Philips 9140/90 Food Steamer

The Philips 9140/90 Food Steamer

I have recently incorporated grilled chicken and grilled meat into my diet. The grilling is done using the Philips Air-Fryer, which I reviewed here. The Air-Fryer is really a nifty tool, and has become a permanent member on our kitchen table-top.

Any grilled food, of course, goes well with boiled vegetables. Up to now, I used to just boil them in water. The problem with that is:
1. You have to keep monitoring the boiling vegetables, to ensure that they don't overcook and become soft.
2. You lose too many nutrients in the boiling process.

After doing some research, I found that the best solution to second problem would be to steam them. You can read more about that here.

I narrowed my choice down to the following 2 Philips models, which are available locally in Kuwait.
 1. Philips 9140/90 (which I eventually ended up buying)
 2. Philips HD9160.

The 9140/90 is a 900 watt model, while the HD9160 has a whopping 2000 watt power. I figured I don't really need the extra power and couldn't justify paying nearly twice the price.

The steaming itself is a really simple process. You fill water in the base tank, and you can mix and match upto 3 different combinations of bowls for different types of food. You don't need to steam with all 3 pans. You can cook with just 1 pan. You can even remove the middle partitions to effectively make the bowl bigger. For my first trial, I started off with just 1 pan.

Steaming in progress.

The steamer has handy buttons to automate the process of choosing the correct time, depending on the type of food being steamed. You can also manually set the time. I steamed some potatoes and cauliflower - which takes 20 minutes.

I was really amazed at the result. The potatoes turned out perfect. Crispy yet not hard. The cauliflowers turned out a bit soft - but that's because I should probably put them in a separate bowl and reduce the steaming time to around 15 minutes.

Perfectly done Steamed Potatoes.

This gizmo is definitely taking up some prime real estate on my kitchen table-top, right next to the Air-Fryer.

Rating: Highly Recommended.