Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi CY7778

Terrible – The pre heat function takes forever, when set to "slow cook mode" had 2 hours left on the timer however when I opened the lid to check the food i kid you not STONE COLD and food was still raw ended up having to bin the food because of how long it sat there, there are different lid locks for certain cook methods which is stupid considering it has a… Read more

valve for pressure release, the appliance has just recreated the wheel into an over complicated and not useful space waister returning after 1 use, teefal needs to reconsider their products before launch this could honestly just be a faulty product but I'm not willing to throw out more food just for the sake of retrying this product

Dreadful appliance!! – I am so disappointed with my Turbo Cuisine. It takes an hour and a half to warm up and then wants to burn everything on the bottom of the pan. The second time I used it all the coating on the inside of the appliance starting peeling. Meat is not nearly as nice as when cooked in a slow cooker. I emailed Tefal regarding this fault but have so far heard nothing. Disappointing service and product.

Great all-around multi-purpose pressure cooker! – The Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi is a great all-around multi-purpose (pressure) cooker. It should be on top of your shopping list if you want to buy an electricity cooker, pressure cooker or multiple-purpose cooker; the Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi will replace all of them*. Don’t get me wrong though, as I do have all sort of electric cooking… Read more

appliances, rice cooker, slow cooker, multiple-purpose cooker, steamer, pressure cooker, air fryer… just to name a few. The Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi is great at some tasks but not the others, however, if you don’t have a huge kitchen, or if you don’t want to buy all the other appliances, it is a MUST!

Let’s break it down:

Pros: 1. Size: This is a huge cooker, with a 7.6 L bowl, you can almost fit everything inside in one go! A full chicken? Not a problem, with ease! This is so much easier and more user friendly than any other cookers I have had, simply, the size wins. 2. Build Quality: Overall, this Tefal has been built to a very high standard, especially stainless-steel lid, quality coating (bowl), sturdy and heavy body, and touch-sensitive buttons. This is not surprising at this price point, but still good to see. 3. Spherical Bowl design: Nothing new here, the Japanese have been using it for a long while now, but I was very pleased to see it on this Tefal cooker. The spherical designed bowl allows for faster and more evening cooking with increased contact area and circulation. 4. The steam release button: Finally, a crucial but often missed feature. Tefal has designed and built a press-release button on the lid to release the steam after cooking. This is a push-button mechanism, away from the steam vent, making it far more convenient and safer to use. This wins the game! 5. Variety of cooking functions: There are 10 cooking programs built into the cooker, with more options listed on their cooking manual/recipe book; fantastic for some naïve home cooks or just saving time and hassles (I know it is laziness, but why not use this Tefal cooker when it is all set up for you right!) 6. Multi-functions: With all the functions of slow cooking, grilling, pressure cooking, baking and so on, you only need one cooker, not more; which does save a lot of money and space.

Cons: 1. Size: Again, it is huge!!! If you don’t have the countertop or cabinet space, this could be a big problem (but you only need this one rather than 3 other cookers altogether). 2. Poor Knob Quality: Might just be me, but I am very attentive or picky. The rotating knob just feels cheap and the feedback mechanism is quite poor comparing to other parts of this cooker. 3. Price: Let’s talk about money now! In 2022, this Tefal cooker retails for over $250, while at the same time, I could have purchased a cheap pressure cooker, slow cooker, and a multi-cooker all for a similar price. I know that the build quality of those cheap ones are really bad, but 3 machines are still better than one if you need to use them at the same time! 4. Limited information on the LCD screen: For $250, in 2022, I would have expected a far more advanced LCD screen that shows me the information about cooking function, type, remaining time, alarm, etc. This Tefal cooker only has a very basic LCD screen telling you the time; not the best on the market! 5. No Induction Cooking: This cooker still uses a heating element instead of induction. I know it is much more expensive to use induction, but at this price, comparable cookers in Japan have already adopted induction technologies, which allows far quicker cooking time, more heat circulation and more precise temperature control.

Considering all the Pros and Cons, my honest advice to potential shoppers would be: if you are in the market for a new electric cooker/pressure cooker/slow cooker, that this Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi is on sale (less than $200), you should definitely buy it!

If you are in the market, but are budget-tight, then, I wouldn’t suggest you to spend over $200 to get this Tefal cooker, yet. There are many other cheaper alternatives that you can buy for now.

However, if you want a quality product with enough budget, then, even at retail price $279, it is still a good buy; if quality and durability are your top priority.

*** Disclaimer: This Tefal cooker was provided under the Product Review Ambassador Program; however, my review is impartial and genuine, unaffected by this program.

LARGE, and Very Good for Quick, Simple meals when used sparingly – Not So Good: First thing I noticed straight away when using it was that it is very high. This is because of the ‘machinery’ that’s needed at the base of the cookware. It is a bit unusual stirring ingredients inside it because I can’t see down into the pot as much as other pots. It makes looking at all the stuff in the pot (especially at the… Read more

bottom) more difficult – I had to go on my tiptoes at times, and it was more a problem for my wife. We have a couple of stock pots but even they aren’t as high as this Tefal. However, also with stock pots, a lot of the time I’m cooking soups, which don’t need too much stirring of ingredients. This multicooker, with lots of stuff you're cooking, you’ll need to be cooking/browning/stirring it first before using the slow/pressure cook functions. Not So Good: The pot is also curved on the inside, unlike many saucepans or pots you would normally use. This makes turning food to brown like mince or diced meats much harder, which I found quite a bit frustrating. Good: Despite the pot being quite curved inside, when you take it out to put on the bench, it does have a flat base so it can just sit there like a bowl. Not So Good: Another thing, however small, is that the cord is quite short in my opinion. About 85cm on my measurement. I like to put a pot like this under my rangehood – I have an induction cooktop which makes feasible, unlike those who may have a gas stovetop. So I would say 85cm is not long enough to reach a powerpoint from the stovetop from there (it’s not in my house anyway). I use a powerboard, so it’s fine, but it could be an issue for some people. (It’s easy enough to get an extension cord, yes, but who wants extra cord in their kitchen?) Not So Good: When first using the multicooker, actually, it can be a bit confusing. You just need to get use to it. There can be quite a long pre-heating time, for all the modes. This needs to be factored into your cooking. Good: The recipe booklet is quite useful, to get you started and familiar with using cooker. It’s got lots of simple recipes which can be recreated quite easily, and some quite nice food suggestions as well. Not So Good: The timings on those recipes aren’t quite accurate though, as it doesn’t take into account that pre-heating time for the modes I mentioned. Before ‘stir-frying’ or sautéing for example, the pot will need to heat up to temperate, which can take a few minutes. Also, before ‘stewing’ or pressure cooking, often the pot can take 10-15 minutes it seems, at least, to build up the pressure before the ‘countdown’ of the cooking process. You need to really make sure the pressure valve is correct in this aspect, otherwise, your food won’t cook! Good: The sticker at the top of the lid is a great reminder and very clear in the position that it should be in. Good: However, in saying that, once you get use to it, it's very easy to use. I haven’t actually used a pressure cooker in a couple of years, so it was a bit of a learning curve the first couple of meals. Good: When you use it right, like we have for a couple of meals, it really saves time, and lots of it too. For example, slow cooked beef might usually take a couple of hours, even a bit more, to get really tender and soft. In the pressure cooker, pre-heating time (maybe about 10-15 minutes to build up the pressure) + 30 minutes, and after that, you know it's done and will be so soft. Good: And so far, easy and quick to clean. Wash the inside pot, and rinse the lid. Give it a wipe on the outside it’s a bit dirty. That seems about it for most of it. The rubber ring that goes on the lid is a much nicer design and to clean I believe than some other cooking equipment I have. The metal ring that holds it in place in very nifty and the lid has worked well so far. Not So Good: Another quick thing – it can cook rice, and cook rice very quickly, but not nearly as well as a rice cooker. The default is 12 minutes – it doesn’t automatically adjust like a good rice cooker does for differing amounts of rice – and there’s no proper instructions I have found on how long is appropriate to cook different amounts of cups of rice. It does an okay job, but I’ve found you may not get consistent, fluffy rice. Not So Good: It's also big, which had me re-arranging a few items in the cupboard to let it have a spot somewhere. Not a huge problem, but it’s not something I’m using every day so I wouldn’t want it on the kitchen bench. Good: I think I’ll using the multi-cooker a lot to make our weekday meal preparation for the week – whether it be for some dinners or all-week lunches. The pot is actually massive, so it can cook a lot, and cook it so quickly, and cook some nice food. It will save me so much time on a Sunday cooking for the week – instead, I throw a bunch of ingredients in the multicooker and just wait and it’ll be done! Good: If you’re not that into cooking, or looking at getting into cooking, it’s actually a great piece of cookware to have to also learn the different ways to cook food, given it has so many modes and is so versatile. Have one of these, an air-fryer, and a flat pan, and you’re good to go! Unfortunately, the Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi won’t replace a lot of the cookware I’m used to using and love cooking with (and it's not meant to). However, it’s a very nice addition to my kitchen and something that I see myself pulling out weekly to use to make a quick, delicious meal (or meals for the week) (aided by the recipe book for now) that won’t require a lot of clean up afterwards!

