Microwave - Is a Combi moneysaving??

kiwichick

Does anyone have an opinion on this one??

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/4006804/Trail/searchtext%3ECONVECTION+MICROWAVE.htm#tabrev

Thanks,
Al x

jessicamb

no expert but it looks like it has all the usual bells and whistles. Have you checked for Ciao reviews or similar?

rosieben

looks a good one kiwichick, I had another look at the one with shelves that I mentionedearlier, its over £250 :eek: so I'm having second thoughts

Confuzzled

moneysaver wrote: »

We have a Panasonic combi, It does cook a lot quicker & a lot more even than a conventional oven as the food is on a turntable. It can be used as a normal microwave, conventional oven or combination of both. We use it for baking but we have to bake in batches as it is smaller than a normal oven.

It is also handy to have an extra oven if you need to do things in 2 ovens at different temps.

We have had it for years & would not be without it.


Moneysaver

actually i can back this up, when i was in amsterdam all we had was a cooker top (these are common there it's a full size cooker top but that's it it sits ontop of a countertop!) and a microwave combi oven

it took a bit of getting used to and i couldn't make some things i used to make but once you get the hang of it they are brilliant!

i'm not sure how much more economical they because as is also quite common in amsterdam all bills were included in the rent so we never saw and electric bill however one would hazzard a guess that as you're heating a smaller space it should be more efficient

i highly recommend them and may pick one up myself if my next rental house doesn't have a microwave

Alot_does_not_exist

After a mixed experience with halogen ovens, I am thinking of replacing my current old but large microwave oven with a combi.

I know nothing about these things and am wondering if anyone here has any experience of them.

Will they make a decent cheese on toast?

Will they produce a decent "roast" effect on a joint of meat?

Are they economical?

etc etc.

Charlton_King

I had one some years ago which worked pretty well - especially good for the c-o-t!!

Slinky_Malinky

Never had one but I am lusting after one of these...


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-NN-CF778SBPQ-Combination-Microwave-Stainless/dp/B001HN6QS4/ref=wl_it_dp_o_npd?ie=UTF8&coliid=I17BBEHKFA3J78&colid=CKL4GPPLG2ST

I have wondered too what the meat would be like - I never cook meat in an ordinary m/wave. The one above is a flatbed and I wonder how evenly it would cook by m/w only and whether you can fill up the whole floor of the inside with several dishes of food. Also wonder how well it cooks two shelves of food.

I think a few folk on here have them, there are some old threads if you search. Hopefully some owners will post soon to tell of the wonderous virtues of these gadgets.

rosieben

I haven't had a big cooker for over 3 years and I've managed really well with a combi micro; The roast done by convection is just the same as any other convection oven. Mine is quite powerful, a lot quicker than my last cooker oven.

I've never bothered to figure out how to use the micro/convection together or the grill/micro, just use each one separately.

Mine is quite big but I had to buy a couple of smaller roasting tins. I also have an electric steamer, SC and a small plug in hob.

smileygill

Slinky_Malinky wrote: »

Never had one but I am lusting after one of these...


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-NN-CF778SBPQ-Combination-Microwave-Stainless/dp/B001HN6QS4/ref=wl_it_dp_o_npd?ie=UTF8&coliid=I17BBEHKFA3J78&colid=CKL4GPPLG2ST

I've got one of those and I love it! It's the 3rd combi oven I've had and my only oven. I can't report on how it works with meat, though, as I don't eat it.

Don't think it would be great for grilling cheese - I use a gas grill for that. The combi grill's real purpose is to brown foods cooked on combination to compensate for the shorter roasting/baking time.

The lack of a turntable is two-edged; you can get more in but the heat isn't perfectly even, so I find myself rotating food manually. Nice touches include the ability to programme cooking "stages"; e.g. microwave, then stand, then combination cook. Also nice is the "memory" feature so you can set a complex sequence accurately every time with a couple of button presses. Slight annoyance is that if the oven is roasting/baking you can't microwave vegetables at the same time, but as they don't take long you can zap them while dishing-out the rest, or steam on the hob.

If you're replacing a standard microwave with a combi, I don't think you'll regret it. It won't replace your grill, though.

Difficult to comment on energy consumption as I haven't had a normal oven for so long I have no basis for comparison.

Hope that helps, if only a little.

Gill

Mrs_Chip

I have used this sort of oven to cook for the last several years, and they pretty much work in the same way as a normal oven, but smaller to cheaper to run.
I had a big panasonic with turntable, when that went bang I got a Sharp. That has a truntable and shelves. Static cooking you have to be careful, there are hotspots. Grilling is fine and meat cooks just like a big oven. I tend to use roasting bags as because the oven is a lot smaller, the walls get messy if the roast is not covered.

Like any oven, it will take a bit of time to get used to its foibles, but I would not go back to a big oven for our day-to-day cooking.