I received lots of good feedbacks about Saladmaster from my previous post which made me really happy because it confirmed my impression on the brand – effective, durable and with highly satisfied customers.

Now, are you familiar with the baking soda test?  You can try it at home.    First taste the baking soda (you will find it salty).   Then put a teaspoon of it in your pans and pots.

Pour half-glass water in each pot/pan and heat for 5 minutes.

Taste the heated liquid.   If it no longer tasted the same as the baking soda in pure form, then it means your pot/pan has chemicals that reacted with the baking soda, leaving an unpleasant chemical taste to the heated liquid mixture.    As most pans are made of porous metal sealing (like stainless steel, teflon, etc.), they will grab food tightly that’s why they must be oiled before cooking.

When a porous pan is heated, the “pores” open up and as it cools, it closes.   Now, imagine this, when you cook, the pores are opened up but since you can’t clean up a pan while it is hot, you wait for it too cool down (hence letting the pores close up first) before you wash it.  So the next time you use it for cooking, the pores will open up again – leading to the mix of the residue in the previous meal you made with the new one you’re cooking.

That explains the reason why sometimes when we repeat a dish it just won’t taste the same, even if you did not alter the ingredients or even their measurements.   The cookware’s chemical and metal composition is mostly likely the culprit.

I was able to taste the different after-taste of baking soda on our stainless steel pan, ceramic pan and even our coated pan.  All of them yielded a very bitter chemical taste in the baking soda mixture (especially the stainless steel pan which we used for only 2x!).    But with the Saladmaster sauce pan (which was used as part of the experiment), the baking soda retained its taste.

I really appreciated the demonstration conducted at our apartment by Kuya Rene and Ate Jane last week.     And it made me really crave for this skillet – which will help me realize my dream of baking a cake too!    Yes, you can bake a cake here (no need for an oven!)

Thanks so much, Kuya Rene and Ate Jane!  I am looking forward to owning my Saladmaster pieces soon!  (Update:  I am now a proud owner of Saladmaster cookware!)

If you wish to know more about Saladmaster, visit their website or drop me an email.    I’d love to hear from other Saladmaster users out there, too!

I remember when I was young, my mom would spend so much time at the cookware department of SM perusing their many brands of pots, frying pans and skillets.   She and my dad have invested in high-end cookware items over the years (Tefal is their favorite) and I could see why – it’s because cooking for the family is very important to them.   They not only love to cook – they love good food (!) – so we’ll have pasta or lengua with gravy and mushroom for no occasion at all or a very crispy liempo just because.

Unfortunately for me, I could not do just that on an ordinary day.   I work 8-5 and sometimes 8-8 and would rather go home with the dinner ready for me hehe.  But thanks to Kuya Rene and Ate Jane Chua – I might just be able to prepare our dinner quickly (and make it even healthier), whether I get home at past 6 or 8 in the evening.

Last Saturday, AJ and I had Kuya Rene and Ate Jane as guests in our little home, where they presented to us their products which, I have to admit, I heard only now.    All I know is that they are cookware items.   But I got really curious because they said they will be cooking a healthy lunch for me and AJ.  Wow!

True enough, the couple brought with them the ingredients below:

Then they played chef too as they prepared for us the following healthy dishes:

Crispy Fried Chicken cooked without a single drop of cooking oil:

Sinigang na Hipon cooked without water:

Barbequed Chicken Breast Fillet grilled without charcoal:

And Paella-style Rice that was left to cook until it became a beautiful and colorful rice meal like this:   

How’d they do it?

By using Saladmaster Cookware.   On the day of the cooking session, the couple brought with them the following Saladmaster products (from the left:  Wok with cover, Oil Core Electric Skillet with Electronic Probe and MP5 Oil Core):

Kuya/Chef Rene first prepared the Paella-Style Rice, which he made by mixing together his ingredients (of rice, chicken, chorizo, saffron and turmeric)  in the MP5 Oil Core then left it to cook with very minimal supervision:

Meanwhile, the Wok pan with cover was used to make the Sinigang na Hipon, and Chef Rene just put together all the ingredients in the Wok, followed by his secret mixture of calamansi and fish sauce (or patis):

Then he just covered the Wok.  Simple!

Would you believe that when he pulled the cover (after about 30 minutes or so), we already have this.  Definitely no stirring in between!

Cool, isn’t it??  I swear it was soo good and you won’t even look for that sampaloc (tamarind) taste.  The natural juices of the vegetables provided the broth for this dish, very healthy and yummy all the way!

So while the Sinigang was cooking in tself, Chef Rene proceeded to make his famous Fried Chicken recipe by putting the marinated chicken (half-frozen, in fact) in the Electric Skillet.    Look Ma, no oil!

You cover the skillet, and wait for the small covered hole to make a fast, tapping noise which will signal you to open the skillet already.   Time to turn the chickens to their other side to cook!

While these are being cooked, Ate Jane was grilling the marinated chicken breast at our open kitchen using Saladmaster’s Electric Griller:

What I love about their Griller was that it does not make use of charcoal and it doesn’t leave a greasy residue at the bottom because you will put water there, which will catch all the oil from the meat.   Very clean grilling, I must say!

This is how it looked like before the grilling started.   Water is poured first at the base of the griller before you start.

I wish the cooking session wouldn’t end so fast but it did – because the food cooked faster and easier with Saladmaster.  So before they even asked for it, I was already asking about the investment cost of these cookware.

I would learn that they were on the highly expensive side of the cookware line, like jewelries but with amazing health benefits!   Made of titanium surgical stainless steel – this is like a Rolex already that will last a lifetime with you and your family.    What more, they have a very smart cooking system that will enable me (and you) to cook low-fat, nutritious meals that taste incredibly yummy!   And, best of all, since I will be able to get rid of cooking oil, save on water and have less time in the kitchen – I will save precious time, energy and money!

If I was able to save up for jewelries that I seldom wear altogether, perhaps I could save also for one or two of Saladmaster cookware (am eyeing both the Wok Pan and Oil Core Electric Skillet with Electronic Probe).   Doable, right?    It’s the health benefits that I am after, now that I am at the prime of my age and needs to really take care of myself more now than before.

Plus, I learned something about the cookware items we are currently using which really made me consider Saladmaster and seriously think of investing in one.  I will share that with you in my next post.