A good pressure/slow cooker, could be better at other tasks – **Rating 3.5 stars** I was grateful to be offered to test the Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi as part of Productreview’s ambassador program. I had high hopes for this pressure cooker, as a previous user of a Breville Fast Slow Pro with the dreaded “lid not sealed” errors, which drove me crazy. First impressions The unit arrived in a sizeable box… Read more

and is quite large. This is definitely a family-sized pressure cooker (or one for if you love leftovers), with an 8L capacity. The unit itself looks sleek and would need to be left on the bench top, as it would be too heavy to consistently move in and out of a cupboard, so if you’re interested, make sure there is space for it. The unit comes with a number of attachments, including the main cooking pot, steam trivet, spatula/rice paddle and measuring cup. The manual states that it has a number of modes including pressure cook (stew), soup, stir-fry, steam, bake, sous-vide/slow-cook, rice, yoghurt/bread rise, oatmeal and manual mode (for which I’m not really sure how to use).

First Trial

My first trial in the pressure cooker was a Japanese curry with chuck steak, potatoes and carrots on the stew mode. I started by browning the meat on the stir-fry mode, but unfortunately wasn’t able to get much colour on the meat (it has a maximum temperature of 160 degrees). I then converted the appliance to stew (pressure cook) mode and cooked for an hour. The pressure release was really easy, just by pressing a button on the lid and was much less painful than on the Breville fast-slow-pro, where I found myself having to hold down a small button for a long period of time. The resulting curry was melt-in-your-mouth tender and absolutely delicious, so I was impressed with it’s abilities.

Subsequent Trials

Subsequent cooking trials included a Mexican-inspired beef mice (pressure cook), and further curries which is where I ran into some troubles. First of all, the browning ability of the cooker for the mince was not up to scratch, and after 15 minutes on browning mode appeared to just be boiling the meat rather than browning. That being said, the end product was still very tasty after pressure cooking for around 40 minutes. The next curry I tried however, was a failure. For some reason the cooker failed to come up to pressure and kept releasing steam. Because of this, the curry boiled quite dry inside the pot, and it cooked for 1.5 hours never getting to pressure. From reading another review on here, perhaps this was user error on my part in making sure the steam release button was in the correct position? However there was no error message that came up or any indication of pressure status on the cooker (such as on the fast slow pro) making it difficult to gauge how the cooking is progressing. Further pressure-cooker trials didn’t have this error so I’m still not sure what had gone wrong. A further test of the cooker’s abilities on the slow cook mode was a success, with the added bonus that the slow cooker temperature can be adjusted, and produced tasty results.

The last item I trialled in this cooker was a 63 degree egg in sous-vide mode. It took a good 45 minutes for the water to come up to the correct temperature, and despite the manual saying the lid can be either in “closed” or “locked” position, the cooker produced an error message when I locked the lid. The resulting egg was *slightly* overdone for how it should have looked, so I would say there is likely a couple of degrees variation in this mode. That being said, I do think it is an excellent feature to have on one of these multi cookers, to make it competitive with other brands on the market, and likely other items cooked sous-vide would be less susceptible to changes with a couple of degrees temperature difference.

Pros and Cons

Pros/What I liked

- Ease of use- one dial to change modes - Pressure cooker steam release button feels very safe and is easy to use - Pressure cooker and slow cooker mode produce good results - Large capacity (if that suits your family) - Sleek look - Round-bottom pot is easy to clean

Cons - Stir fry mode produces poor results and little browning = less flavour. - Internal pot not dishwasher safe by my understanding - Modes difficult to differentiate between when selecting - Have to switch appliance off to change between modes - Recipe book/manual could be more informative with basic cooking instructions in addition to recipe - No indicator of pressure status or error message when failing to reach pressure

Overall this was a decent and fairly intuitive appliance to use, if you’re mainly after a pressure/slow cooker this would suit your family perfectly well.

Rocky relationship – This Tefal cooker and I have had a bit of a rocky relationship. I think some people would love it but it also has some pitfalls. The type of person that would love it would be: -from a largish family, with -lots of kitchen space, who -makes a lot of stews and curries. Straight out of the box, this cooker is huge and much larger than I was… Read more

expecting. Frankly its too large for my small household.

One of the first things you notice is the smell. I truly wish that cookware manufacturers would deliver a product that was clean, odour free and ready to cook. The instructions require you to carefully wash all the components and even after that, it still has that new teflon chemical smell. I ended up doing about a half dozen trial runs with water and oil only, on the highest temp and pressure to try and get rid of the smell. Its a temporary issue but nonetheless I don’t think it would be healthy to eat from this cookware without seasoning it appropriately through a few dummy runs.

The lid is clumsy. On my first use, I made the mistake of opening the lid the wrong way and got a mild steam burn to my forearm. Lesson learned.

The controls are not intuitive. I had to refer to the manual to figure out how to use it.

The cooking bowl has no handle and therefore you can not easily pour the contents out. This is a reasonably significant flaw.

I am not sure about the build quality of the electrical components. While the lid, cooking bowl and body seems well constructed the electrical touchpad and dial seem cheap.

On the positive side:

It is reasonably fast to heat up

It cooks food reasonably fast and makes a decent curry

It would be quite energy efficient

Its actually not too hard to clean

Its large capacity would be a plus for many people

In summary, I don’t think the kind people at Tefal have hit the ball out of the park with this one, and it’s not for everyone, but it would be a solid addition to the kitchen for some people.

Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi - Great Family cooker and definitely has a place in our kitchen – Firstly, I received this Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi as part of the Ambassador Program and this is a review of my experience with it. When the product came and we unboxed it, we were happy with how it was packaged which was very well. Once out of the box, the look and feel of the unit exuded quality, well built and style. It is however quite big so… Read more

you do need the bench and storage space for it. But being the Maxi, that is to be expected and a huge plus especially for those times you need to extra cooking size.

We are a family of 4, (2 primary school age children) and being the large Maxi size is a plus for us as it means we can cook quite decent size delicious meals and have left overs for lunch. It also allows for having plenty to eat for when we have the family over and need to cook for a number of extra people. And due to the kids having swimming, soccer, dance, homework etc, time is of the essence and while this may not cook faster, it is convenient and has helped having thing's ready prior to when needed as we can set various cooking times and with saving time overall.

It comes with a number of accessories/utensils, including a cook book, a steamer trivet, spatula and a measuring cup. But due to the non stick surface, you will need to ensure you have appropriate utensils including a soup ladle (it doesn't come with one) as you do not want to scratch the non stick surface.

We did notice that you sometimes cannot just follow the cookbook it comes with, here is also the instruction manual that also has a few hints that differ from what the cook book says, so in short, read both...

It uses a digital display to show status messages, from pre-heating, cooking time, temperature, Auto, Hot, End, stop and dashs for standby. And if you need to turn it off, just push the start/stop button for a number of seconds, which we did as we needed to change what the cooking mode was.

There is a sticker that you put anywhere you want on the product and it labels the icons that you see as a quick reminder for what the cooking mode is. It works well as when you use the selector control dial on the front, its great to be able to easily and quickly see what mode you want to use.

We first tried a pressure cooker meal with slow cooker meat, and we discovered that the 'pre heat' mode takes quite a while, we timed about 40 minutes before it would then automatically start the cooking mode. While the end result was very tasty we thought we were doing something wrong. As a consequence we have since timed it a few times, and we found that it can be between 10 and 40 minutes before it exits the pre-heating to the cooking program.

We also came across an error message on the screen and it turned out that even though the manual says we could have the lid closed or closed and locked, it would not let that happen with the Sous Vide cooking mode chosen, it would only allow closed, but not locked. This mode does not have a keep warm function. There are other modes that do have the availability of keep warm, 7 out of 10 modes have keep warm.

We also cooked mince for spaghetti bolognaise (which our son previously stopped eating as he no longer liked it), and to our great delight, he loved the meal as made with the Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi, so thankfully one of our favourites is now back on the menu.

Now being winter, we also cooked Pumpkin Soup, again the large size of the bowl came in handy and we had a delicious soup that we also had for lunch the next day.

As with all of these types of products, you do need to be careful of the steam that get released and be careful when you take the lid off as there may be residual steam and there is hot liquid that drips off the inside top of the lid. The large circular handle on the top of the lid does help with safe removal of the lid.

I dont think I would say it cooks anything quicker, it might, but we haven't found that and I think mostly due to the pre-heating times. It is very convenient and we have managed to use less items while cooking which means less washing and drying up for me. And on that note, it is quite easy to wash, even if the bowl is large and a little cumbersome in our sink. It says the lid can be immersed into the water, but so far I have not fully immersed it at all as I dont like that there is the stainless steel and the plastic top which means water will get trapped in-between, so after washing and rinsing, I dry and then let it stand over night to ensure any trapped water can drain out.

