Comment-When life is busy and your cooking skills are on par with Gordon Ramsay, cooking healthy food can be a challenge. What if there is a smart countertop cooking device that can guide you to cook food to perfection step by step during the cooking process? Yes, it is called Brava. This is great, but not without a few warnings. let's see.

Brava is a smart cooking device that uses high-powered light bulbs to cook a whole meal on a tray, even if they are completely different types of food, such as meat and vegetables. It also has built-in recipes and instructions that can guide you to bake, cook, air-fry, dehydrate and reheat leftovers by hand (spoon?). It can effectively replace your oven, air fryer, dehydrator, slow cooker and microwave oven.

Please note that you can buy Brava in different packages with different pallets. This is the configuration sent to me for review. It is a starter set with an extra egg tray.

Dimensions – Height: 11.3 inches (28.8 cm) x Width: 16.4 inches (41.6 cm) x Length: 17.3 inches (44.0 cm) Weight – 34.4 lbs (15.6 kg) Heating element – ​​270 mm crystal bulb, full power in 1 second – 1,800 watts, 120 volt processor-quad-core ARM Cortex A53 processor with Mali T400-MP2 GPU 8GiB eMMC flash memory, 1GiB LPDDR3 RAM display-Multi-Touch 5.0 inch (diagonal) TFT-LCD display with IPS technology Screen, 854 times the original resolution of 480, up to 16.7 million colors, 180° viewing angle Connectivity-Support IEEE802.11 a/b/g/n 2.4GHz/5GH Bluetooth integrated Wi-Fi camera-5 megapixels, ultra-wide angle

The Brava oven occupies the same floor space as a small microwave oven. It can be placed on the kitchen counter and can be plugged into a standard 3-hole socket.

Brava has a brushed metal case, available in silver, red or black. It has a modern style, but not too futuristic. It fits almost any decoration, including my kitchen, which is a modern farmhouse style.

On the front of the Brava oven, you will find a beautiful door with a big handle.

There is a black silicone pad on the top surface, when you remove the tray from the oven, you can use it as a heat pad to place the tray.

The cushion is removable and washable.

There is also a touch screen user interface and control buttons on the front edge of the oven, but will be described in detail later.

The inside of the Brava oven is all stainless steel, and there is a lower and upper slot for the accompanying tray.

There are three long halogen bulbs on the bottom of the oven and three more on the top/top of the oven. Each light corresponds to a cooking zone, so that the oven can cook completely different foods on the same tray.

Brava includes a digital temperature sensor to ensure that your food (protein) is cooked to your liking-rare, medium rare, medium good, well done. You decide, Brave executes your order!

The tip of the temperature sensor is marked and doubles as a measuring device, so you can enter the thickness of the protein into the cooking specifications and let Brava calculate the time and temperature of cooking the food.

The temperature sensor is inserted into the slot on the left side of the oven. It looks a bit like a USB plug, but it is not 😉

Here, we see that the temperature sensor is plugged in and ready to use.

You can also see the metal shield/plate above the temperature sensor connection slot. The protective device can protect the wire of the temperature sensor from the extreme temperature in the oven.

Depending on the packaging, Brava ovens are equipped with different cooking trays or pans. Mine comes with a glass tray and two ceramic-coated aluminum trays. As you can see above, the glass tray is divided into three parts, or Brava calls them zones.

The ceramic-coated aluminum tray has the same three areas. When you start cooking, these areas will make more sense. So let's do it now!

After you unbox the Brava and plug it in, the first thing you need to do is to connect it to the Internet following the on-screen prompts. If necessary, it will prompt to update the firmware. After updating everything, you will see the main menu shown above. The menu is two pages long, and you can choose from cooking, baking, toasting, baking, reheating, slow cooking, heating and other options. There is also an option to view recent recipes, favorites and searches.

I chose something very simple for Brava’s first test. Sausage link! So I used the search function and used the touch screen to enter sausage in the search field. I saw many options.

I chose the new link option.

Brava will tell you exactly how to perform the operation step by step. I washed the metal tray...

Open the package and organize the links.

It told me to put the tray on the top shelf...

Then it showed me a summary.

If everything is normal, you press the button and cooking starts! The status LED around the button turns red to let you know that it is cooking, but you will also see a live view on the display because...

How cool is it? But it gets better because the Brava mobile app also shows you a view of the camera inside the oven.

Being able to view what's happening in the oven from the app means you don't have to be in the kitchen while cooking. You can be in another part of the house and still be able to check your food.

The app will also tell you when the cooking session ends. Come and see our sausages!

