Product: Presto Bento Electric Cooker
Model: 04634
Condition: New
Embrace the versatility of the Bento box-style divided electric cooker, cooking a block of ramen noodles on one side and eggs or veggies on the other
Tailored for individual or shared meals, making it an ideal companion for dorm rooms or cozy kitchens
Enjoy the convenience of cooking eggs in the shell or scrambled to perfection, along with the option to prepare soft- or medium-cooked eggs in the two-egg holder
Utilize the egg holder for steaming vegetables or warming ham, while also serving as a vessel for warming sauces once removed
Prepare a variety of quick and delicious meals, from ramen noodles to Asian dumplings, hearty soups, or a scrambled egg breakfast, all within minutes
Simplify cleanup with the nonstick cooking surface, ensuring easy maintenance after each use
Achieve optimal cooking results with the vented cover, guaranteeing proper steam circulation
Facilitate hassle-free noodle draining with the cover and pour spout feature, enhancing convenience during meal preparation
Enhance your dining experience with the included spoon and fork, allowing for immediate enjoyment straight from the cooker
Maximize storage efficiency with the built-in cord wrap, ensuring compact storage when not in use
@awk I bought one. As far as noodle draining, when you tip the thing to drain the noodle compartment, any water in the adjacent compartment flows into the noodle compartment. This might be ok as the water in both compartments is hot, but it seems kludgy and awkward.
The directions for egg cooking imply that you’ll let the eggs and ramen finish at the same time. Then the cooked ramen is sitting in hot water while you deal with peeling the egg(s). I don’t do that - I cook the eggs for 8 minutes, remove them into a cool water bath, and drop the ramen into its compartment. I peel the egg while the ramen is cooking.
This seems like a dorm room item. If you have a kitchen, cookware, etc., you don’t need it. It’s cute though lol
@mikesmells Maybe not as helpful, but I have one from a different brand. I got it while we had no microwave at work. It took maybe an hour to heat up frozen food and 20-30min for refrigerated food. I didn’t try to actually cook anything with it, but I liked it for reheating.
I’m not a Japanese school girl with a crush on a really bland boy, so I don’t have any use for the bento aspect. The gag blurb presents a serious question, though.
Can it make anything else? Alton Brown hates single use gadgets, and with good reason.
Haven’t used this exact product, but it looks like a glorified steamer. And the non-stick elements will probably need replacing after not too long. The real test would be egg cooking accuracy. Can you get the whole egg cooked the way you like in a consistent time and does that take a similar amount of time vs just boiling it? My guess is no. Eggs surrounded by boiling water cook a LOT faster than by steam and I’m guessing the device’s heating element isn’t close to being up to the task.
This might be good for a leftovers heater (though a microwave would be faster and more efficient), but probably not meal cooking.
@j4yx0r I bought an egg cooker that steams the eggs, and I love it. You can make hard-, medium-, or soft-cooked eggs, plus there’s a way to poach them or make a small omelet. The eggs are cooked perfectly, and the hard-cooked eggs peel like a dream. Well worth the $15.
@j4yx0r@lisagd is that the thing where you get a little round pin-prick device with it? (That of course gets lost) … or else the egg explodes, or, I was afraid it would explode before I even cooked it if I tried the pricky device.
I’m sure steaming is OK with a dedicated device that’s been tested and quality controlled. It probably gets consistent results. I’m not disparaging egg steaming. I just imagine that this gadget probably doesn’t do it very well since it’s not even its primary function and the wattage listed seems pretty low to do all those tasks successfully. Please, I don’t want to yuck anyone’s egg steaming yums! It’s a valid way to cook an egg.
@j4yx0r@pmarin I tried using the little pin thing the first time I used the cooker, and all I did was break an egg. They say it’s optional, and the eggs cook just fine without the hole, no cracks or explosions.
@j4yx0r@pmarin I’ve decided it’s safer than me cooking them on the stove after my ADHD brain made me forget I was cooking eggs and all the water boiled away. Luckily, my dog didn’t care that the hard-boiled eggs were scorched.
@j4yx0r@lisagd@pmarin I haven’t done it myself, but my sister and also a friend tell me that an Instant Pot type cooker does a great job of boiling eggs.
@j4yx0r@Kyeh@lisagd@pmarin Rice cookers make great hard boiled eggs. (You can do soft boiled as well, but I prefer hard boiled ones.) You just put in a cup of water and put however many eggs you want cooked in the steamer basket and turn it on. Gives nice consistent results.
@j4yx0r@KevinS10@Kyeh@pmarin I have a rice cooker, but I never thought to try eggs in it. It didn’t occur to me that you could steam eggs until I got the egg cooker. The advantage of the egg cooker is that it beeps when they’re done, so I don’t have to remember to set a timer (after figuring out the right amount of time).