The float valve, pressure limit valve and the silicon sealing ring come off and go back on easily and hot rinsing after each use is fine. The silicon sealing ring does/can retain some smells and colour, but just give it a wash and rinse and you will limit any concerns there. Although just be careful with it considering its needed to form a proper seal and the continual removal and replacement of it may speed up its useful life. Just make sure its put back on properly as it wont do its job if it isn't.

All in all.. We are extremely happy with the Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi and it has become an integral part of our cooking line up and it has a huge amount of meals and other delicious things you can do with it. Interestingly enough, things actually taste a little different (in a good way) due to the different cooking style that this type of product brings to the table.

We think its a must for any kitchen and highly recommend it, its certainly taking over ours.

Family sized! – The Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi is a BIG multi-cooker that claims to be ideal for 7-9 people with its 7.6L capacity, cook up to 3 times faster and it has 10 automatic cooking modes and a manual setting. I have a similar product that I rarely use due to its colossal size on the bench, but tiny capacity inside. Usually I opt for my old ceramic crock… Read more

pot for cooking large batches and avoid pressure cooking altogether. Since the Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi arrived, I've been loving the pressure (cooking). Which brings me to the 10 automatic cooking modes. The way these are advertised on the packaging made me feel like the modes were truly unique and crucial to cooking different recipes. I am a time-poor mum though, so perhaps I made assumptions. Looking at the instructions and the specifics of each mode, they mostly fall into a few categories such as slow cooking, baking or pressure cooking for example. I could see no difference between stew, steam and rice other than the default time.

I have attached a video of our first cooking experience. We followed the recipe for banana bread that is found in the included recipe book as we had some brown bananas to use and we had all of the ingredients on hand. The instructions led me to believe the process would be rather quick, I've never cooked cakes in a pressure cooker before so I was looking forward to the time saving cooking experience I was led to believe I'd have. I didn't really save a significant amount of time with this first cake, or any others. I keep making them though because I love experimenting with them now that I've experienced the moist, pudding-like texture of the banana bread (that I cooked wrong). The difficulty with my first cake was that the instruction manual wasn't well written, at least for me. The terminology was inconsistent between the instructions and the included recipe book, I felt like I had to make guesses along the way. The graphic instructions were just as confusing to me, perhaps it's the way I perceive things but the pressure release valve was engaged because the images confused me, the instructions weren't clear, I lost the a lot of the steam before it became apparent I was losing steam, and the cooker never reached the desired heat so I had to guess when it was done and stop the cooking process manually. The banana bread turned out much more like a banana pudding but it was delicious, moist, and devoured by day two. So I then made a chocolate cake! Which went exactly to plan after I learnt through experience, how to use the cooker. I feel like a pro now.

I love that this cooker helps me come up with nutritious one pot meals that I can use for school lunches. The large capacity will actually feed a family, is great for meal prepping and freezer meals. Pasta is so easy to cook and there's very little mess. I cooked pasta with frozen broccoli and cauliflower, when it was done I didn't need to drain it as the water had dissipated as steam, I stirred through a couple of small tins of tuna, corn, a little mayonnaise, white sauce and some flavourful cheese and it was a healthier alternative to mac and cheese, with protein, calcium, carbs and vegetables for a balanced lunch. Or at least as balanced as it gets for a picky 5yo who doesn't want "healthy" food.

The Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi saves me a lot of time being so easy to clean. I usually just rinse the lid and wash the cooking pot and I'm done. Easy! I look forward to trying many more recipes with this multi-cooker and I'm glad that I can put two other cooking devices into storage (not sure I can ever re-home the vintage crockpot), and free up my kitchen!

Makes cooking easy, failproof and less time consuming, allowing me to spend more time with my family – Introduction The Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi is a life changing product, as it allows for me to treat my family with healthy meals and treats without having to slave away in the kitchen. It gives me a lot more free time to spend with my family, as it makes cooking easy, failproof and less time consuming, while delivering restaurant quality meals. … Read more ·  1

Before this, I had never planned to use a pressure cooker, as I heard many horror stories around pressure cookers and safety. However, having used the Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi, my fears were alleviated, as it has a lot of safety functions, and releasing the pressure feels very safe. Further, even if you aren’t around to release the pressure manually, the Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi will slowly release the pressure by itself after a certain timeframe.

As shown by the photos in my review, I tested this machine for many hours using every single function (except the porridge function). I made dishes from different cuisines, such as Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Thai, Indian and western. Some examples of this include Portuguese Bacalhau a Bras, Portuguese bean stew with tripes, fried hokkien noodles, fried rice, Chinese steamed egg custard, Thai and Japanese curry, Bolognaise with meatballs, beef ragu with pasta, baked Zucchini slice, baked Cheesecake brownies, and home-made natural Yoghurt.

Easy and failproof

The Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi makes cooking very easy and failproof. An example is making pear puree. In the past, I would make pear puree for the kids in a non-stick saucepan over the stove. However, as my kids are constantly distracting me, occasionally the pear would burn in the saucepan as I was not watching it properly. I even destroyed a Circulon saucepan as I didn’t monitor it enough.

However, using the Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi to make pear puree is easy and failproof. I just cut pears, put it into the pot with water, press the stew button, and it cooks it perfectly without needing to monitor how it is cooking. This is because the stew function for the Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi will stop cooking once it is finished and will then keep the food warm, which means that any food does not burn.

I also love the keep warm function, as the food is ready for me to eat when I come back home, and I don’t need to put it in the fridge after cooking it. For example, I recently went to the snow. For this trip, I cooked a meatball soup using the Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi in the morning, took around half of the soup to the trip, while the other half was left in the pot using the keep warm function. When I returned home at night, the soup was hot and ready for my family to eat for dinner.

The Tefal pot is also non-stick, so that food doesn’t stick to it, and it is very easy to clean.

Large pot

The Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi can cook a lot of food at one time, with a 7.6 litre pot. It is perfect for cooking for a family, or for a dinner party. It also allows you to cook in bulk for the week, due to the large pot size.

Versatile and portable

The Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi cooks a wide variety of food. Since having it, I have not used my stove, sous vide machine, and oven. As it is very portable, it also allows me to cook anywhere. I would love to bring it to camping, as it would take the food that I cook at camping to the next level.

Safety features

The Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi has a lot of safety features. However, the thing that I noticed was that it would remind me when I either forget to lock the lid (as it’ll give an error message), or when I lock the lid but I am not supposed to (e.g., when baking).

Quick and easy meals

The Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi cooks food very quickly as it uses pressure. It also requires no monitoring as it will cook the food and then keep it warm once it’s cooked. For example, the beef cheek ragu would normally take hours to cook in the oven, and also require me to monitor the water levels constantly so that it doesn’t burn. However, using the Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi, it cooks much quicker, and does not require any monitoring.

Cooks very nice rice

Having used many rice cookers, the Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi cooks the most delicious rice, possibly because it also uses pressure to cook the rice.

However, one thing to note, if you use this device to cook rice, the amount of water needed is much less than for a usual rice cooker. Further, once the rice is cooked, it needs to be taken off the heat and cannot be kept on the keep warm function for too long as the rice will crisp out at the bottom of the pot. The rice cooked using the Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi tastes similar to Chinese claypot rice, which I find delicious.

Build quality

Tefal were very thoughtful in their design. It is very simple but elegant and sturdy, which is perfect for any kitchen bench. Its functions are easy and intuitive to navigate.

Suggestions for Tefal

It would be really great if Tefal could sell accessories for this, such as a stainless steel pot for when I want to cook things such as mussels or pipis. Even though I love the non-stick pot, there are some things that I wouldn’t want to cook in a non-stick pot.

Another suggestion would be to sell a steamer basket that is custom designed for this pot, so that it is easy to carry.

I had high hopes – I was super keen to trial/review this multicooker. As a mum of 3 kids, 3 and under and a partner that works away 5 out of 7 days I was hoping this would be the time saver I was looking for. Unfortunately, that was not the case for me. I was hoping I’d be able to chuck everything in and come back when it was done but for some recipes you need to… Read more

change settings for different steps, which I found annoying.

It takes a lot of time to heat up. I used the rice setting for a Mexican rice dish, I put everything in, set my program and left it to heat up and cook. After about 30 mins I still hadn’t heard it beep or make any noise. I looked and it was still heating so I turned it off, opened the lid and found the chicken, rice and other ingredients were cooked or over cooked in the chickens case.

The recipes in the book do not look appetizing whatsoever. But I can say the satay chicken was fab! It also cooks pasta well too. A recipe asked to brown mince in the bowl and it doesn’t get hot enough for that and it drags all the liquid out of the meat so it was basically boiling in its own juices. We had to get the excess liquid out before it could brown the meat.

I tried 2 of the cakes under the dessert recipes and the first one, carrot cake, was burnt and dry. The second, banana bread, had to be cooked with the steamer and water inside. After following the instructions the recipe called for it wasn’t cooked properly. I tried saving it in the oven but it just turned to rubber.

