The Coolest Pieces of Gear We Tested This Week

Certain seasons are linked to a kind of cookware. Summer has its grills, and when the mercury drops, winter can rightfully claim this Breville cooker. Inside this countertop, electric pod is a non-stick six-quart bowl that sits over a heating element. A control panel on the side, along with valves on top, let you pick from slow cooking or pressure cooking, with various presets for veggies, rice, and stock in between. There is even a reduce, sauté, and sear feature which saves you from having to use a separate pan on the stove.

We pressure cooked hunks of pork butt into shreds for sandwiches, slow cooked boneless short ribs, and even made rice pudding. If you’ve used Breville’s appliances before, the controls feel intuitive, but to the uninitiated, they can take some getting used to—we’ve used their gear for years and still get thrown off every so often.

In colder seasons having a hearty meal just feels right—this isn’t salad season. If you work from home, it makes even more sense to dump a handful of ingredients into the Fast Slow Pro in the morning—before the emailing begins—and set it to slow cook for hours. Come 7 p.m., there’s no reason to dash for takeout. Not much of a planner? Use the dead simple pressure cooker setting to crank out a pot roast in about an hour. That’s maybe our favorite part of using the Breville: we’re digging into larger tougher cuts of meat that are often less expensive because the slow heat (or high pressure, depending on how you cook it) turns that hunk of protein into something special.—Sal Vaglica, Men’s Journal Contributor

[$250; breville.com]

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