. Something to be mindful of though, when the recipe “book” says cooking time, this doesn’t account for the warm up time and “decompression” time the Cook4me Touch needs.
For example, if the recipe says 30 minutes cooking time, what it doesn’t tell you is that it will need you to spend about 10 minutes “pre heating” the ingredients before that. So if you’re doing a stir fry, there is an expectation that you will be there stirring your vegies in the pot as it “pre heats” it all before the actual 30 minutes (or whatever it is) cooking time. After the cooking time, it spends about 5 to 7 minutes in a “decompression” phase where it automatically releases the pressure in the chamber through the vent behind the lid. This looks a lot like that scene from the movie Aliens when Ripley and her gang discover the nuclear reactor on the alien world is going to blow its stack, and it shoots great columns of steam into the air. This looks kinda like that, just much smaller and the Cook4me won’t blow your kitchen up. It’s certainly impressive to watch, even though I’m sure Tefal didn’t have entertainment in mind when they developed this appliance.
Even though the pre-heating thing might seem like a drag, remember – this is one pot cooking and once you’re done with that initial phase, you can close the lid, lock it, and walk away until it plays its little ditty to tell you it’s done. Soups, stir-frys, casseroles - it’s really that simple.
The Cook4me Touch has an app that you can install on your Android or Apple device which will allow you to access the wide world of cooking, the way Tefal sees it via appliances like the Cook4me Touch. There’s a catch though: you’ve got to register an account on the Tefal website to be able to access this wide world of cooking, otherwise all you’re going to get is the same 564 inbuilt recipes as on the Cook4me Touch. This, I think, is a little bit naff and not disclosed anywhere on the packaging.
What I find is a bit of an omission amongst all this tech and fanciness is the lack of a quick-start screen or option list for your most likely cooked items – plain rice for a start – instead you have to wade through its pre-installed recipe book (all 564 of them) to find what you want or use manual mode. A quick-start screen for the most commonly cooked items would be a far better idea. Having just chucked our el-cheapo Kmart rice cooker in the bin, and being a household that cooks a fair amount of plain rice, this would have been really really handy and saved a lot of time (and guesswork).
Aside from that, once you select your recipe from the user interface it will guide you through your recipe with the Cook4me Touch’s cooking process which will be different to what you’re used to, especially if you’re a mug like me. It pays to follow the instructions…
If you’re using the app, and you’ve chosen a recipe, it will send the recipe to your Cook4me Touch (provided it’s turned on, duh) and you can get started straight away with your prep because it gives you step by step instructions on the touch screen. You can even plug in the ingredients you have on hand, and the Cook4me Touch will suggest a recipe. How cool is that!
The rub
I don’t think the Cook4me Touch is a case of “jack of all trades, master of none” because so far, what we have asked it to do, it has done admirably. If you’re shirty because it can’t blend/chop/go in reverse/whatever, that is more your problem than the appliance because you are expecting it to do something it simply isn’t designed to do.
We’ve only cooked a handful of meals using the Cook4me Touch since we’ve had it, and overall I reckon it does a great job with its core business. In my opinion, it compares favourably with the variety of Thermomix rip-offs that are on the market, especially when you consider price. At $699 the Cook4me Touch isn’t exactly a cheap gadget, but given that it is capable of doing many of the things that a thermo-whatsit can, and those appliances are often north of $1K, as far as I’m concerned, you can’t go wrong with the Cook4me Touch. It even has an accessory air fryer attachment available (sold separately). Don’t ask me how it works, but if it does the job, there is potentially another appliance made redundant by the Cook4me Touch.
If you’ve got the cupboard space to store it, the benchtop space to use it, and the money to buy it – do it. It has the potential to transform your cooking and make life a hell of a lot easier for you on those days when you’ve had to work late AND pick the kids up from daycare on the way home AND call in at the shops to buy some dinner ingredients AND you’re already frazzled before you walk through the door without wondering what on earth you’re going to cook – let the Cook4me Touch use it’s smarts and skills and you can relax.