The unit as a whole is really big and bulky. It doesn’t fit in any of my cupboards without removing the lid but even then it still takes up a lot of space. Very easy to clean, which is a positive!

I’m my honest opinion it really wasn’t a time saver and it is so much easier to cook things in the slow cooker, stove top or oven. We used it quiet often and majority of the time we felt it would have been easier another way.

An all round cooker for all of the year with guaranteed success! – I have to confess that this product, the Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi is not a product that I would normally go out and buy purposely and I am declaring that I am reviewing this appliance as part of the Ambassador Program but it has changed my mind using such appliances. I was bought up with the old-style pressure cooker that just went on the family… Read more

range and chugged away until someone was brave enough to remove the lid once it had cooled down. It produced an OK result but was very limited in use and the result was usually bland and often overcooked. When the opportunity came up to try this item, I jumped at it as it certainly is a much more modern take and can do so much more than just steam a basic meal. I have no idea what this item cost at the start as I did not want to judge it on price but ability. It was only at the end that I checked the price. It arrived in a large carton with quite minimal packaging but very colourful informative pictures and features on the outside. The unpacking was very quick and the item consists of an outer attractive shell with a smaller basic digital type LCD display panel in a very nice-looking charcoal finish. It would definitely look good permanently on the bench. It has a non-stick very light weight inner bowl, and a lid with a steam release valve with large button release adjacent but far enough away from the steam valve. This makes the process very safe and gets full points from me. As far as these cookers go the finish and presentation is about as good looking as it can get. It also came with a completely detachable power cord, an inner basket or shelf, a spatula and small measuring cup along with an instruction manual, a recipe book, and a sticker but I wasn’t sure where that went. The front panel offers 10 cooking modes and I only managed 4 or 5 due to time limitations, but none of the modes I used produced a bad result. Over time I will look at the other modes just for the practice. First off as I said appearance is of a high quality but this is a big item, has a large footprint, and is tall. Note the scale in one of the pictures next to my kettle! I was thinking at first maybe good for a caravan but it’s too large. Fully assembled and ready to go it’s not too heavy but it needs space wherever you store it. Immediately I noticed the cord is at least 20-30cm too short. For our medium size modern kitchen with the standard power points, it was too short and that meant it could not be permanently in sight on my bench in one location and still be easily connected. The completely removable cord was a great idea though. I also noticed that for a shorter person it was a big reach when using the bowl for stir fry. This was an issue for my wife. Definitely not as easy or suitable for smaller people and young if not supervised. I noticed it comes with a fairly basic recipe book however there are endless recipes online and my wife even cooked using recipes from the Central Cookery Book with great success and very minimal adjustment. I was disappointed with the Instruction Manual being half the size of the Recipe Book as this is needed a lot when first learning to use the cooker as contrary to what the advertising says you do have to push a few buttons depending on what you cook and definitely once you adjust time, heat settings and timer settings. The manual was just too small and I also asked visitors what they thought and they all agreed. It simply needs to be as big as the recipe book which is the perfect size. Also, a quick set up guide may be useful. If the manual was as informative and colourful as the description on the box it came in it would be ideal. The instructions were ok but for a person completely new to this type of cooking the instructions had to be read a couple of times. I found after a few weeks you could do most things by memory. Cleaning the appliance was very easy and only the non-stick bowl went in the dishwasher and the rest including the lid just needed a quick wipe down. Once we mastered the instructions, we then cooked several meals using, chicken, silverside, vegetables, several stir fry, several stews, rice pudding and we even steamed a frozen pre cooked Woolworths BBQ Chicken in liquid stock which was sensational. A 900gm Silverside with half potatoes and half carrots took 30 minutes on the ‘stew’ setting was absolutely perfect. Everything held its form and was cooked perfect. We cooked a basic 1.4kg defrosted chicken with vegetables, in liquid chicken stock and it was great. The stir-fry setting seemed a little low at 160 degrees but having said that it was a perfect result. I then attempted a roast beef flank about 1 kg with various vegetables and onion etc. and it was perfect and still slightly pink inside which is our preference. Could not fault the result. That was cooked in 30 minutes on the stew setting which seemed to be our favourite setting. I did notice that it goes through a steaming process before it slowly cooks away and takes several minutes to heat up which means the timer starts when its only up to heat. I also liked that after cooking it kept the food warm on standby until ready to serve. Very important if you are time poor at the end of the day. To be honest I was pleasantly surprised how well it cooked in such short times. This would also mean it’s a great energy saver. I tried the ‘delayed start’ cooking once and it worked fine and when I arrived home it was keeping the food warm after the cooking process had finished. When cooking any food, the appliance operates silently and the only noise is when releasing steam. We then attempted some sweet dishes and the Rice Pudding that was in the recipe book was great and we have also cooked 2 cakes. A tea cake from the Central Cookery Book which was fluffy and tasty but a little brown on the bottom. We then cooked a ‘Greens’ Carrot Cake packet mix and double lined the bowl with baking paper and it came out perfect and cooked evenly. I don’t think in 3 weeks we had 1 dish that failed or came close and in my opinion the vegetables and meat had more flavour than any other method I have tried. I cannot fault the performance. A couple of observations and cautions I noticed along the way. The outside bowl is warm to touch when cooking and would not burn even the youngest of hands. Having said that I may be stating the obvious when I say it needs to be well back on the bench as it’s a very big item if it falls. I also noticed that when we used it on the first 2 cooks the front panel displaying the options steamed up from the inside, and yes, I did remove the protective sticker before using! I then did not use the cooker for 3 days and when I went back to use it the condensation had disappeared and has never come back. This appliance needs to be in a well-ventilated area due to the steaming process and this is especially when venting the item at the end of cooking. The process of venting is very easy but this is where instructions need to be followed closely. Another warning is to only use the central handle to turn and open the lid otherwise expect a burn from the steam on the first opening. I learnt this the hard way opening the lid and grabbing the side from the outside. Also, a great deal of hot water falls from the underside of the lid so lift it straight up, shake it a little, and take it to a safe area like the sink and move it over the bench otherwise the floor will become wet. Make sure you don’t have water spill onto your feet. There was no vacuum issue with the lid. It came off easily after twisting it open and the sealing gasket stayed in place after every cook. One final issue I noticed was that although the outer pot is not hot and the plastic on the lid and handle are cool to touch, I burnt my fingertips when I touched the silver part of the lid on the top beyond the plastic surround. I also noticed that the silver part was prone to scratches and staining. If you heed the warnings, you will be fine but proceed with care! I recommend this item be used only by adults. I find that cooking times sometimes seem to be a little short but it is so efficient and well-designed that if the food is in too long it will not hold its shape and form and simply fall apart. I never had food that was undercooked. You have to trust the shorter cooking times and it will be ok. If you live in cooler climates this is an all year item but if like me you live in Queensland or warmer climates it may end up not being used as much as it does make very warm hearty meals. My suggestion is to keep using it though for stir fry, and cakes etc. If you owned this appliance along with a small cheap Air Fryer you could easily do away with a standard oven in my opinion. It would certainly be cheaper to run than a standard oven and its portability means you can also use it at other locations both at home and if camping. Its only let down by its size when camping. Overall, a bigger instruction book, a longer cord and you have the perfect all-round cooker that could easily produce meals from 1 person up to 7 or 8 such is the size of the bowl. Whether it ends up at the back of your cupboard not being used is up to you but with imagination and investigating recipes from other sources this could be the best value, oven, steamer, slow cooker, wok etc. you will get for an all-inclusive price. For us this item will now be a ‘go to’ when we want to come home to a warm, delicious meal cooked to perfection. Prep times for a full meal are only about 5 to 10 minutes so it’s a great time saver. Yes, you do have to add your own touches sometimes and experiment a little but that’s part of the enjoyment of using this item. Even doing that I never spoiled a meal. This is one item that I have really enjoyed using from day one.

Excellent safety features – Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi Fast Multicooker I received this Multicooker as part of The Ambassador programme. At first impression, when I picked up the box it was heavy and out of the packaging this is still the case but it feels solid and durable. I like the dial to select the cooking program and the simple design of not having too many buttons.… Read more

The feet on the cooker has a lot of grip to it making it impossible to reposition without having to lift the unit, unlike my old pressure cooker which I was able to simply pull towards me on the bench.  As a family with young kids grabbing things off the bench, I feel this is an excellent safety feature of the product.  

Another feature I like is the metal ring around the inside of the lid which helps keep the rubber seal in place, my previous cooker simply had a rubber ring stretched around the inside which came off easily as it lacked any ring to secure it. The lid is much easier to secure then my previous unit. The pot itself appears solid and has non-stick coating. Though the flat base of the pot looks a bit small for its size, I didn’t find this to be problem when filling the pot with my ingredients. So far I am impressed with the quality of the product.

