Inspector gadget
MATT PRESTON IS PUTTING KITCHEN APPLIANCES TO THE TEST AND SAYS EXPENSIVE IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER
Matt Preston wants Australian cooks to stop making impulse appliance purchases and test cheaper models before committing serious dollars.
The former MasterChef host and renowned foodie says every house in Australia has an underused and discarded appliance hidden in the back of a cupboard or shed gathering dust.
“My shed is full of them,” Preston says. “Too many appliances fall into that bracket.”
He also feels too many buyers get stung in the hip pocket when buying appliances.
“Expensive appliances are too often a rort and can end up an expensive and unused bench ornament. I’d go cheaper first always. Most of the time that’s enough until you realise that you are using it more than anything else. Then you have to ask whether the extra dollars for more functions or precision is actually worth it. It isn’t always the case.
“The main thing is to interrogate the device – ask what it will do for you. How will it make your life easier. We cook at lot of rice (which can be stressful). A $20 rice cooker we bought five years ago removed that stress of making perfect rice and it’s so easy. Set and forget.”
He says buying cheaper does not always mean it will give up the ghost within a short time.
“My first appliance was a simple food processor that I still use for everything from bringing together pastry or making pasta dough to blending one of my instant ice creams. It’s about 30 years old now.”
TRIED AND TESTED
Preston aims to help Aussie home cooks make better appliance choices by putting appliances and gadgets through their paces in the new Taste Test Kitchen, which launches today.
Taste Test Kitchen reveals everything consumers need to know to discover, buy and master kitchen appliances, gadgets and products. It features reviews, videos, how-to content and thousands of recipes that use kitchen appliances, with consumers able to shop directly from the content on pages and videos.
Preston is joined in the test kitchen by Taste’s food director Michelle Southan, digital food director Amira Georgy and food editor Elisa Pietrantonio.
Taste.com.au editor-in-chief Brodee Myers-Cooke says the food site has had 52 million page views on appliance-related content in the past year.
“The Aussie passion for appliances is one of the biggest trends in food we’ve seen in decades,” she says.
“At Taste, we realised, just as we’d helped home cooks navigate to the very best appliance recipes, we had everything we needed to steer them through the often confusing waters of choosing the very best appliances. Let’s face it, it’s often a substantial investment – you don’t want to ‘wrong foot’ your purchase.”
Appliances that have already been tested include best and budget airfryers, stand mixers, blenders for smoothies, slow cookers and nonstick pans.
MULTIPLE USES
Preston says he is “a bit obsessed with kitchen appliances as much for their obvious uses as the other things you can do with them”.
He says understanding the multiple ways an appliance can be used will provide greater value for money.
“A toastie machine or jaffle maker is a joy but it also really flies when you use it to make filo pastry spanakopitas or apple pies. It’s ideas like this that we want to share – show you more tasty ways to get work and more value out of your favourite appliance.”
Preston admits his airfryer was a budget impulse purchase but he’s constantly finding ways of making the appliance work harder for him.
“Originally I got it for cooking chicken wings and sweet potato oven fries quickly – and for reheating pizza.
“Working in the Taste Test Kitchen with Taste’s recipe collaborator Michelle Southan, we’ve done great, simple airfryer recipes for crispy pork belly bites, sausage rolls, crunchy chicken bites, coconut coated prawns and roasted bananas. It also does crackle really well, which is a danger.”
Preston says now that his boys have moved out of home, he is using the smaller capacity airfryer more often for food that he would usually cook in the oven.