SLOW COOKERS: CLASSIC vs CORDON BLEU

OLD: 1970s Pifco slow cooker, estimated cost: £10 14s 7d (around £100 today)

NEW: Morphy Richards Digital Sear And Stew slow cooker, £45, ao.com SLOW cooking is an extremely popular way of ensuring a hot meal for the family every evening.

Throw in your meat and vegetables, set the cooker and supper’s ready when you get home from work.

There’s no question that the new Morphy Richards is a good-looking machine. The shiny red metal outer shell contains a casserole dish in which you sear the meat before popping it back into the cooker.

It’s also incredibly straightforward to use — just turn on, select heat mode and the cooking time.

The Pifco is so retro it’s uber cool. I have borrowed it from a friend who has used it for many years.

It is bright orange and there isn’t a timer, just an on/off switch, so you need to keep an eye on the cooking time. The inner dish is made from china rather than metal.

I decide to make a simple chicken recipe based on a tomato, soy sauce, honey and garlic sauce.

I mix the ingredients and pour them in, turn both cookers on and ignore them for six hours. Though the sides of both pots become quite warm, the work surface beneath stays cool.

After a couple of hours, the kitchen is permeated with a delicious smell and, when I lift up the glass lids, I can see the meat bubbling away.

After six hours, the meat in the 2015 Morphy Richards is so succulent that it’s falling off the bone, is saturated with flavour and has an almost caramelised outside.

The sauce has thickened a little and is rich and tastes wonderful.

The Pifco has cooked perfectly well, but the sauce is thinner and the meat seems to have absorbed less of the various flavours.

WINNER: NEW