The cooker comes with a plastic spoon, measuring cup, instruction booklet, recipe book and little sticker that serves as a quick reference guide for the program symbols that are also used in the recipe book. The way it’s set out and use of the symbols makes it easy to use and follow. I found this useful when trying out my first recipe “Easy Beef Bolognese”.  Easy to make and very tasty! It has a mixture of slow cook, pressure cook and quick recipes, which means I will be able really put this cooker through its paces and get comfortable using its different programs.  The unit is a lot quieter then my previous unit and only a little bit of water came out whilst cooking. 

Another safety feature I liked is the positioning of the release button for the lid which prevents steam from coming up to burn your hand.

One thing I found a little misleading was the suggested cooking time in the cook book/program. This time only refers to the time to cook once the required temperature or pressure is reached and not when you start to cook.  As such, a program or recipe that says will take only 15 minutes to cook, can take up to 25 minutes from start to allow the unit to build up to the required temperature/pressure depending on the amount of food/liquid inside. Not a big deal, but rather something to take into account when planning your meals.

The pot was easy to clean, made sure I followed the cleaning instructions as most of it is not dishwasher safe and hand wash only. There is an option to delay start time for up to 12 hours and to keep warm for up to 24hrs. 

Price I think is what you’d expect of a pressure cooker, ranging $249-$348 depending on which online store you purchase from. Overall, I am impressed with the quality of the Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi Fast Multicooker, I like its simplified design and robust feel to it. Product does what it says it will do and easy to learn how to use it if you practice with their recipes provided. As for longevity I hope it can match my last model which was Tefal Cook4me lasted 7 years and purchased at Osborne Park’s Harvey Norman.

Not the perfect sous vide mode. Chef mode is too limited. Rice is great, safety and convenience wins – More of a 3.7 stars really. This pressure cooker is provided for me to do a review. Will still give my honest opinion on the cooker as if paid customer. I have been using the pressure cooker for a few weeks. By no fault of the product though, the lid have been damaged by my carelessness and am waiting for a replacement to come. Regardless,… Read more

here are my experiences before the accident. Lets start with a few kinks.

Damaged part is not repairable. Part of the lid melted off and disfigured all due to carelessness. Nonetheless, the replacement part is going to take 4 to 6 weeks to arrive. It also costed 40 bucks (my own fault really). However, 4 to 6 weeks is an extremely long wait time for my pressure cooker to be fully usable again. It is quite a pain considering I am so used to the convenience it has provided me in the time before my beep happened. A big fat NO echoed in my brain when I saw the damage. How do I live without this now?

Slight exaggeration aside. Let’s talk about the sheer size of it. It weighs about 10kg this giant. Takes up a lot of space on the kitchen counter. The size prevents it from being kept away, not that you would want to due to the convenience it provides. Plan for a good space for it to be permanently placed, so you don’t have to move it anymore. The size though a con is also a pro. Cooks enough for a big family plus extended family. If you live in a very small place, say one or two bedroom apartment. That will take up your whole kitchen counter.

The icons that light up when you turn the knob, is not labelled. They do however provide you with a sticker that you paste, anywhere. Like a cheat sheet to know which logo meant what. Not sure why they don’t just label it in. It’s a very small “???” a small inconvenience every time we cook with it or change cooking mode.

Chef mode still have limitations. This is another “why?” There is still a minimum temperature set to it. Among the modes, the lowest temperature it could go would be the yogurt mode which is 22 degrees Celsius. The chef mode however only let you go as low as 80 degrees, and even though the max temperature chef mode can go to is 160 degree Celsius, which seems to be the max some modes can go to too. The maximum hours chef mode can go do is 4 hours, not 12. These limitations though can be worked around by looking into the modes where they accept the “time” and “temperature” you want and use. It makes it quite tedious for people who wants to explore more possibilities.

Sous vide mode have varying temperature, and error. The manual stated that the sous vide mode can be done in “lid closed and lock” mode and “lid closed and not locked” mode. However, mine can only be done in “lid open” mode, and “lid close and not locked” mode. If I tried to close AND lock the lid, it will give me an error message. Not too sure if the fault lies in the cooker or the manual was printed wrong. On top of that, the first time I used it in “lid closed and not locked” mode, the cooker was permanently in heating mode and did not go into cooking mode. Overcooked what I had in there, and still stayed in heating mode. It was once off though and it worked later on. Not sure what happened the first time. I contacted Tefal about both the issues and this is the reply I got.

*** We would like to inform you that, when you use “Sous Vide”, “Bake” and “Sauté/Sear” program, the appliance starts to countdown when the temperature reaches the previously set parameter.

When the cooking time has elapsed, the appliance beeps and switches to “Keep Warm” mode automatically except “Saute/Sear”, “Sous Vide”, “DIY” and “Bake”. You can unlock and open the top lid.

When you use “Slow Cook Low”, “Slow Cook High”, “Sauce Thickening” and “DIY” programs, the time previously set starts to countdown from the beginning of program. When you use “Sous Vide”, “Bake” and “Sauté/Sear” program, the appliance starts to countdown when the temperature reaches the previously set parameter. ***

Not sure how the reply solves my problem/questions. Though as long as my sous vide is working now, I am happy. The temperature though. If you are doing general easy cook and not very particular. It will do its job. I tested the temperature ( internal probe ) when sous vide with the “lid close but not locked” mode. The temperature was up by about 3 degrees higher than parameter set. I sous vide with the lid open and the temperature was 4 degrees lower in June during the cold weather. While steak and salmon will not be too huge a difference( lid closed not locked, since you won't want to undercook them with open lid) . Eggs…. You will not get the texture you want. Ever. Or whatever else that needs highly sensitive temperature adjustment, those will fail.

There is no keep warm button by itself. It does keep your food warm after it finished it’s cooking cycle. Say you don’t want to keep your soup warm between meals. You can’t just start a “keep warm” function moments before you want to eat again. You can go around and use chef mode 80 degrees if you want to, just a small inconvenience.

So after the above few kinks, where is where the good one starts.

It feels so safe to use. As long as you place the cooker correctly. Common sense tells you, the logo facing you and the vent will be at the back, so steam will not be under your wrist when you press release. It is safe to use your hand to press the release button. I used a ladle ( 'traditional' way ) to do it for the first few times, before eventually figuring out the button is cool and safe. NOT the lid itself, that is still hot. The release button is safe even though it looks near the vent. The button does NOT pop back up after the steam is fully vented. You MUST pop it back yourself, so it is ready for the next cooking. Otherwise, your next cooking is just going to be in heating mode forever until it burns your food to a blob of blackness which all your hungry children will join you with staring in horror when they look at their supposed dinner. Please remember to always pop the button back up. On the bright side. The blob of blackness slides right out of the non-stick pot inside. Not much effort is needed to clean at all.

Rice… Is….. Fabulous! Got it in one try! I have used other pressure cooker where the rice is just not right no matter how I cook it. They either burn a bottom layer where the rice touches the pot, or make the rice too soft and sticky, not the right texture. Likely something to do with too much heat, too fast. This cooker, however, gets rice really well. Correct texture, each grain are apart, fluffy but firm. Not a single grain is burned or dried out whatsoever. The texture is the same all over. I was pleasantly surprised! Cooked as well as my 200 bucks rice cooker, also big enough for when my extended family visits. Works well with many one pot rice recipes.

The steaming mode! I know people will think “it is just steam, no biggy” Though I must bring attention to the steaming tray. Most cooker have a tray that hangs around the top of the pot. The base of the tray would just be about 10 cm or so to the lid, which makes the size of food you want to steam, very limited. This cooker however has a tray that stands on the bottom of the pot. Considering this cooker is a big one, there is a lot of space between the tray and the lid. You can steam an XL bun or dumpling in there if you want, yes they exist. The size is a big, big plus. Very useful. For some reasons, steaming my eggs made my eggs blue. I googled online and found that it just happens when eggs are being cooked in temperature too high, but still totally safe to eat. This have never happened to me before when I steam over stove.

Soup! The large size again really helps in this. Bone broth particularly. I have to set multiple 4 hours “chef mode” because of the long extracting time needed for bone broth and I love my bone broth thick. It is such convenience to not need to check and add more water so very often because I use so many bones that the liquid part isn’t that much. Absolute heaven for any long cooking really.

The general convenience of it for daily practical use is the big main benefit. Most people are quite busy with their life, and once you have a few one pot recipes in hand, you can just throw in a bunch of ingredients and set your parameters and off you go, not care in the world other than making sure the button is not on release mode. You cook whenever you are free to, and the food is there, warm, and ready when you need it. Crying babies near dinner time isn’t an issue, you already threw everything in there to cook during his last nap, it is now in keep warm, ready for your family anytime. One pot pasta recipes have been my kid’s favourites. When you layer the cheese on top right before cooking, the cheese really does stays there and stretch nicely when you scoop them up. Kids love it to bits.

Would I have bought it for myself? While the cooker is not perfect, for the price it will be a big yes! I paid 200 bucks for a good but smaller rice cooker. This one cost just a bit more if you find good deals, and it does sooooooo much more.

