Easy Cook Review

The trouble with frying food inside a van is that the fat goes everywhere no matter how good your extraction system. But there is a solution. It’s called the Easy Cook.

The Easy Cook is one of those gadgets that you often see advertised on the TV with heaps of hype and you just know that it’s never going to be as good as they say and you’ll have one more pile of junk wasting precious space in the kitchen cupboards. Not so. In fact if I was heading off tomorrow with the intention of using powered sites, the Easy Cook would be the first appliance I would pack.

What you get is a large round safety glass bowl with a heating element on top and a fan to create a turbo effect within the bowl. The food sits on wire stands and you can place food on three levels. Naturally the food on top cooks quickest and the food on the bottom is noticeably slower.

So, for example, you can have chips or wedges cooking on the top level, meat in the middle and vegetables down low. Yes a complete meal cooked all at once.

What is even better is that you can basically set the timer and walk away. I often (well not that often) set the timer and walk the dog or take a turn on the treadmill. There’s no need to turn the food as the fan ensures that the heat circulates on all sides.

The great thing is that there is no spatter. The food is completely contained within the bowl and no fat escapes. Food that you may normally fry such as wedges can be shaken in a little oil and just dropped on to the top rack. It’s a fairly healthy style of cooking as most of the oil or grease ends up at the bottom of the bowl.

Cleaning is easy. Instead of having to wipe over half the van, you simply need to rinse the Luminarc bowl and wipe over the lid. The Easy Cook can also wash itself if you partially fill the bowl with water and a little detergent. You’ll want to do this at least once just to admire the turbo effect.

This gadget is very flexible and the recipes are only limited by your imagination. It can cook cakes and there is no easier way to cook a perfect roast. On a nice day, you could even use it outside your van on a handy table.

Two bowl sizes are available: 11 and 13 litre. The smaller size is perfect for 2-3 people. The other choices include 3 speed fans and 24 hour digital timers. We have the basic manual unit with a single fan speed. You can also run the unit on a 1.5Kva generator.

Back up is excellent. There is a website at: www.easycook.com.au . We were able to replace the lid and heating elements of our ancient and very well-used unit recently at a very fair price.

If I was building a camper from scratch, I would build one of these in and leave out the oven. At home, we haven’t used our oven for more than three years.

You can find more details online and the units can be purchased through many large electrical stores. Pricing: $199 to $299. They sometimes come up on Ebay too but I don’t understand why.