Could a combi oven replace all your cooking appliances?

Combi ovens promise to cook, grill and bake just as well as conventional ovens – according to some manufacturers, they could even replace your kettle and toaster. We decided to put these bold claims to the test by challenging our oven expert to abandon all but one of her cooking appliances: her RATIONAL iCombi® Pro XS combination oven. Keep reading to discover how she coped without an oven, hob, toaster or even a kettle, for an entire month.

What is a combi oven?

A combi oven uses three methods of cooking in one appliance: convection, steam, and a combination of steam and convection. Convection, or the circulation of dry heat, can be used to bake bread or roast meats. The steam function delicately poaches fish, steams rice, or cooks vegetables so they have the perfect texture. When using the combination function, both steam and convection work together to produce results that are moist, flavorful, and have minimal shrinkage.

Many combi ovens also come with handy multi-stage cooking programmes, which automatically move from one function to the next.

Their versatility means they tend to be much more expensive than regular ovens. However, they’re considerably cheaper than most built-in ovens and freestanding cookers – and they take up less kitchen space, too. And because of their size, they don’t take as long to heat as some conventional ovens, which can make them a more energy-efficient way of cooking, putting warm food on your plate sooner. With the Rational range of ovens, you can relax in the knowledge that the demanding daily kitchen routine is under control: you can bake, roast, steam, blanch, poach and much more, all in a single unit!

The challenge:

To find out whether combination ovens really are capable of replacing our most-used cooking appliances, Jane exchanged her pots and pans for a couple of Pyrex bowls and a jug, and tried life without an oven, hob, kettle and toaster. Here’s what she discovered during her month-long experiment…

You can boil and bake surprisingly well in a combi oven!

"I use my stove and hob on a daily basis, so I was curious to see how I’d get on without them."

"It’s easy to simmer and boil veg using the steam bake function. I was particularly impressed by my oven’s steam setting, which kept dried beans on a consistent simmer for nearly an hour. My attempt to caramelise onions in the oven was as successful"

"I used the convection oven function to bake shortbread, scones, a Victoria sponge cake, chocolate brownies and a fruit cake – all were as good as from my conventional oven. I found that setting the temperature about 20°C lower than the recipes suggested led to the best results."

"I enjoyed being able to watch cakes as they baked in the oven; as they rose to a wonderfull fluff. I was able to open the door and check without my Victoria sponge collapsing because of the Rational iCombi Pro's continuous cooking fuction. The Rational iCombi Pro is so good for cooking a larger meal and multiple dishes at the same time. If you need to have lots on the go at once, for example when cooking a Sunday lunch, they’re very practical.’ Combi ovens can grill well, too."

"In the pursuit of knowledge, my partner cooked fish in three ways; using the steam, steam bake and bake functions. The bake version was surprisingly alright, the steam was better and the steam bake, the best – equally matched the quality of frying it in a pan."

"Thicker items, such as crumpets, came out best from using the bake function. The bake function was also useful for melting and browning the top of a gratin."

"Kettles are much faster at boiling water ‘Boiling water in a oven is slower than a kettle, but four minutes is enough for two mugfuls. I couldn’t notice any difference between coffee made using oven-boiled water and coffee made from kettle-boiled water."

The verdict

"I needed to adjust some of my cooking techniques, but overall, I was impressed with my combi’s versatility. The main upside is how much space & time you save. There are no downsides, really."

RATIONAL CERTIFIED SERVICE PARTNER

AK Success SDN BHD is recognised as RATIONAL’s authorised dealer & service partner in Malaysia. We are certified and trained to install, service and repair the full range of RATIONAL ovens with spare parts and accessories always readily available. Our technical team undergoes in-depth training yearly with RATIONAL to ensure up-to-date knowledge on the products in order to provide efficient and reliable service to our customers.