The heat up process took 13 minutes and the cooking time was 20 minutes. In the end, we went with a 1:1 rice to water ratio but after cooking the rice was still a little al dente. To cook brown basmati rice, the manual suggests the Multigrain preset, but we had to dig around on the website for some suggested rice to water ratios. During slow cooking the handles and sides all stayed cool, the lid reached 113 F/ 45 C which isn’t too warm to touch. The chili wasn’t thickened to our liking but by switching back to saute it was easy to reduce it to the perfect consistency. The Instant Pot beeps to alert you that cooking has finished and the temperature of the chili at the end of cooking was 176 F/ 80 C. We slow cooked our beef chili for six hours on the ‘more’ setting and the result was a delicious meaty chili with soft beef. Despite the pot not having a non-stick coating there was no sticking during the sauté stage. First up, slow cooked chili, the sauté function comes in handy here, allowing you to brown your meat and soften onions in the Instant Pot instead of having to use a separate pan or stove top. We used the Instant Pot Duo Nova for several recipes to try out its performance across different functions. It comes with a steam rack, but this is only really useful for larger foods, smaller vegetables will fall straight through the rack into the water below which is frustrating. The delay start button allows you to postpone cooking for up to 24 hours, but be sure not to leave anything perishable in the pot if you’re using this function. If you’re a fan of the ‘set it and forget it’ style of cooking, the handy keep warm function means your food won’t go cold if you do actually forget about it. It’s also simple enough to adjust cook times using the plus and minus buttons on the front so you can customize each setting to suit your requirements. When pressure cooking, choose between low and high pressure and for all other programs there are three settings to choose from: less, normal or more - with a table in the instruction manual detailing what each setting is designed to achieve. We found plenty of slow cook and pressure cook recipes but it can be tricky to find exact guidance for more simple tasks like steaming and cooking rice. There’s no recipe book or cooking charts included though, so you’ll have to head to the website or app for these. It’s pretty simple to figure out the settings and get cooking shortly after removing it from the box and the preset programs are a good starting point for common foods and meals. Multi-cookers do take up a good chunk of counter space but on the flip side, this Instant Pot will replace lots of other appliances and therefore take up much less space than if you had a separate slow cooker, rice cooker, steamer, yogurt maker, and pressure cooker. We reviewed the 8-quart/ 7.6-liter model which measures 14.5 x 13.5 x 14.8 inches/ 36.8 x 34.3 x 37.6cm (h x w x d) and is a similar size to other large capacity multi-cookers we’ve reviewed, but as we've already mentioned it’s also available as a 6-quart/ 5.7-liter option, and in the US and Australia, there’s a smaller 3-quart/ 3-liter version available if you have a small family or you’re short on space. Having said that, the stainless-steel finish gives it a reassuringly robust look. With a familiar design, the Duo Nova is instantly recognizable as an Instant Pot and as we’ve said in previous reviews, multi-cookers are not the most attractive of the kitchen counter appliances.
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