That said, it had a pleasant texture and while it wouldn’t win any awards at the local village fete, for a quick no-fuss cake, it’s not a bad option. After starting her career in the food industry, she moved into home appliance reviews, utilising her cooking skills and experience to put all kinds of products to the test, and over the years has reviewed hundreds of home and kitchen appliances for a variety of publications. At the end of cooking I flicked the pressure release valve to the vent position so that the steam pressure released fast, it’s good to have it near an extractor fan during this stage due to the large amount of steam released. Having completely renovated her current house, Helen reviews kitchen appliances from her open plan kitchen at home in a beautiful Berkshire village.

I allowed the pressure to slow release for 15 minutes and then released the rest manually, which just requires flicking the pressure release switch so the steam can escape. The lid can be submerged in water for easy cleaning and the base doesn’t get dirty but is easy to wipe over should you need to.While scrolling through the menus the display screen is illuminated blue, but when cooking or preheating, the display turns orange so you can see at a glance that it’s cooking, which is a nice feature. Unlike when you’re cooking on the hob you can walk away and not worry about it boiling over or boiling dry, so it’s super convenient. The result was a fiery curry with very tender chicken, a great result for what felt like minimal effort. The multicooker market is flooded with big names like Instant Pot and Ninja, so you may be wondering whether this lesser-known brand is worth a shot.

The finished rice was stickier than I’d usually expect for basmati rice, but cooked through and a perfect addition to the curry. This seemingly simple task was actually the trickiest of all the things I made in the Cleverchef Pro. There’s a broccoli steam pre-set which takes six minutes, although the total cook time including the pre-heat was 13 minutes. When you switch on the Cleverchef, the main menu first prompts you to choose a cooking style from the following: pressure cook, slow cook, multicook, steam, sauté, sous vide, DIY and keep warm. My only complaint would be that it was a little too runny, I’d have preferred it thicker, but having said that, you can just switch the sauté function back on and let it reduce further if you’re not too hungry to wait.There’s a bit of fiddly cleaning to do around the pressure release valve to make sure it’s free of debris, but this is the same for most electric pressure cookers. I was disappointed that there was no mention in the instruction manual about whether the parts are dishwasher safe or not. If you’re new to multi-cookers and electric pressure cookers, you’ll benefit from the pre-set programs that take the guesswork out of cooking lots of different foods. While the lid isn’t hinged, it does have an integrated tab that slots into the back of the cooker, this holds the lid so you don’t have to put it on the counter if you don’t want to.

To go with the chicken madras, I made Indian spiced basmati rice, which is another recipe from the app. After this, the broccoli was still very hard and in the end, I put it on a further three times to get the broccoli steamed to the correct texture.

Sign up to our newsletter for style and decor inspiration, house makeovers, project advice and more. After sauteing and adding the rest of the ingredients, it’s just a case of putting the lid on and selecting the pressure cook function, followed by the curry chicken program. The Cleverchef is a compact multicooker that doesn’t feel too big and cumbersome like some other brands. I was pleased to see very little plastic packaging, the majority is easily recyclable cardboard with just a few plastic bags.

I knew something wasn’t right so tried again, but this time I added just 1cm of water to the bottom of the pot. While browsing the app for recipes I kept coming back to the Nutella brownie recipe and in the end, I couldn’t resist giving it a go. The charcoal exterior has an uncluttered control panel that consists of just one dial and a back button, giving it a neat and streamlined appearance and it’s certainly better looking than other multicookers I’ve reviewed.I still had to run the broccoli steam program twice to get perfectly cooked al dente broccoli, but the result was much better with less water in the pot. All the pre-set programs are listed in the instruction manual, which details the default time and temperature as well as the available time or temperature range.