@j4yx0r@Kyeh@lisagd@pmarin If you have a sous vide setup, hard boiled eggs with dead perfect yolks (firm, fully set, yellow with no discoloration) are easy. Set the temp for 170F, let the bath heat up, lower the eggs into it and let them heat for 40 to 45 minutes. Remove, gently crack, place into a cold water bath, and peel when fully cooled. Eggs that are not fresh peel more easily, so if you can plan ahead that far, buy them three weeks to a month ahead of when you plan to cook them. Let them sit in the fridge until the day that they are needed.
My usual way of cooking ramen doesn’t use the stove, and doesn’t involve a unitasker. I get water boiling in the kettle, pour the boiling water over the noodles in a vacuum insulated stainless bowl, put a plate over it, and wait 3 to 5 minutes. It is by far the easiest way I have ever found to get good ramen in a hurry. There are some varieties that it doesn’t work well with, and I just tend to avoid buying those. If I want to add meat or veg, I just warm those up in the microwave and toss them in when the noodles are finished. Best of all, the vacuum insulated stainless bowls can have contents that are still steaming, and the outside of them will be just nicely warm at the top and still room temp at the bottom.
Imagine, you’re typing away at your computer. It’s been a hectic week, those TPS reports are due. You sniff you smell…ramen noodles? Dammit, it’s Derek on the other side of the divider again with his desktop electric lunchbox…
@Targaryen You quietly reach into the bottom drawer of your desk, pull out your fume respirator, and put it on. What that in place, you pull out the small tin of surstromming, open it, and stick it behind the photo of a picturesque Swedish locale in the corner of your cubicle.
@Targaryen@werehatrack Not the TPS reports! I just retired and the scars are still there. was just discussing with a former co-worker about making nice Excel charts to show progress, even though it didn’t really matter what the progress was about.
Specs
Product: Presto Bento Electric Cooker
Model: 04634
Condition: New
What’s Included?
Price Comparison
$39.99 at Amazon
Warranty
90 days
Estimated Delivery
Monday, Apr 22 - Thursday, Apr 25
This seems like a complicated solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. I’m in.
/image wrathful-packed-cup
/giphy wrathful-packed-cup
I don’t do Bento. I like a full meal.
The “hassle-free noodle draining” is the only selling point.
@awk I bought one. As far as noodle draining, when you tip the thing to drain the noodle compartment, any water in the adjacent compartment flows into the noodle compartment. This might be ok as the water in both compartments is hot, but it seems kludgy and awkward.
The directions for egg cooking imply that you’ll let the eggs and ramen finish at the same time. Then the cooked ramen is sitting in hot water while you deal with peeling the egg(s). I don’t do that - I cook the eggs for 8 minutes, remove them into a cool water bath, and drop the ramen into its compartment. I peel the egg while the ramen is cooking.
This seems like a dorm room item. If you have a kitchen, cookware, etc., you don’t need it. It’s cute though lol
This seems like the “breakfast cookers”: not a terrible idea if you have space, but who has space?
I have so much ramen in the house. May as well buy this too.
@sammydog01 Buldak?
Try something else, but ramen seems featured in: https://www.gopresto.com/recipes/category/power-bento-electric-cooker
Can it cook straight toes or just bentos?
@OnionSoup Also, carrots and bentcarrots. Never mind.
@OnionSoup See last picture. Haha
@OnionSoup @user63799928
I’m very curious, anyone used one before?
@mikesmells 463 reviews on Amazon; don’t think they were all hallucinating about using one.
@mikesmells @phendrick No, they definitely all were. It’s a big government conspiracy. Big bento is funding this all.
@mikesmells Maybe not as helpful, but I have one from a different brand. I got it while we had no microwave at work. It took maybe an hour to heat up frozen food and 20-30min for refrigerated food. I didn’t try to actually cook anything with it, but I liked it for reheating.
I’m not a Japanese school girl with a crush on a really bland boy, so I don’t have any use for the bento aspect. The gag blurb presents a serious question, though.
Can it make anything else? Alton Brown hates single use gadgets, and with good reason.
@AaronLeeJohnson he did a bit on the wafflemaker or panini grill where he cooked various other things up to a spatchcocked chicken
@AaronLeeJohnson this doesn’t even sound like it does the one trick very well
Haven’t used this exact product, but it looks like a glorified steamer. And the non-stick elements will probably need replacing after not too long. The real test would be egg cooking accuracy. Can you get the whole egg cooked the way you like in a consistent time and does that take a similar amount of time vs just boiling it? My guess is no. Eggs surrounded by boiling water cook a LOT faster than by steam and I’m guessing the device’s heating element isn’t close to being up to the task.
This might be good for a leftovers heater (though a microwave would be faster and more efficient), but probably not meal cooking.
