Advantages: Great idea saves time
Disadvantages: None

...Well, it had to happen, I suppose. All good things must come to a end, as they say. Our faithful steamer gave up the ghost after nearly eight years of Stirling steaming service. Time, we realised, to buy a new one. We decided to make our purchase of a new steamer at the BBC Good Food Show. After circling round and round the stands and displays several times ("too small, too big, doesn't look quite good enough, no WAY" are we paying that much!") we discovered the Tefal stand. We both fell in love with the Tefal Steam Cuisine Steamer. My comment was: "My god, it looks like something out of Star Trek voyager!" For yes, indeed, the Tefal Steam Cuisine steam cooker does look incredibly funky and very, very modern. It also has, for the amount of food that it can cook, a relatively small footprint. And this is, in the tiny and pokey... Read review

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Advantages: Steamed food is healthy
Disadvantages: poor design

...Beware. By buying this machine I have learnt that not all steamers are the same. If you’ve read my first opinion on the Tefal Easy Steamer I borrowed you’ll know that I was sad when I had to give it back. That sadness was intensified when I decided to buy my own steamer and it wasn’t as good as the Tefal. Why didn’t I just buy my own Tefal one? It was because I wanted to save a few pounds and the Rosemary Conley Steamer has a blue lid and rice bowl (blue being my favourite colour). It also said it had a Flavour Scenter which sounded fun. I’ll try to be impartial in this opinion and not harp on about the Tefal I should have bought. I bought the Smart Steamer for about £35 direct from the Rosemary Conley website because my local Argos didn't have them in stock. This website needs work - At least if I'd got it at Argos I would have had... Read review

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Advantages: Healthy Meals and very in-expensive
Disadvantages: Washing it is a bit of a pain

...I bought my steamer about 2 years ago and used it fairly often...until I bought my George Foreman Fat Reducing Grilling Machine... Ok I have to admit that steaming is probably the healthiest way to cook, but using the grilling machine is so much faster and less hassle. I was using my steamer to cook vegetables on one level and salmon on the other...what a pain it is to clean after you have cooked fish in it. You really have to scrub it hard to get all the bits out of the steaming rack that sits inside. Even soaking it doesn't get the bits out. At least with the George Foreman, you give it one wipe over and it is spotless. Cooking on the grill takes about 5 minutes whereas the steamer can take around 25-45 minutes (Tefals recommendation) for vegetables and 15-25 minutes for chicken. I do like the cooking time instructions on the front... Read review

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Advantages: No more boiling over of pans
Disadvantages: fragile bases

...Have you ever bought something, and then wondered what you ever did without it? This is now my second steamer (the timer button fell off the first). I have been using Tefal steamers now for about 3 1/2 years, and I love them. I am one of those people who just hate it when the pan boils over. It drives me mad. I also hate having to watch for the pan boiling in order to turn it down. The other thing that annoys me is having to put different veggies on to boil at different times. I first discovered steamers when I visited my aunt for dinner. She’d just bought hers, and was telling me about all the things you can do with one. My first thought was that it would be one of those contraptions you buy, use once, and then spends the next 5 years in the cupboard before you have the heart to throw it out. Once dinner was ready... Read review

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Advantages: Vegetables and rice but not as we know it!
Disadvantages: None

...I always questioned the point of a steamer. Another appliance to sit in the kitchen cupboard. Used once and replaced by another equally pointless appliance-du-jour. After all, you can steam using a regular saucepan with a steamer pan sitting inside it. Or even one of those bamboo things you get from Asian supermarkets. Or those metal flower like things that sit in a pan of water. All of which I have, all of which sit unused in my kitchen cupboard. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I have had my steamer for a month and it has spent all of one day in a cupboard. The rest of the time it has sat stove-side, looking smugly at my now underused microwave. It really is very simple to use – the timer shut off means, once you have your timings down, you can walk away and wait for the ping! While this is a review of the particular Tefal model (which I got... Read review