There are a few adjustment you need to make for your own recipes, perhaps a longer cooking time etc instead of their default of different modes. It is a lot of convenient with limits set for safe “you can’t go wrong” cooking. Though if you are someone creative and wants to do much more exploring. Needing to “work around” their modes can be a pain.

Add on : I am really curious about the bake function which I have not got a chance to try, but will update again after I got the replacement lid.

Multi-Function in 1 cooking pot – I am writing this review base on a first time multi-cooker user, rice cooker is the closest thing I have own and used confidently. Hopefully this review can help someone who is deciding if they should get a multi-cooker or not for the first time. 1) It has a very sleek and nice look, but it is HUGE. It is bigger than what I was expecting, and… Read more

does not fit in my cupboard or shelf. (Picture 1- I place it next to a box of 95 sheets tissue to compare the size)

2) It comes with some accessories (Picture 2) and a handy 60+ pages colour cook book (Picture 3)

3) It has a twist and lock lid that comes right off (Picture 4). I would have prefer a lid that is semi attached to the pot (like the rice cooker, not sure if its possible for these type of appliances?) The plus side for this is that it is easier to clean when you can take the lid right off.

4) The lid is quite heavy, and the handle is the black knob in the centre (Picture 4), which is awkward to flip over to stop the water from the steam dripped to the floor when you need to place the lid somewhere. It would also be good to have some sort of see through panel on the lid so you can check on the cooking. (This might be a safety issue to have glass or some sort since it has the pressure cooker function)

5) The centre button is also the steam release button, which is very handy. The steam releases quickly and steadily without making any mess. I have once used a traditional pressure cooker, and the food “exploded” everywhere because I did not wait long enough for the pressure to fully release before I open the lid. I have got rid of that pressure cooker and have not used any pressure-cooking since. So this pressure release button on the Tefal is extremely helpful, it even shows on the digital display to let you know you need to release the pressure before opening the lid.

6) The lid is stainless steel, which is easy to clean, and durable (Picture 5)

7) The non-stick cooking pot has a round bottom with a small flat surface in the middle so it can rest flat on the bench (see the small circle in Picture 6). I would prefer a flat bottom to reduce the chance of accidentally knock it over. I guess the rounded bottom simulate the function of a wok for the stir-fry.

8) There are 10 cooking functions and the black knob underneath allows you to amend the default time and temperature comes with each cooking mode (Picture 7). It is quite overwhelming with these cooking icons for someone who is not familiar with these types of appliances, so I often had to refer back to the instruction booklet to check what those are.

There is a cooking program table in the middle of the booklet so you can flip it open and refer to it quickly. (Picture 8) This has been my go to every time I use it. There is also a “Chef Mode” to let you fully customise the setting of your cooking for those who are more experienced.

There is a delay start function, which I do not use for the food safety reason, and it could also affect the quality of the finishing dish (e.g., leaving ingredients soaking too long in liquid before cooking)

9) I have cooked a whole chicken in the soup and there is still PLENTY of space in the pot for larger quantity of cooking if need be (see measuring marker on the inside of the pot in Picture 9). I have also included another photo on one of the dish I cooked. (Picture 10)

10) The Tefal Turbo Maxi certainly cut down on cooking time by having it fully sealed. The auto shut off and keep warm function provides a safer option that allows me to walk away and come back later. It is also great to keep the food warm without worrying it being burnt compare to the over the stove cooking.

11) What I found the most inconvenient is time setting. You need to select the time before you start cooking, but I wouldn’t know how many minutes I need to stir-fry, so once the default 20 minutes is up, I need to restart the cooker and select the function to continue the stir-fry. It would be handy that it allows you to top up the timer if closer to the end you see that you needed more time. It also takes a long time to pre-heat to reach the desire temperature when you switch between different modes, e.g. from “stew” to “stir-fry”.

12) There will be a lot of trial and testing in the beginning for first time user like myself, but I can see the potential of being able to cook more variety of dishes in a more safer and convenient way to allow me to free up my time to do other things. Overall even though there are some areas for improvement on the Turbo Maxi, I am very happy with it and looking forward to explore it further.

Up to 3x Faster? It’s Not Even Faster… But these Hacks Might Help – I had high hopes for the Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi, Tefal’s latest multi-cooker. It is stylishly designed (although it’s rather big, because it’s “Maxi”) and boasts “exclusive spherical bowl technology” - the cooking bowl has a rounded bottom, making the meals juicy and tender. It’s also easy enough to use: one control knob allows you to select… Read more

from ten cooking programs, with the selected program lighting up on the LED control panel. The Turbo Cuisine Maxi (TCM) has four function buttons, two on either side of the control panel: Start/Stop, Timer, Delayed Start Button and Temperature Button. Like I said: easy. The big drawcard however, is speed. The TCM boasts being able to cooked meals up to three times faster than conventional gas or electric stovetop cooking. Now, I have not owned a pressure cooker (or this type of multi-cooker) before. Along with its intuitive technology and the range of meals that could be cooked, the TCM was potentially the dream appliance that this busy mum was looking for.

Except, on most occasions, the TCM fails miserably in the time efficiency department. I trialed recipes from the included recipe booklet; with several meals, I had to manually stop the TCM, pour the contents into a saucepan and continue cooking just to get dinner on the table reasonably on time. There were many exasperated cries of, “Sorry darling, dinner’s taking longer than usual. This is not a good machine!” to my starving young daughter as I juggled oven mitts and saucepans.

So where does the TCM go wrong? One singular culprit: the EXCESSIVELY long pre-heating time. We are talking in some cases, onwards of 60mins. I don’t know what the maximum pre-heating time is because at that 60min mark, I stopped the machine in frustration. (To this extent, I do also wonder if I received a lemon.)

A major issue that contributes to the sluggish pre-heating time is that according to the recipes from the recipe book, the ingredients have to be in the cooking pot before you select the required program. This means that you cannot pre-heat while you’re preparing the ingredients.

I was close to writing a one-star review and leaving the TCM on the nature strip with a “free to good home” sign, when I thought I would do some research on other pressure/multi-cookers. Turns out that pre-heating times can be enduring - although not as long as it is for the TCM, probably because of its size (average pre-heating time seems to be 5mins - 30mins.) Turns out there are some hacks to reduce the pre-heating time. If you’re keen on purchasing the TCM, read on.

TEFAL TURBO CUISINE MAXI FEATURES:

- Housing with internal heating plate. - Non-stick, spherical bowl for juicy, tender results and even heat distribution. The bowl has a large 7.6L capacity. - Heavy duty lid with pressure release button, pressure limit valve, float valve and sealing gasket. - LED screen that displays the control panel, function buttons (Start/Stop, Timer, Delayed Start and Temperature) and cooking phase indicators (Pre-Heating, Cooking in Progress, Under Pressure and Keeping Warm). The screen also displays status messages, such as “Stop” and “Hot”. - Intuitive control knob that allows you to select from ten programs: “Stew”, “Soup”, “Stir-Fry”, “Steam”, “Bake”, “Sous Vide”, “Rice”, “Yoghurt & Ferment”, “Oatmeal” and “Adjustable Chef Mode”. All programs have default cooking times and temperatures. All have adjustable times but only some programs have adjustable temperatures, eg: “Stir-Fry”, “Bake” and “Sous Vide”. - Includes steam trivet (not basket as some of their “Steam” recipes suggest), spatula and measuring cup.

PROS:

- Sleek design. - Easy to use, with only a few function buttons and a control knob. - Versatile: cooks many types of meals, from soups and casseroles to cakes and yoghurt. This is an impressive list of cooking programs for one appliance. It’s convenient if you need to be selective with your appliances, or if you want to purchase the TCM for your holiday house, etc. - A big 7.6L capacity means you can bulk cook and freeze meals for convenience. - One-Pot Cooking: Because the TCM offers many cooking modes, you can use it for multi-stage recipes, eg: “Stir-Fry” for onions and garlic first, then adding veggies and stock in the “Soup” Mode. It’s also good for children who like to “help” in the kitchen; I would rather my daughter add ingredients to the TCM bowl than a hot saucepan over a flame. (Caution still needs to be exercised; while the housing remains cool, the bowl obviously becomes very hot.) - Easy to Clean: This is partly due to its One-Pot Cooking capability (ie, there’s only one pot and lid to clean) and partly due to its excellent non-stick bowl. - Set-and-Forget: Like slow cookers, once you’ve got the ingredients in and have selected your cooking mode, you can tend to other tasks without worrying about stirring, changing temperature or adding new ingredients (in most cases). There are some cooking modes, like “Sous Vide” and “Yoghurt”, that truly work like a slow cooker over many hours. - When it’s actually cooking (not pre-heating), the TCM is pretty fast. - The automatic “Keeping Warm” function is convenient. You can cook when it suits you, and still serve a hot meal. - Most of the recipes tried from the included recipes book are easy, delicious and cooked well. (Interestingly though, none of the recipes capitalised on the big 7.6L capacity.)