@j4yx0r I bought an egg cooker that steams the eggs, and I love it. You can make hard-, medium-, or soft-cooked eggs, plus there’s a way to poach them or make a small omelet. The eggs are cooked perfectly, and the hard-cooked eggs peel like a dream. Well worth the $15.
@j4yx0r. Ever used a steam egg cooker?
@j4yx0r @lisagd is that the thing where you get a little round pin-prick device with it? (That of course gets lost) … or else the egg explodes, or, I was afraid it would explode before I even cooked it if I tried the pricky device.
@lisagd @pmarin
I’m sure steaming is OK with a dedicated device that’s been tested and quality controlled. It probably gets consistent results. I’m not disparaging egg steaming. I just imagine that this gadget probably doesn’t do it very well since it’s not even its primary function and the wattage listed seems pretty low to do all those tasks successfully. Please, I don’t want to yuck anyone’s egg steaming yums! It’s a valid way to cook an egg.
@j4yx0r @pmarin I tried using the little pin thing the first time I used the cooker, and all I did was break an egg. They say it’s optional, and the eggs cook just fine without the hole, no cracks or explosions.
@j4yx0r @pmarin I’ve decided it’s safer than me cooking them on the stove after my ADHD brain made me forget I was cooking eggs and all the water boiled away. Luckily, my dog didn’t care that the hard-boiled eggs were scorched.
@j4yx0r @lisagd @pmarin I haven’t done it myself, but my sister and also a friend tell me that an Instant Pot type cooker does a great job of boiling eggs.
@j4yx0r @Kyeh @lisagd @pmarin Rice cookers make great hard boiled eggs. (You can do soft boiled as well, but I prefer hard boiled ones.) You just put in a cup of water and put however many eggs you want cooked in the steamer basket and turn it on. Gives nice consistent results.
@j4yx0r @KevinS10 @Kyeh @pmarin I have a rice cooker, but I never thought to try eggs in it. It didn’t occur to me that you could steam eggs until I got the egg cooker. The advantage of the egg cooker is that it beeps when they’re done, so I don’t have to remember to set a timer (after figuring out the right amount of time).
@j4yx0r @Kyeh @pmarin I don’t have an Instant Pot or plans to get one.
@j4yx0r @Kyeh @lisagd @pmarin If you have a sous vide setup, hard boiled eggs with dead perfect yolks (firm, fully set, yellow with no discoloration) are easy. Set the temp for 170F, let the bath heat up, lower the eggs into it and let them heat for 40 to 45 minutes. Remove, gently crack, place into a cold water bath, and peel when fully cooled. Eggs that are not fresh peel more easily, so if you can plan ahead that far, buy them three weeks to a month ahead of when you plan to cook them. Let them sit in the fridge until the day that they are needed.
@j4yx0r @lisagd @pmarin the prick device let’s the egg cook in a different manner (otherwise you always get hard boiled eggs)
My usual way of cooking ramen doesn’t use the stove, and doesn’t involve a unitasker. I get water boiling in the kettle, pour the boiling water over the noodles in a vacuum insulated stainless bowl, put a plate over it, and wait 3 to 5 minutes. It is by far the easiest way I have ever found to get good ramen in a hurry. There are some varieties that it doesn’t work well with, and I just tend to avoid buying those. If I want to add meat or veg, I just warm those up in the microwave and toss them in when the noodles are finished. Best of all, the vacuum insulated stainless bowls can have contents that are still steaming, and the outside of them will be just nicely warm at the top and still room temp at the bottom.
@werehatrack Electric kettles are perfect for that, since they boil water very quickly.
/showme eggs being cooked with electricity
So, it’s just ramen? Sounds like a good start, but I don’t know if that will be enough for me.
Like are those barbie feet in that last pic…
@noonant Pfui. You can’t cook toe jam in a noodle maker.
@noonant @werehatrack eager to pursue a new culinary endeavor, I’d at least dip my toes in it.
@noonant @pmarin @werehatrack if you jumped in with both feet, you’d have invented a foot spa
Imagine, you’re typing away at your computer. It’s been a hectic week, those TPS reports are due. You sniff you smell…ramen noodles? Dammit, it’s Derek on the other side of the divider again with his desktop electric lunchbox…
@Targaryen You quietly reach into the bottom drawer of your desk, pull out your fume respirator, and put it on. What that in place, you pull out the small tin of surstromming, open it, and stick it behind the photo of a picturesque Swedish locale in the corner of your cubicle.
@Targaryen @werehatrack Not the TPS reports! I just retired and the scars are still there. was just discussing with a former co-worker about making nice Excel charts to show progress, even though it didn’t really matter what the progress was about.
@pmarin @Targaryen @werehatrack
/giphy printer office space
/image obedient-stingy-python
/youtube obedient-stingy-python