Complete the link in 9 minutes. OK!

For my next test, I have a grilled cheese sandwich again.

I used the Toast menu function, which allows you to choose the Toast level you like.

Brava stated that I will have a sandwich in five minutes.

So after five minutes, I have toasted (grilled) the cheese sandwiches perfectly, and I don't even need to flip them!

It's time to make egg pancakes more delicious!

It allows you to choose the quantity you want to make.

My omelette station consists of three 3 eggs, leftover sausage, leftover bacon, cheese, salt and pepper.

This time I didn’t like the length of time the oven chose because I could see that the top of the omelet was a bit brown, and I didn’t like overcooked eggs, so I could stop the cook by pressing the pause button on the screen.

I can view and perform the same operation through the Brava app.

I also use a Brava oven instead of a microwave to reheat leftovers. I like its texture and taste like freshly cooked food, rather than rubbery or hard foods that sometimes occur in a microwave.

Next is my most ambitious test... a combination meal containing two completely different types of food requires completely different cooking times/calories. But this is exactly why Brava is so good. It can do this without any problems, because it can turn off and turn on the lights individually for each area.

I decided to eat pork chops and Brussels sprouts. For this chef, a temperature sensor is needed. Brava instructed me to tell it how thick the ribs are. This is easy to do because there are markings on the sensor.

The sensor enters the fattest part of the meat on the left.

I halved the Brussels sprouts and sprinkled a little olive oil, salt and pepper.

Then the metal tray enters the oven on the top shelf, and the temperature sensor is inserted through the cable under the protective cover.

The real-time display shows the remaining time and real-time readings of the temperature sensor.

Similarly, if you don't want to hang out while cooking in the kitchen, you can see the same information through the Brava app.

When the meat reaches the desired temperature, the oven will beep to let you know that the cooking is complete. The app will also notify you. Wow, how good does this meal look? However, appearance can be deceiving...

I have made many pork chops in my life, and it is not uncommon for them to dry out in the end. Not this time! I have to say (I'm not exaggerating) these pork chops are the juiciest ribs and the perfect ribs I have eaten in decades. I was serious. They are perfect. Moreover, the bean sprouts are also roasted very well.

A few days later, one of the ribs was reheated in the Brava oven (Jenny was too big, I only cut one piece) just like freshly cooked. It is still almost as juicy as the other one.

Brava can use built-in recipes to easily cook your favorite foods and you don’t even know it is your favorite food. Now you can find more than 6000 recipes in their database through Brava's website, app and Brava search function in the oven itself. I like to use the Brava website the most because it is easier to see on the huge display connected to the MacBook Pro! 🙂

I use my laptop to browse the Brava website, which allows you to easily drill down to the recipes you are interested in. You can even filter by diet type (such as Keto and tray type), or even if you want to use two trays of recipes at the same time.

After you find the recipe you want to make, you can click on the small airplane icon and it will be sent to the oven and wait on the screen for you to start cooking gradually.

What if you can't find the recipe and want to make it yourself? no problem. You can use custom cooking options and save the recipe for future use.

Yes. Keeping it connected to your WiFi is required for firmware updates and weekly recipe updates, but it is not mandatory.

One of the main problems I see in the Brava oven is its size. It is very small. For my family, this is good because we only have two people who can cook. But for larger families, you may need to cook in batches. I also think that in terms of price, you should receive additional pallets instead of having to spend $50 on each pallet.

I have only used the Brava oven for a few weeks, but I have found it to be one of my favorite kitchen appliances that I have reviewed. I realize this is an expensive purchase, but in fact it can replace the microwave to reheat leftovers, ovens, air fryer, slow cooker and dehydrator, which means it takes up more space in your kitchen than all All of them are less of these devices. I think this would be great for people who have a small kitchen and like step-by-step cooking instructions.

Price: US$1295.00-US$1695.00 Purchase Location: Brava Source: The sample of this review is provided by Brava.

After cooking sausages and pork chops, how much cleaning was done on Brava?

Except for the tray? It's really nothing. It is self-cleaning. There were some splashes on the inside of the door, but I wiped it off with a damp cloth after it cooled.

Your email address will not be published. Required places have been marked *

Do not subscribe to all replies to my comments and notify me of follow-up comments via email. You can also subscribe without commenting.

This website is only used for information and entertainment purposes. The content is the views and opinions of the author and/or colleagues. All products and trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Without the express written permission of The Gadgeteer, it is forbidden to reproduce in whole or in part in any form or medium. All content and graphic elements are copyright © 1997-2021 Julie Strietelmeier and The Gadgeteer. all rights reserved.