CONS:

- Excessively long pre-heating time that cannot always be minimised. This is especially annoying in multi-stage cooks, where you’ve already pre-heated and browned onions, etc, in the “Stir-Fry” mode - then have to pre-heat again with the next cooking program, eg: “Stew.” The slow pre-heating system completely overrides any time efficiencies gained from pressure cooking. It’s like waking up early for a busy day - then having to deal with a whingey, uncooperative toddler who won’t get dressed or eat breakfast. Any time gained is lost (and then some) due to the nature of the beast. - The TCM a big appliance, so it may be too bulky to be left out on the countertop, especially in small kitchens. - You can’t check how your cooking is progressing. Once the lid is on and the cooking starts, you have to leave it, otherwise you’ll release the steam and pressure. (This is true also of slow cookers, although some people check!) You’ve got to trust that the recipe has the right cooking time and temp. If it needs longer, even if it’s just for a minute or so, you need to pre-heat again. NB: You can manually Stop the TCM at any time. - A strong stream of A LOT of steam escapes when you press the Steam Release button at the end of your cook. This can damage plaster ceilings over time. If you are concerned, it’s best to use the TCM under an exhaust fan. - The sealing gasket retains smells after use. This is only subtle though, and not enough to strongly influence flavours of dishes. - Only available in black. - The recipe book stipulates most of the required ingredients in grams. It would be much easier if items like vegetables were stated as “one medium carrot” or “half an onion”, etc. If you bought this machine because you’re time poor, then you don’t have the time to constantly measure the weight of your ingredients.

RECIPES TRIED:

Note that while I substituted, modified or added ingredients here and there, I followed cooking instructions exactly.

- Sausage and Sweet Potato Stew. Although I didn’t time the TCM, it took so long to pre-heat that I had to stop the program and cook the meal on the stovetop. It was, however, delicious. - Jamaican Porridge: Breakfast turned out fine, if a bit stodgy and a little too sweet. The TCM went into the “Oatmeal” cooking mode for 15mins after 25mins of pre-heating. Yep, faster on the stovetop. (Photo below) - Steamed Miso Salmon with Noodles and Veggies: My biggest disaster with the TCM. Since the recipe asked for a steamer basket (not the provided trivet), I used the stainless steel one that comes with my Magimix Cook Expert. I followed the instructions, adding stock to the bowl and the steamer with marinated salmon on top, and selected the “Steam” program for 6mins. It was still pre-heating at 40mins - with the salmon inside. I finally stopped the TCM, and as you can imagine, the salmon was WAY over-cooked and the marinate had dissipated. (Photo below) I scrambled to get the broth and veggies cooked over the stovetop, and served it with chewy salmon. - Alphabet Soup: The TCM pre-heated for 17 mins, which is longer than the combined cooking time of 10mins. After the first stage of cooking with the “Soup” program for five minutes, you must release the steam, add the pasta, and select “Soup” for another five minutes. This would’ve been fine… but with the steam and pressure released, it went straight into pre-heating again. I switched off the TCM, poured the soup and pasta into a saucepan, and it was cooked in 8mins.

At this point of trying recipes, I started experimenting with hacks to shorten the pre-heating time.

- Slow-cooked Vegetable Lasagna: I added finely diced pumpkin (which wasn’t a problem) but ended with pasta sheets as the final layer. After one and a half hours in “Sous Vide”, the top layer of pasta was still raw and hard. I added bechamel sauce (my addition) and mozzarella on top, and set it to “Bake” to try to get the lasagna to cook through. And yep, you guessed it, even after 90mins of cooking - plus 13mins prior to that in “Stir-Fry” to cook the veggies - it went into pre-heating mode. After an hour, it was still pre-heating. I switched it off. The lasagna was cooked adequately. (Photo below) - Spinach and Ricotta Tortellini: Surprisingly, it didn’t take too long to pre-heat for the “Stir-Fry” stage. The second pre-heating for the “Soup” stage took 16mins, even though I used boiling stock. It would’ve been MUCH faster to cook this simple meal over the stovetop. (Photo below) - Tasty & Easy Vanilla Yoghurt: I was keen to try this recipe but unfortunately, the yoghurt turned out thin and lumpy. The taste was fine, and the process is really simple (add ingredients, select “Yoghurt” mode for 9 hours and go to bed). However, it is more cost effective to buy ready-made, quality organic yoghurt than to buy the ingredients to make this, eg: organic whole milk, vanilla pods, etc. (Photo below) - Sweet and Sour Chicken, Chicken Noodle Soup and Farmer’s Style Chicken: All of these meals turned out delicious, and didn’t take overly long to cook. In fact, I’ve cooked the Farmer’s Style Chicken twice. These meals were probably my biggest successes with the TCM, using the “Stir-Fry”, “Stew” and “Soup” programs. (Photos below) - Carrot Cake: I pre-heated while preparing the ingredients (see Hacks below), and blended the mix in my Magimix Cook Expert for an even faster cook. It took 55 mins in “Bake”; longer than some carrot cake recipes that require the oven. The result was a strangely-shaped UFO cake, a little dry and burnt at the bottom. (Photo below) - Root Vegetable Soup: Apart from the initial pre-heat, there was a 10min pre-heating time between the “Stir-Fry” and “Soup” modes - not too long in comparison to other meals. The soup was tasty and the eggs were boiled well, and easy to peel. (Photo below)

HACKS TO MINIMISE PRE-HEATING TIME

Here are some tips that I wished Tefal had included in the manual for first time pressure/multi-cooker owners like myself. They do not work every time with every meal, but often enough to make the TCM more user (and time) friendly overall.

- Whenever the recipe requires water, stock or other liquids, boil them first, or at least make them warm. - You CAN pre-heat while you prep your ingredients! Try these two methods: - a) Set the cooker to “Stir-Fry” mode to pre-heat with the lid off (You can use this hack if “Stir-Fry” is the only mode you’ll use, OR the first mode. Most multi-stage cooks, ie, meals that use two or more cooking programs, require “Stir-Fry” first). - b) Pre-heat with the lid off IF your main cooking program allows it. Some modes enable you to close but not lock the lid, eg: “Sous Vide”. Because the locking mechanism doesn’t need to be engaged, you can pre-heat with the lid off. Simply select the cooking program, time and temperature, and press Start to pre-heat while you prep. There is a bonus with this method: if you need to use “Stir-Fry” first, the bowl is actually hot enough during pre-heating to brown your ingredients without selecting “Stir-Fry”. This effectively eliminates a whole mode and its pre-heating time. - NB: The only problem I’ve found with the above pre-heating hacks is if the TCM starts cooking - thus the time starts - BEFORE you’ve finished preparing the ingredients. In this case, you have to reset the timing and allow for some more (quicker) pre-heating time. - This is not a hack but something important to double-check: the Steam Release button should NOT be pressed down otherwise the steam escapes from the bowl during the pre-heating phase. Some steam escapes via the valve but enough should be trapped in to create heat and pressure.

If you’re not caught up on counting minutes, there are some major benefits to cooking in the TCM rather than over the stovetop. (This was secretly why I kept trialling the appliance with so many recipes!) The one-pot cooking, easy clean, and set-and-forget features are big drawcards on their own. The automatic “Keeping Warm” function is also excellent; I was able to serve hot meals hours past the end of the cooking program. It seems that - as long as I keep using the hacks - my Tefal TCM is not destined for the nature strip, but my kitchen.

Amazing multicooker with a decent warranty offer – Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi CY7778 is a brilliant multi cooker that can be used both as a slow cooker and pressure cooker. It also works as a rice cooker, steamer, yogurt maker, bread proofing and baking, cake baking and other functions using its 10 automatic cooking programs. I have been using a stove top pressure cooker for over 30 years, and I… Read more

currently have a WMF conventional stove top pressure cooker that is 8 years old which I LOVE and use several times a week! I’ll be honest, before being offered this electric multi-pressure cooker to try, I never felt I could trust an electric pressure cooker that I can’t control like my stove top one. But I must admit Tefal has busted my fears after being using it a few times a week for the past month. What I like about the Tefal Turbo Cuisine Maxi: 1. Simple to use once you get your head around the different cooking programs. 2. 10 automatic cooking programs to choose from. Each program has an automatic temperature and time set, but you can easily change them to adapt to the dish you want to cook. 3. Quiet operation. This appliance is whisper quiet for most dishes I have cooked. When cooking stews under pressure, then there will be a little bit of steam release which makes a little bit of noise, but it is still the quietest pressure cooker I have ever used. Steam release during cooking is normal, just the way the appliance controls the built-up pressure inside for safety. 4. Automatic shut off and keep warm feature – this makes for peace of mind. Once the time set up for cooking is finished, the appliance stops cooking and will keep the food warm until you switch it off the power. Amazing! 5. Delay cooking – allows the option to program the appliance to delay the start cooking time while using the slow/sous vide. BUT this should be used with caution. A delayed-start timer can negatively impact food safety. Depending on the dish and ingredients used as foods like meat can easily spoil. 6. Warranty - it's good when brands stand behind the quality of their products by offering a decent warranty. Tefal offers a 15 years repair at fair price commitment and availability of spare parts for this product for 15 years after purchase.

