How to use the multicooker: turn it on for the first time, choose the right program

Many peo­ple, acquir­ing this mir­a­cle of tech­nol­o­gy for the first time, pose a log­i­cal ques­tion: how to use a slow cook­er? Ear­li­er, we exam­ined the prin­ci­ple of oper­a­tion of a mul­ti­cook­er, so today we will ana­lyze the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion com­po­nent on how to prop­er­ly use a mul­ti­cook­er, what fea­tures and dif­fer­ences exist between expen­sive and cheap mod­els, and we will teach you how to deter­mine the required cook­ing mode.

How to start the multicooker for the first time?

If you have pur­chased a new Pana­son­ic mul­ti­cook­er, do not rush to cook in it. Like any new appli­ance, it has a fac­to­ry smell that you don’t want to fill your entire kitchen with. There­fore, take out the caul­dron and wash it well. Wipe with a dry cloth, very care­ful­ly fol­low the walls and bot­tom. There should­n’t be a drop of water!

Now insert the caul­dron into the Pana­son­ic mul­ti­cook­er and con­nect it to the mains using the pow­er cable. Pour in some water and press the keep warm/keep warm func­tion. In most cas­es, this but­ton is com­bined with the stop/cancel but­ton. You just need to click on it once. Close the lid. Please note: some Pana­son­ic, Red­mond, Polaris, Moulinex mul­ti­cook­ers have two func­tions “warm­ing up” and “warm­ing up”. These are com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent pro­grams in terms of tem­per­a­ture! Wait 15 min­utes. Open the mul­ti­cook­er lid, check if the water is warm. Thus, you will check the oper­a­tion of the heat­ing ele­ment and deter­mine the heat­ing rate, which will sure­ly come in handy more than once.

Please note: if you bought a slow cook­er in win­ter, nev­er turn it on from the cold, let it warm up to room tem­per­a­ture in a dry place.

How to choose the right program?

Before turn­ing on the Pana­son­ic mul­ti­cook­er and start­ing to select a pro­gram, check that the pow­er cord is well insert­ed into the sock­et and the mul­ti­cook­er. Most of the pro­grams are already pre-installed. Pana­son­ic mul­ti­cook­ers of the bud­get option can have only 6–8 pro­grams, while more expen­sive ones have 20 or more pro­grams in their arse­nal.

If you have a bud­get type Pana­son­ic and few fea­tures installed, don’t wor­ry that you don’t have a spe­cif­ic pro­gram. You can safe­ly replace it with anoth­er. For exam­ple, fry­ing, buck­wheat, pilaf and rice are inter­change­able pro­grams. It is enough to have only one of them, as you can cook all 4 dish­es with­out prob­lems.

Please note: the cook­ing timer will vary. When cook­ing for the first time, we advise you to note how long it will take to cook rice in the “fry­ing” mode. Do not be afraid to peri­od­i­cal­ly open the lid and observe the readi­ness of the dish in such cas­es.

You can do the same with stew­ing and cook­ing soup. In this case, the pro­grams are almost iden­ti­cal in Moulinex, Pana­son­ic, Red­mond and Polaris mul­ti­cook­ers.

How to turn on the desired program in the Panasonic multicooker?

Use the Menu but­ton to select the desired pro­gram. In most cas­es, this but­ton is respon­si­ble for switch­ing the oper­at­ing modes of the Pana­son­ic mul­ti­cook­er, although the prin­ci­ple is iden­ti­cal for oth­er mod­els. Press this but­ton until the light for the desired cook­ing mode lights up. Now press the “Start” but­ton and wait for the dish to cook.

How to upload products?

Despite the fact that the Pana­son­ic mul­ti­cook­er has a spe­cial non-stick coat­ing, it is almost always nec­es­sary to lubri­cate it with grease. This will help keep the cov­er­age. The prod­ucts them­selves are loaded into the bowl when it is not installed in the devices, up to the max­i­mum divi­sion. In the Moulinex and Polaris tech­nique, there can be either a 3 or a 5 liter pot. As for Pana­son­ic and Red­mond, it’s rare to see 3‑litre vari­ants these days, so we’ll miss that one.

The max­i­mum divi­sion in a five-liter saucepan is equal to 5 liters of water in it. But we strong­ly advise against cook­ing in such con­di­tions. Do not put more than half of the bowl into the Pana­son­ic mul­ti­cook­er. Then food will not be splashed on the top cov­er, which is very dif­fi­cult to clean and will not come out through the valve. This rule should def­i­nite­ly be fol­lowed when load­ing prod­ucts, if you do not want to con­stant­ly clean the lid from dried food.

How to understand how much water should be poured in different programs?

Each pro­gram requires a cer­tain amount of water to pre­pare the dish. It is best to study the recipe book that comes with the kit. It will help you fig­ure out not only how to turn on the Pana­son­ic mul­ti­cook­er, but also tell you what and how to cook. If there was no recipe book in the kit, this can only be deter­mined empir­i­cal­ly, usu­al­ly by pour­ing water on your fin­ger high­er than the lev­el of the prod­ucts. You can also look at ana­logues on the Inter­net or cook in the same way as in a saucepan. The dif­fer­ence can only be in the tim­ing of cook­ing.

How to regulate the temperature?

For the first time you want to cook some­thing not accord­ing to the pro­gram, but on your own? Feel like you already fig­ured out how to use the Pana­son­ic mul­ti­cook­er? We advise you to focus on the approx­i­mate tem­per­a­ture of each mode. In bud­get options and mod­els of medi­um-class Red­mond mul­ti­cook­ers, there is no pre-installed abil­i­ty to adjust the tem­per­a­ture. Own­ers of expen­sive mod­els are more for­tu­nate. They have a tem­per­a­ture mode but­ton with which you can set the desired tem­per­a­ture.

Video instruction for working with a multicooker

If you per­ceive infor­ma­tion bet­ter visu­al­ly and aural­ly, then we sug­gest that you famil­iar­ize your­self with the instruc­tions on how to use the mul­ti­cook­er in video for­mat.

Here the prin­ci­ple of oper­a­tion of the Red­mond mul­ti­cook­er is con­sid­ered and how to work with it is explained in detail.

In con­clu­sion, I would like to say that these are gen­er­al tips that must be fol­lowed when work­ing with a mul­ti­cook­er. Nev­er leave the heat in the mul­ti­cook­er for too long. By doing this, you can ruin the dam­age-resis­tant bot­tom of the bowl. If you plan to always cook in a slow cook­er, we rec­om­mend pur­chas­ing a sec­ond bowl from the store so that you can cook 2 dish­es.

Let the mul­ti­cook­er serve you for many years!

Read our next arti­cle: How to use the microwave cor­rect­ly?