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Electric grill: how to choose? Video review
To eat delicious vegetables, fish and meat fried on coals, now you do not need to wait for the fine summer days or pull the barbecue outside. In stores you can buy an electric grill with which you can cook all this. From those models that are presented on their shelves, you can always choose the one that suits you.
Electric grill: how to choose
What are the electric grills
These handy kitchen appliances can be portable or stationary and have a glass-ceramic or metal non-stick surface. Portable grills are convenient because they can be placed in any convenient place, and if necessary, they can be taken out on the veranda or outside, where it is possible to connect it to a standard electrical network with a voltage of 220 V. Such a grill will come in handy in a country house or in the country. with him, a barbecue for several people will never be canceled due to bad weather. If you have a powerful extractor hood in your apartment’s kitchen, the electric grill will provide you with steaks for dinner and hot sandwiches in the morning.
Stationary electric grills, designed for a three-phase electrical network and a voltage of 380 V, have a large power and a working surface area, these are professional installations. Usually they are purchased by catering establishments. But if you live in a private house and on your site there is a place for cooking under a canopy, such an electric barbecue grill will perfectly fit into the landscape and will allow you to feed a whole group of guests with fried chickens, pork pork or meat.
Of course, the material covering the work surface also matters. Glass-ceramic looks more aesthetically pleasing, and it is much easier to clean it from burnt fat. Usually, the set of an electric grill with a glass-ceramic surface includes a special scraper, with which you can remove the burnt without damaging it. The disadvantages of such surfaces include sensitivity to temperature differences – they can crack if you put a frying pan or saucepan with an uneven bottom on top, or if cold water is accidentally spilled on them.
Devices with a metal surface in this regard are less whimsical, and they are cheaper. Thanks to the non-stick coating, cleaning them is also quite simple and easy. To prevent juices from burning during cooking, metal electric grills have trays into which water is poured or filled with lava stones that absorb fat in order to exclude the appearance of smoke and fumes.
These two types of electric grills are contact, but there are also models with an open spiral. This will give the dishes a specific fire aroma, and you do not have to achieve this while trying to make a good barbecue at home in a gas oven. The dishes that you cook with it will taste almost the same as those that can be cooked on the grill or on the outdoor barbecue grill. However, the disadvantage of such devices is smoke and soot, because the liquid released during cooking goes directly to the heating element. Washing it is also quite problematic.
In addition, there are one-sided and two-sided contact electric grills, which are also called grill presses. To fry food on both sides on a single sided grill, you will need to turn it over. Double-sided allows you to cook a dish twice as fast by frying it on both sides at the same time.
Pay attention to the body of the electric grill: it is made of stainless steel or plastic. A grill in a steel case will cost more, but manufacturers guarantee high strength properties and plastic cases
Which electric grill to choose
Knowing the operating conditions and the needs of your family, you can already form an idea of which electric grill you should choose. From those suitable models, choose the one that is more convenient to clean, nevertheless, given the specifics of cooking, this is important. Make sure the pallet is easily removable, otherwise, if it is not removable, you will have to cover it with foil. In the event that you are going to actively use this kitchen device for preparing a wide variety of dishes, and not just hot sandwiches, choose a model with a higher power, it varies from 1,2 to 2,5 kW.
Some models of grills can be used both in single-sided and double-sided versions. To do this, their top cover folds out, making up one work surface with the bottom
The design of your electric grill can also make a difference. If you will be transporting it often, you can buy a two-sided model that folds into a small suitcase. In a kitchen equipped with good ventilation, you can put an open table grill, on which you can not only fry meat and pancakes, but also stew food in a saucepan, they usually come with a ladle and a spatula for turning over. Some of these grills are equipped with special stone plates, on which food can be cooked without fat and oil. The removable surfaces of some models are flat and corrugated, on the first it is convenient to fry pancakes, vegetables and fruits, on the second – fish and meat.