A great pressure cooking system for this old beginner – I’ve not used a pressure cooker since the early ‘80s, when they were huge cumbersome devices that would destroy your kitchen if they “went off”. This modern wifi connected version was nothing to fear, thanks to its safety valves and easy to use format. I loved the connectivity between the cooker and my phone, and the large menu available through… Read more
both the phone app and the cooker itself. In the fortnight since I unboxed it, I’ve cooked about a dozen “one pot” style meals, and will always cook my curries and stews in this cooker now. I had only one faux-pas, when I set the timer on manual mode far too long, and ruined a large tray of chicken pieces. I won’t repeat that mistake, and stick to the recipes from now on. The initial set up between the Tefal and my phone only took 20 mins, and is intuitive and simple. The cooker comes apart simply, and my dishwasher cleans all the components easily. There’s no lingering smells from any of the parts. It’s an attractive little cooker, that has found a permanent place in our kitchen. My beef curries are now superb, and cheap chuck steak falls off the fork now. I will enjoy the confidence that comes with experience as we use this cooker more often. It’s fair to say that my mouth waters when I think of this cooker, as the flavours from the meals are sublime. Totally recommended.
To much cleaning up afterwards – I have used the Tefal Cook4me Touch 4 times. Two times it was outstanding, two times it cooked well however I was left with excessive and time-consuming cleaning up. Of note - I have had 2 electric pressure cookers so knew how they worked and had quite high expectations as this model is more than double in cost of my last two simpler machines. … Read more
THE PROS: The lid closes well and the catch to secure the lid is easy to use and seems very secure. I like how you can hear it lock when you press start. There is a light on the lid that shows the machine is powered on and working. The cooking pot/bucket is a good size. The cooking pot has excellent handles on either side. I have not had this feature on previous machines and rate this feature very highly for handling the pot when both hot and cold. 10/10! The touch screen pulls out for use on an angle so it's easy to read. The machine connects to wifi so you can start it remotely I think (I would never do this but some might) The touch screen tells you where the machine is at in its heating/cooking/depressuring cycle which is excellent. The machine stops cooking automatically and automatically releases the steam. The touch screen images are of very high quality and there are pictures (although small) of the pre-loaded recipes. When you select a recipe it tells you the ingredients and then takes you through very simple step-by-step instructions on how to make the dish. The machine did not retain any smells after cooking. Everything I cooked was delicious and cooked beautifully.
THE CONS: The touch screen is not very sensitive. Once you press stop it does not stop but asks "are you sure" - this caught me out and I turned away after pressing stop then found it continuing to cook minutes later. The advised time to cook something does not include the warming up process which can be as much as the cook time itself. It is what it is - not a negative but the advised cooking times should include this. The power cord is only approximately 70cm long (not very long although it was fine for me, it might not be long enough for others) - note this is so minor but thought I might mention it. The steam vent is positioned towards the back of the lid which means excessive liquid escapes when the machine is de-pressurizing. The overflow cup is far too small for the amount of liquid that can escape during de-pressurisation. The cleanup time is really excessive. There are lots of parts to take apart and clean - it's very fiddly. These last 3 cons are a design fault that lets this machine down really badly.
WHAT I COOKED: Twice I cooked wontons adding just a small splash of water. Both times the machine worked like a dream and clean up took just a minute to wipe down inside the lid and wipe out the pot. I used manual mode for 6 minutes. They were perfect - 10 / 10 !
I cooked 1.5 kilos of chicken cut into bitesize chunks and added 1/2 cup of kecap manis. I cooked the chicken on manual mode for 10 minutes. When the machine finished and automatically opened the vent the steam was very forceful and it was also spraying out the sticky sauce/liquid. The liquid went all over the splashback and some went up into the range hood. The liquid overflowed the teeny tiny overflow cup and ran all over the bench. It made a lot of mess. The chicken was cooked well no complaints there. The cleanup was excessive - it took at least 1/2 an hour to clean up. The lid has quite a few parts to take apart to ensure everything is cleaned it's a pretty fiddly business.
The second large meal I cooked was the chicken soup from the machines recipe bank. The ingredients were very plain so I added some seasoning. It advised to add water up to the max line indicated on the inside of the pot however I was probably 2 cups of water short. From my previous experience, I did not want to fill the pot with too much liquid. The same thing happened. When the machine released the pressure vent, out came steam mixed with chicken soup liquid which again sprayed over the glass splashback and ran down the side of the machine this time so much liquid came out it pooled under the machine. The cleanup this time was even longer. So frustrating. Every time I cleaned up around the vent hole and overflow, minutes later more soup was there it just kept coming from nowhere! Somehow the soup also got into the bottom/ underneath of the machine and after multiple wipes, it was still dribbling out. The cleaup was around 40 minutes.