What I don’t like about the Tefal multi cooker:

1. No reset button to allow us to easily choose another cooking program if we want to cook the food for longer but on a different setting. It’s possible there is such a feature, and I was not able to work it out. I have still been able to choose a different setting. But I had to switch the power off at the power point. Then I could choose the settings I wanted to continue the cooking like switch from slow cook/sous vide to pressure/stew for example. 2. When following a recipe, we first choose the Brown setting to stir fry the seasonings, garlic and onions and brown the meat. But the appliance takes on average 5-8 minutes to heat up first. Then at the end of the BROWN time, we need to change the setting from BROWN to the setting required: STEW, SOUP, RICE etc. Well, once the BROWN time is finished and all ingredients and liquid is added, and I choose the setting required, the appliance goes through another HEATING cycle. Then, once the appliance gets to the right temperature, then it will start to time down the cooking time which was set. In my experience, after the BROWN and going to STEW (pressure), the appliance has taken anywhere from 10-20 minutes to heat up. This extra time required to heat the appliance again is not counted on the recipes in the cookbook. So, I have found the recipes take on average 15-20 minutes longer than what is stated on the cookbook. 3. Smells: everyone who uses pressure cookers know, over time they do retain smells. This can be easily solved by adding some bicarb soda and vinegar while cleaning the bowl and the lid (specially the silicone ring) or storing the appliance without the lid on. 4. Size: the size is good when cooking a large batch of food, but this multi cooker is HUGE. It does not fit in any of my kitchen cupboards. So it has to sit on my kitchen bench.

My experience with the different cooking programs: • Rice cooker/steamer- I tried some of the recipes in the cookbook provided. My family’s favourite was the Chicken (and chorizo) Paella. The paella was very well cooked, and the rice had a good texture, not being over or under done. The amount of liquid and the temperature/time settings recommended for this recipe was spot on! • Bread proofing function – I loved using this appliance to proof my bread dough. Usually in Brisbane for most of the year that is not necessary. But now in winter with the cold days we are having, bread does take longer to proof. Well, not anymore! • Stew – depending on the cut and type of meat being used in the stew, it is a matter of trying for yourself to find out the best temperature and time combination to get the results you will be happy with. Following the chicken stew recipe, I found the chicken was not tender enough to my family’s liking. Same happened while cooking a beef stew. But it’s easily fixed by letting the food cook again for a few extra minutes. • Slow cook/simmer – I am not a fan of slow cooking myself. I gave it a try with a beef stew using blade steaks for two hours on 95 degrees (the highest temperature setting for slow cooking). At the end of the cooking, it was still a bit tough. It probably needed another hour of slow cooking. But I decided to finish the cooking with pressure cooking for 10 minutes instead. • Soups – the recipes for the legume soups such as lentils and black bean are good, and the cooking times are great. But for recipes where you have meat and vegetables, it’s a bit tricky because they have different cooking times. I love cooking soup on my stove top pressure cooker, because I pressure cook the meat after stir frying with the seasoning, garlic, onion and stock for 20 minutes. Then I depressurize the pan, add in the pasta and vegetables and simmer on the stove top without the pressure cooker lid until the pasta and vegetables are tender. Otherwise, I put the lid back on and finish the soup in 5 minutes under pressure. I could do the same process in this multicooker but it’s not as simple. Once a cooking program is completed, the display screen shows the word HOT. For as long as the word HOT is on, I have not been able to turn it back on to continue cooking the food for longer. To continue to cook the soup or whatever dish it is, I have had to switch off the power point. Only then, the word HOT is no longer displayed and I can choose the cooking program I want to use, set the time and temperature and turn the appliance on, but the appliance goes through another HEATING cycle, does it takes longer to do it on the appliance than otherwise it would on my conventional pressure cooker on the stove top.

Overall, this is a brilliant appliance. Very simple to use once you get used to all the different settings and learn a few tricks along the journey of using it. The different settings are very useful, especially for beginners to pressure cooking. The biggest plus why this appliance is better than a conventional stove top pressure cooker, is the fact that once the cooking time is finished, the appliance stops cooking and just keeps the food hot/warm. So, we have the peace of mind of not risking burning the food by forgetting to turn it off, like the conventional counterparts. I gave it a 4 star because I believe there is still room for improvement, especially when wanting to switch between cooking programs or extend the cooking time.

Pleasantly surprised by this all in one crock pot/ pan/steamer/ slow cooker/ pressure cooker – I received this product as part of productreview.com.au ambassador program, however as you can see from my previous reviews - I have no issues being factual and objective about my experiences. here is my unbiased view. Overall a good practical product that does everything I need and is a well thought out attempt at an all-in-one crock pot/… Read more

pan/steamer/ slow cooker/ pressure cooker that while larger in size than I would have liked is very easy to clean.

Admittedly It took a few attempts to properly read the manual and understand the device, the interface and the UX design philosophy- an once I figured it out, it was smooth sailing from there. It uses a simple one knob interface so not too difficult at all.

Cosmetics and Form Factor: This is a rather large device and if you are short on counter space in your kitchen - you would probably need to put it away when you aren't using it. That said - it is a sleek, well designed appliance and wouldn't be out of place on your countertop in a modern kitchen.

Use: Perfect for quick one pot meals like soups, curries, dumplings, roasts and a lot more once you have understood the device and the controls available to you. Some of my pressure cooker meals were slightly underdone to begin with, but there was a short learning curve as you would expect with any device like this.

I was initially sceptical about how effective it would be, but my mind was quickly changed. This really is a great little device.

4 buttons and a knob allowsyou to set delayed/ immediate starttime, cook time, temperature and task (boiling, sauteing, slow cooking, steaming, etc.) but you do need to get used to it before you are comfortable. It took me about 3 uses to figure it out.

The user manual is clearly laid out although I would have liked the recipes to be more creative. I am not a novice cook by any means, so I quickly figured out how to get the most out of the device.

Who is it for: This is a really practical solution for someone who is just building their kitchen toolkit as it does a multitude of jobs and it does them well.

The Tefal would be ideal on a camping trip or airbnb without kitchen facilities to make a meal like a slow roast, soup or stew with minimal fuss and equipment. It really does do a lot and it's all in a single device albeit larger than I would have liked.

Would I buy one again? YES

1. Form factor for me is a consideration for me given the amount of space in my kitchen- I would have preferred a slightly smaller size (e.g. 5ltr) versus the 7.6ltr. That said, the 7.6 ltr is necessary to make a good sized pot roast, at which this device excels.

2. It is very easy to clean, simply take the non stick bowl out of the main device and give it a clean.

3. The versatility of being able to do multiple things in a single pot is a blessing and very convenient.

4. I would probably take this out to the next camping trip at a powered site and make a slow cooked meal .

5. Perfect device for one-pot soups, stews, curries and pot roasts.

Probably the best multicooker/pressure cooker out there – For the past year I’ve been using a Philps pressure cooker. While most of the functions were working well for me I realised that I don’t know what I’m missing out before trying Tefal multicooker. Size. I know Philips cooker has a model with a 7 litre bowl, but for some reason they make it (so) special and very hard to find in the shop. Tefal's 7… Read more ·  1

litre bowl is awesome. It is easy to cook large sized items while not being much bigger in overall body size. Menu functions. When I unpacked the Tefal cooker I almost got disappointed by the “minimalistic” front panel. It creates an impression that cooker is not capable of many things. Wrong. They cleverly integrated all functions in 4 buttons and a dial. Simply amazing. Now, comparing it to Philips - it is so much better. Philips has a lot of buttons with little flexibility of any deviation from a set function. For example, The biggest frustration I encounter in Philips is that you can’t program cooking for longer than 59 minutes. It is plain wrong. So, if I need to pressure cook my beef for 1 hour and 30 minutes I had to disconnect the Philips cooker and re-set it to an additional 30 min after the initial 59 minutes of cooking had lapsed. In Tefal you easily set any function and time with dials - no problems. Quality of materials. Most of the Tefal internals are made of stainless steel. So as Philips, all but lead membrane. After a year of use it started oxidising and not only looked bad, but also probably leaching aluminium into the cooking food. More visual representation and explanation in the video attached. Finish, usability and ease of use. Tefal is best here by far. Starting from automated pressure release by pressing one button to ease of disassembling and cleaning. Tefal is easy to use and clean. Philips on the other hand have a slightly awkward steam release valve that splatters liquid everywhere upon release. It is also hard(er) to clean. However, the biggest annoyance in Phillips is a silicone seal. Every time after cooking when you open the lead it expands and falls off. Tefal engineered it very well and the silicone seal attached very well. It sits firmly and never falls out. So far the Tefal multicooker is the best one I ever used. It is easy to use, easy to clean and it is well designed. I won’t hesitate to recommend one above its competitors.