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Advantages: Healthy, Less mess than hob cooking.. (mine anyway!) leaves you free to Ciao!
Disadvantages: Water does run out eventually, juice collector needs emptying often

...roasting tins after cooking. -O-O- Extras on the 900 Turbo Diffusion Program The reason I splashed out on the most expensive Tefal Steamer model was because it has a delayed cooking program. I thought this would come in handy, particularly on Sundays when we are at church all morning and usually end up going to Macdonald’s for lunch . I am just not organised enough to cook during church, and we are too hungry to cook when we get back after the service. This is the main difference between my model and the others. It also has an electronic timer. Some of the other models have an extra bowl, and a food separator … but the delayed steaming sold itself to me! -O-O- Good points I have covered a lot of the good points above … but to re-cap …and add some more …. + Healthy option + Can go off... Read review

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Advantages: Can cook my entire lunch/dinner, healthy, quick, almost effortless, doesn't need watching
Disadvantages: Doesn't cook rice well, not ideal for cooking food at varying lengths of times

...to hire a cook. However, I remembered that my dad used to steam most of our dinners, using an extraordinarily large metal bowl part filled with water, with a separator thing keeping a dish of meat and vegetables above the water while it boiled. Well I wasn't about to buy the same thing - I'm too likely to accidentally knock the whole bowl with boiling water over, or scalding myself while trying to lift food out. But I thought of another possibility... an electric steamer. Turning to my trusty Argos catalogue, I picked out the cheapest steamer I could find from a brand I trusted: Tefal's Steamer Aqua Timer for £24.50. ---- Physical details ---- The steamer consists of a white base to which a non-detachable electrical cord and plug is attached. This is where you fill up water, and there are both internal and external water level... Read review

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Advantages: Gives a new awareness of common vegetables
Disadvantages: none

...Ok, this is not sex, drugs and rock and roll, sorry if you've been dragged here by the title, however you could do yourelf a favour by learning about an old way of cooking with a relatively new type of cooking implement, I am talking cooking by steaming your food... Yes it used to be boring, messy and time consuming, you only used to get steamed food in hospitals and it was largely tasteless.... However you can kick all those thoughts into touch, with the onset of a series of steam cookers from Tefal, I bought the basic model last year and it really change those tasteless boring common vegetables into tasty, healthy and nutritious food, no over cooking, and no standing over the cooker whilst it all cooked. these steam cookers have definitely changed the way I view cooked vegetables. The range of steamers from Tefal varies from... Read review

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Advantages: Do not have to keep draining oil after each use
Disadvantages: Takes up alot of countertop space

...was found while I was doing some research, at the Tefal homepage before buying the "right" deep fryer for me. Tefal which is a combination of the words Teflon and Aluminum was first invented in 1954 by the French engineer Marc Gregoire, although the Tefal company was not founded until 1956. At this time Tefal was mainly just making their famous non-stick frying pans. Tefal has now developed into an "all around" house hold product manufacturer now dedicated to making pressure cookers, irons, scales, bakeware, kitchen utensils, steamers, kettles, food processors, toasters and many other items. Tefal has become a name we can rely upon for almost all of our kitchen needs. It was not until 1987 that Tefal came out with the first Coolwall Deep Fryer. And that takes us to the product in hand. The Tefal Prissima is one of there recent... Read review

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Advantages: healthier food, less mess
Disadvantages: staining of juice collector

...I was bought a tefal 2 tier aqua timer steamer last year, and it has since become an integral part of my daily cooking. The steamer consists of: -a lid with vent holes -a rice bowl -2 x 3l bowls -juice collector -a turbo ring! -base containg heating elements, indicator lights and water level indicator. To start steaming all you need to do is put the 'turbo ring' around the elemnt, fill with water as required(There is a gauge on the side so you can see how much water is left)You then just pop the trays on the steamer, put in your veg and switch on. There is a buzzer which sounds when the water reservoir is empty. I find steaming much easier than regular cooking, all I need to do is peel and chop the vegetables and plonk them in the steaming trays and it does the rest itself! Magic. There is no need to keep an eye on pans... Read review

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