From having used 2 other pressure cookers I can see this machines issue is the pressure valve is too low on the lid. My previous machines have had the pressure valve at the highest point of the lid and this excessive liquid spraying has not been an issue. If you are a person that does not like soups or meals with sauces this machine is for you! I think it would also be great for rice, cake or puddings - low liquid things. I would recommend when cooking with any liquid in this machine that you either cook outside and/or place a tea towel over the pressure valve to catch some of the liquid and you can then wash the tea towel. This won't cut down with the cleanup though ! I would also recommend placing the machine on a cooling rack so any overflow does not get caught in the base of the machine as it did for me.
Recommendations to tefal : Can the pressure release be slowed? - slow and steady or able to be manually adjusted. Move the pressure release valve to the top of the machine. Make the cord slightly longer. Add small feet to the machine so that any liquid overflow does not end up in the base of the machine.
Best Multi Cooker I have ever used – I have been using electric pressure cookers for over 5 years now. I own an Instant Pot Duo Nova electric pressure cooker (6 litre) plus a Healthy Life brand electric pressure cooker (8 litre) and now the Tefal Cook4Me Touch (6 litre). I can easily say the Cook4me Touch is now my 'go to' favourite electric pressure cooker. This is why : Positive… Read more
Features and Experiences - Easy learning transition from other pressure cookers. - There are on-line recipes as well as an integrated phone app that connects to the Cook4me touch. The app is full of features and recipes. Ability to upload your own recipes. - A good app feature is the cooking guide which really helps with times and cooking methods when creating your own recipes. - I really like the step sequences in the recipes. Makes the whole cooking process easy to follow and complete. - recipe organisation is great. (but can be improved - more on that later). - Good support, ideas and recipes on Social Media (Facebook Groups) - The interaction between the wifi app and the appliance works seamlessly, most of the time. I can see the progress of the recipe I am cooking on my phone plus transfer recipes from the app to the Cook4Me. - I am finding it easy to use the manual methods to cook my favourite pressure cooker recipes. - I have found it easy to convert current Tefal recipes by changing/adding ingredients, with good results. eg. Beef Tacos recipe as a guide for cooking Turkey Mince Nacho mix - see photo. - There are heat resistant handles on the interior cooking bowl which makes it super easy to remove from the pressure cooker. I have to use oven mitts or a tea towel to remove the bowl from my other pressure cookers. - The appliance is easy to keep clean and the cleaning steps are not onerous. - You are able to add your own recipes to the app. This feature could be made more flexible for the user.
Negative features or areas that could be improved. - The option of being able to add your own recipes to the app as mentioned above is good, however the recipe upload has to go through a screening/publishing process. It would be great if there was an option to NOT publish BUT have an option where you able to SAVE your own recipes on the app as well as 'send' and then 'save' them to a recipe 'book' on the Cook4Me. Currently, I have to write the recipes down, which means that I can't automate my cooking steps like the supplied recipes do. - If your wifi is down then your options of cooking are reduced. - The wifi disconnects from the app to the cooker to the app, randomly.
The meals below are a combination of Cook4Me recipes, adapted Cook4Me recipes and personal recipes that I have prepared over the last few weeks. They all turned out great. - Woolworths Roast Beef Marinated in A Classic Herb Mix (product) with Masterfoods Slow Cooker Beef & Red Wine Casserole sauce, + onion, potatoes and mushrooms. own recipe - Tacos – turkey breast (followed the cook4me beef tacos recipe) - Beef rissoles with onion, carrot, bell peppers. Condensed tomato soup and can of tomatoes for sauce). own recipe - Pulled pork – recipe from cook4me recipe list. Some modifications. - Sweet and sour pork – cook4me recipe. Some modifications - Pork Chops – used cook4me cooking guide to brown and then braise with vegetables and cook in gravy. - Butter chicken – cook4me recipe
Cook for me – Perfect and is going to help me as I’m very limited in my mobility now and I’ve been looking at Justine Schofield cookbooks so I can get the most out of it and later this year am buying I companion xl
Not worth the money – We purchased this from Bing Lee and forwarded it on to New Zealand. We've had it for about a week. The first day we got it we made a decent chicken marbella. Since then, it won't come to pressure which has wasted heaps of ingredients. The Tefal recipes are not very good, which is a shame as the touch display recipes were a big draw. Finally, the… Read more
app doesn't let me sign in on my Android phone, so I have to use my husband's iPhone every time I need the app. Has caused so much frustration - wish we hadn't bought it. Returning it would be near impossible since there's no Bing Lee in New Zealand.
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Tefal have contacted me, saying they will address the connectivity issue with relevant personnel and the App. Good on you Tefal.