Intellisteam 48780 Food Steamer

I am delighted with my Morphy Richards Intellisteam steamer! I bought this in an attempt to eat more healthily, thinking steamed fish, rice, veg etc. It has lived up to and exceeded my expectations. The first meal I cooked was steamed cod and rice with a bit of cabbage. The instructions for the rice said to put the rice in the rice tray and add water!!! Wasn't expecting this, but followed the instructions to the letter. Rice takes 42 minutes in the steamer which may seem like a long time, but you just set it going and come back later so its not really a problem. I was amazed to find the lightest, fluffiest rice I have ever cooked in my life! Since then every batch of rice I have cooked has also been perfect. For the fish, I took a cod loin portion and wrapped it in a small piece of foil with a small knob of butter and some tikka massala spice powder just to add a bit of flavour - a bit of a guess really, but boy did it work well! 15 minutes in the steamer and it was cooked to perfection. The great thing about this steamer is that with the 3 separate cooking areas being controlled independantly you just set the time you want each section to cook for and press the GO button. The steamer figures out when to start the steam in each section so that they all finish at the same time. So literally you just put everything in, press GO and come back later to a perfct meal. I have since experimented with other fish dishes, chicken and even lamb and every time the results have been amazing - tasty, healthy, easy and great fun too. I used a power monitor plug to check how much electricity the steamer was using, and a 42 minute total cooking period, with steam in one chamber for the full 42 minutes and in the other two for 20 minutes used 0.6kw, which I think is very economical (probably about 6p in electricity UK prices but dont quote me on that!) Certainly much cheaper than putting the oven on to cook a bit of fish! The steamer comes with instructions that include a number of tasty recipe ideas, but its so much fun to experiment too - you cant go far wrong!! Oh, and a great price via amazon too!!!

We are retired folks and have for decades followed the sensible way of cooking veggies - by steaming. Our trusty three tiered pot ensemble has been updated twice so far - and with a recent holiday break - self catering, my wife had the use of an electric steamer for the first time. And so, it came to pass that I hosted her a 'top of the range' Intellisteam(er) She mastered the simple logic panel and luxuriated in being able to preprogramme for the various contents, ready all at the same time and with plenty of latitude on serving. Okay - so - what is with the 'BUT' in my appraisal? We don't 'do' dishwashers. Only us two in the home - she washes and I dry. Simple and a long time habit. From two pots (usually) and a lid from the old steamer ... we now have to attend a multiplicity of plastic containers and fittings (approximately twelve!) and empty the base and dry it thoroughly (note it starts 'scaling up' from day one!!) So - friends, 'Labour saving' is is NOT! And trust me, ageing hands having to dab, wipe remove smears . . . isn't an easy task. So, before rushing to provide this as a gift to your 'elders' spare a thought for the 'no dishwasher' followers. NOTE: After four weeks and about twenty sessions - one of the three power generators (These heat and steam into the compartments) failed. Investigation reveals that this is not UNCOMMON. Amazon - as always reliable, refunded promptly. Thanks guys! We've settled for a Kenwood three tier unit. Not as fancy - but hopefully it'll last more than a month! STAR RATING REMOVED !!!!

Most of the other reviews here tell you just how good this steamer is - and I don't wish to challenge them. It is a good product that helps you cook a whole meal in seperately controlled compartments. It certainly gets used in our kitchen more often than its predecessor. However (and you knew this was coming didn't you!) a few facts to make you hesitate: 1. I agree that, for the money, the product should be better made. Stainless steel would really help to make this a premium product. As it is I think that the unit will easily get damaged or start to look tatty. I also think that the plastic compartments are not very durable and will need replacing because of the sort of cracks that plague cheaper steamers! 2. One area where the steamer just isn't intelligent enough is in cooking times. Carrots, and other veg, vary considerably in how much steaming they need - and if, like me, you are often finding that some veggies need just a few more minutes of steam, then you will find changing the cooking times, mid-steaming, quite difficult. A really intelligent 'Intellisteam' steamer would allow you to add extra minutes to the undercooked veg and put the others on 'keep warm' for the duration when they finished earlier than the others. It doesn't seem possible to do this - and its an obvious point of improvement for the next model. 3. Finally. The thing that annoys me most of all about this steamer is that it doesn't have a power switch! If, like me, you have to have the plug in a difficult to reach socket stuck behind something else then you will regularly be cursing the false economy of leaving a simple on/off switch off the unit. Of course you may be able to live with these shortcomings - and it is essentially a good steamer that helps you steam whole meals (almost) to perfection! Now that the price is falling its certainly not a bad buy - until a Mark II in stainless steel comes along!