Price: ~$150 (Amazon)
I don't normally write product reviews, but I wanted to share some thoughts on this appliance in case others are looking into it. My perspective is a little different because what I'm looking for is something relatively compact that I can cook with while I'm deployed. By nature, I like to know how cooking things work so if necessary I came come up with alternative ways of doing the same thing. For example, my last two deployments, I used a rice cooker to brown hamburger and to make simple simmering dishes since high on a rice cooker translates to "boiling" and low translates to "simmering."
I also don't normally buy things from infomercials. And in this case I didn't - I haven't seen the infomercial, and I saw it at the PX before I knew there was one. That said, being a good Generation X person, I assumed everything I saw in advertising was at least misleading.
So with that introduction, I have to admit that this is a useful appliance, and I look forward to trying it out on my deployment. But to be honest, there's nothing really new here...
I think probably the best way to look at this device is essentially as a cross between a rice cooker and a crock pot. The basic form factor is a crock pot, however the pot is a relatively thin, teflon coated metal liner. This allows direct heat transfer - the "stove top" mode. There are three settings in this mode, low, medium, and high. On the slow cooker side, there is the standard low and high, as well as "buffet" (to keep finished items warm). It also has a steam baking mode.
The stove top mode works completely as expected. I browned both hamburger and beef chunks (for stew) with no issue. I found, even though the documentation says that the low setting is for simmering, that it's a little too warm for that. When simmering some dirty rice low kept it at a boil, so I switched to the low setting on the slow cooker, and it worked fine. Given that the settings are simplified from a stove top, I think that's eminently acceptable.
The slow cooker mode also worked as expected, and demonstrated one of the most useful features of this device. After browning the meat on stove top mode, I flipped it to slow cooker mode to create the stew. The fact that I could do this in one pot is impressive. Since the core of this device is a slow cooker, there's little surprise that it does this well.
The most interesting thing, but also the one I had the most question about is the baking mode. I love to bake. Specifically I like all things sourdough, from quick breads to preferment based "real" sourdough loaves. Looking at the device in the store, it was difficult to conceive how it can truly work as an oven (compared to say a toaster oven).
The metal pan of the device clearly transfers heat, so baking is theoretically possible. The thing about it, in a "real" oven, there is a thermostat to measure the air temperature inside the oven - in the Ninja, the metal pan sits over the heating element, so I don't think that's possible. Also, the oven itself is enclosed - the Ninja Cooking System has a steam hole in the cover (otherwise it'd become a pressure cooker). Since air is able to escape, and there's no realistic way to measure the air temperature, I think "bake" mode works simply by heating the pan at a certain rate.
I did an experiment, which albeit isn't necessarily accurate. I used a meat thermometer to measure the temperature inside in a few different scenarios. Since putting the thermometer metal on metal won't give an accurate temperature, I put a glass ramekin on the bottom and put the sensor on top of that. I then measured it with water in it (to simulate steam infused baking), and empty at 350 degrees and 425 degrees.
With the water in the pot, the temperature got no higher than 212 degrees, which someone that had more chemistry than I probably could've told me that. At 350 after a LONG time is got up to 325, and on 425 it got up to 375. I recognize the limits of the experiments - temperature can vary based on what's in the pot, and what altitude, etc. But personally I don't think the thing can actually get to 425, the minimum requirement to make a true sourdough bread.
The next experiment was simply to bake. I whipped up dough for a banana-pineapple bread - a simple quick bread, using a known recipe. The recipe creates two loaves, one which I put in the Ninja, one in the oven. I preheated both, for probably at least 20 minutes. Results? Well mixed bag. First, the Ninja shut down at some point (probably because I didn't select a time). So I'm not sure how long it cooked at first. Because of that, I kept cooking it, checking at about 10 minute intervals. Finally towards the end of an hour, I bumped up the temperature to 425.
I'll redo, but eventually it cooked. Based on the previous experiment I think if I cook it at 425 (even though the recipe is 350), I'll be OK. I find it very interesting too that the rack seems specially designed to hold standard bread pans, which is cool. The best compliment I can give it is the crumb was nearly identical to the oven baked version, and the bread was quite good. (The Ninja cooked version is on the left).
What I haven't tried yet is the "steam infused baking" which takes half the fat. As near as I can tell from the description and recipes that use this, I'm convinced this is a cooking method and not a specific feature of the device. In other words, I think you can do it probably with a large pot that you stick water in, and then put a bread pan in on a rack. If anyone wants to convince me differently, feel free to comment.
In summary, I bought the Ninja Cooking System, with pretty much one thing in mind - a single appliance I can deploy with that can allow me to cook simple meals, and bake. For that role it works perfectly. The Ninja's three modes allow you to create normal simmering dishes easily, slow cook, and bake. Of the three, baking seems to be the weakest mode, but I was still able to do so. Color me a happy camper. But in the end, it's a rice cooker - slow cooker hybrid.
Thanks for reading!
Update: I basically recreated the experiment - this time with a papaya-pineapple-cranberry bread. Just for consistency sake I kept with 350, and this time made sure I set the timer - an hour, but like the oven baked loaf, I checked at 40 minutes.
At the check point, the loaf baked in the oven was done. The loaf in the Ninja was significantly more cooked than last time, but still needed quite a bit more time. I put it in for a total of 20 more minutes before once again raising the temperature to 425, and it still took another 15 minutes I think. Moral of the story, at least in Hawaii, the Ninja clearly does not get to 350.
That said, when it did finish the loaf, it was good. The texture I actually liked better than the oven baked version, although it might just be that the outside of the bread carmelized more.
Now that I've established the differences, I think next time I'll go ahead and just start at 425, and not check the loaf before the one hour point. Here're more pictures :)
