My wife is a much better cook than I am, but that hasn’t stopped me from tinkering in the kitchen. I’m quite good at making pasta with store bought sauce, and I can grill a steak or even bake a chicken, but when it comes to anything fancy, either Patti cooks or we go to a restaurant.
But I just got my hands on the Dreo ChefMaker Combi Fryer that looks and cooks like an air fryer but has the smarts to take on other tasks such as baking, roasting, defrosting, reheating, broiling, toasting and dehydrating. Those tasks are classified under what the device calls Classic Cook, but it also has Chef Mode, Probe Cook and Creative Cook, as I’ll soon explain.
You can control the device from the well-appointed and lit control panel with touch sensitive buttons, but it’s not a true touch screen. You can’t touch an option – just arrows and setting keys. You can also configure it from the Dreo app. The device has a clear glass front and a light that comes on automatically and turns off during most of the cooking phase, then back on shortly before the timer ends. There is a small water tank on top for sous vide recipes or others calling for misting or atomization of food and a removable probe that measures foods internal temperature and stops cooking when the temperature is reached. Both the app and the control panel allow you to select the other more automated modes. The app also lets you set favorite recipes and reports a history of what you’ve cooked. There is no pre-heat option, but if you use one of the company’s recipes or “Chef Mode,” it will preheat automatically. Otherwise, it’s up to you to figure out whether and how-long to preheat.
Chef Mode
Chef Mode is designed for cooks like me for whom the word “chef” is wildly pretentious. “Mediocre cook” would be more descriptive. When you click on it (on the app or device), you get to pick from beef, pork, lamb, poultry, seafood and vegetable. Once you make a selection, you link to more specific options such as Chicken Whole or Cod Filet. This mode does not include full recipes. It just tells you whether to use the probe and the best way to put the food into the device. Then you select “Send to Device,” and all you have to do is insert the probe, if necessary, into the food and press the Start button. The machine takes it from there.
Not all foods call for the use of the probe, but it is recommended for meat, fowl and other foods that require a minimum temperature to ensure they’re safe to eat. You insert the probe into the center of the food and connect it to the cooking basket. Based on what you’re cooking, the machine will automatically stop when it reaches the appropriate temperature.
I’ve never read the book Cooking For Dummies, but I’m sure it’s written for people like me. I haven’t spent much time reading any cookbooks. They’re usually too complicated for my simpleton approach, which is mostly wanting to know how many minutes and at what temperature to cook something without burning it or contracting a foodborne illness.
Programming
Having said that, I do like the recipes that are included in the Dreo app. I had to stumble on that feature by clicking on an uncaptioned icon on the home screen. Unlabeled icons are one of my pet peeves. But once I found it, it opened up a trove of video recipes that were broken into steps that you clicked one at a time, making it much more useful than YouTube videos. Unlike so many instructions these days, it was narrated. Another one of my pet peeves are videos or printed instructions with only images and no words. Best of all, once you’re done preparing the dish, you can press “Send to Device” to have the time, temperature and cooking modes automatically programmed. You still have to press the Start button on the device.
Creative Cook
Another cool feature is called Creative Cook. This is where you can enter any food and set the time, temperature and mode. You can do multiple settings, for example, setting it on broil at 400 degrees for 5 minutes and then having it automatically switch to bake or sear for a minute at the end. You can even add a defrost cycle at the start and switch to a cooking cycle. There is an option to share codes or enter codes created by others, but it’s nearly impossible to find share codes. Dreo says to look on its Facebook page, but I found almost none there. The company ought to create a webpage or a hashtag or some other easy way where people can share and find these useful codes. I did find one shared recipe for a “Non-sear Sous Vide Medium Steak,” but the probe stopped the cooking while the meat was too pink and not quite hot enough. That didn’t happen when I set the temperature manually in Classic Mode or when I used Chef Mode where the internal temperature measured by the probe came out very close to what my good digital thermometer measured.
Price
Amazon lists the Dreo ChefMaker at $359.00, which is on the high side, but at the time of writing, the company website is offering it for $239. Unlike many companies, Dreo offers phone support as well as excellent email support. But there are less expensive alternatives. A few years ago, I bought a Gourmia Air Fryer Oven ($79 at Amazon) that does an excellent job, even though it doesn’t have Wi-Fi, an app or a probe.
This Chef Maker will never qualify me to work at a Michelin star restaurant, but it has enabled me to experiment with recipes that I would never bother following from a book. Best of all, the meals I’ve cooked pleased my foodie wife.
Larry Magid is a tech journalist and internet safety activist. Contact him at larry@larrymagid.com.