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- Verified Buyer
Admittedly, after reading many of the reviews, i was quite hesitant. However, I used Amazon rewards earned from doing surveys, so I didn't feel like paying only $7 our-of-pocket for a $45.95 item would seem so bad if this thing failed. At the last minute, based on comments about the warranty, I did look at the ICHICH brand offered, but had never heard of, despite what sounded like a far better warranty. Anyway, I have had it a couple of weeks, and it has actually helped me to sort of like the kitchen and cooking. (Most of my friends/family know I HATE the kitchen and cooking.) I did tell a friend, who is a professional cook, and he agreed good name brand. He also agreed, despite non-stick cooking surface, to use cooking spray, which I have done--except for grilled cheese, bagels, or other sandwiches, bagels, etc to griddle for which I butter the bread that goes on the cooking plate vs cooking spray. As well, it had helped to have previewed the video and learn some of the item's "quirks" to be aware of upon arrival. E.G. Green light shows up to temperature, but temp will drop when food placed, but does come back up to temp., sometimes more quickly than other times, seeming to depend on how thick the food is and if in closed cooking position. (My electric range for baking does about the same thing for a few seconds when I open the door and place food to bake.) The very first thing I cooked were hamburgers. I set to the 'well done' as per instructions for temp which is what my hubby likes. I figured I would just take mine off a little early as I like medium to medium-rare, but I got distracted. They came out perfect for his well done! I did goof with my first experience with chicken breasts which made me pay more attention to the settings! LOL! I thought I had turned the dial to high, but the chicken was taking forever; then I realized, I had not pointed the lighted end of the dial to the high temp. DUH! Even with the error, I cooked huge chicken breasts on the grill in about 15 minutes! Juicy and very good! First thin salmon filet cooked in about 10 min; next time thicker filets took about 15 min! Turkey bacon on the griddle-- watch closely. Hubby likes his really crispy. I should have taken mine off when it looked like still droopy, but the crispy was okay. Further, we always cook the entire package and freeze the leftovers to micro later for other meals/sandwiches, etc. Definitely would want to take off earlier than crispy for those not being eaten immediately! Grilled cheese and grilled ham with cheese have been PERFECT based on settings and time--on the griddle-opened. Tuna melts in hamburger rolls with cheese slice on panini using the grill plates, as I wanted the little toasted marks gave another PERFECT result. For once in my life, something actually came out looking like a photo in a magazine! Marinated pork chops were to "die" for as per grill and time given in instructions, with cover closed! In the summer, my hubby travels a lot, and I tend to not cook for just myself, mostly because the cast-iron skillet (which I LOVE), is too heavy for me to carry across our huge kitchen to get to the sink and difficult for me to scrup with serious RA. I will definitely love having this little griddler. Am using 2 to 4 times a week with cooking spray except for grilled sandwiches, such as grilled cheese for which I butter its bread. (Have not tried eggs yet, mostly because hubby cooks when we have eggs, and he won't use the griddler--doesn't like to try new gadgets! LOL) His loss. . . . BTW: Heat distribution: I used in open position for the bacon on both panels and found both sides to cook at the same timing. Would need to try something else to verify heat distribution, so my 5-star heat distribution may be biased. Temp control: knowing it loses heat when food placed and then comes back up to temp to green, does not deter my rating in this arena. I LOVE THIS GRIDDLER!ADDENDUM: I still love this gadget. I attempted to answer a question from someone who had asked if BBQ sauce could be used. As I was answering, I got a red flag, saying the link had expired--DRAT! Anyway, here is my response to if one can use BBQ sauce with this appliance: Yes! I've had excellent results using the grill plates and using teriyaki sauce or BBQ sauce. What I have done, just trying it all out is as follows: 1. The first time I just brushed teriyaki sauce onto my burger on its top, slid spatula under, and when I got to the grill, I flipped the sauced side down. This leaves the top of the burger available to brush sauce on it. (The beauty of this grill: put the cover down and you don't have to keep flipping the burgers which can cause them to dry out. Not having to flip, has given really juicy, flavorful burgers. 2. The 2nd time, I had bought a London broil and marinated it in a bowl in the refrigerator for a day and overnight. (during the day, I flipped in the bowl periodically, to make sure teriyaki was getting into both sides of the steak). I got my "pinky perfect--i.e. medium rare on grill/sear for 4 to 5 minutes. 3. BARBECUE SAUCE--with steak. I put some sauce in the bottom of a bowl, placed steak in the bowl; then coated the top. I let it sit overnight in a covered bowl. Again, used grill/sear for 4-5 minutes and got pinky perfect--i.e. medium rare. NOTE: Before I bought this grill, a friend of mine who is a professional chef agreed with me to USE COOKING SPRAY ON THE GRILL/GRIDDLE even though non-stick surface. The only time I have not used cooking spray was when I made grilled cheese, for which I melt and brush melted butter on the sandwiches before grilling. I brush melted butter on the top of the sandwich, pick up with spatula and flip to put the buttered side down on the grill first, which puts the unbuttered side up. Brush melted butter on the top, close the cover and VOILA! As much as I despise the kitchen and cooking, this little gadget has been my GODSEND! I have RA and as much as I love a cast-iron skillet, when my husband is gone, I struggle getting the skillet to the sink to wash and hard for me to scrub. Now, I don't hesitate to cook a hot meal for myself when he is gone. EASY PEEZY clean up with no scrubbing, just a dish rag, and everything cooks perfectly. BTW: I LOVE my salmon on this grill. As with the steak, I have marinated in teriyaki sauce overnight; and I have also marinated in maple syrup---Spraying cooking oil has been another 'key" to the easy cleanup after the sticky sauces! YUMMY! YUMMY! Hope this helps, and I hope you enjoy your Cuisinart grill/griddler as much as I do! Blessings! JJI absolutely love this thing! For the longest I just wanted a sandwich press to make my sandwiches at home a little bit more gourmet. I started researching best sandwich pressers and this popped up constantly. But once I got it at home I realized that it could do so much more and I've been using it like crazy.So far I've only used this machine to make French toast and pressed sandwiches but looking at the manual which also comes with recipes I am highly excited to try the other things I've seen such as pancakes, breakfast tortas, French toast, hash browns, burgers, quesadillas, salmon, Cuban sandwiches, kabobs, grilled chicken, pork chops, fajitas, steaks, paninis and more. You can flip the plates around and have two griddles or a griddle and a grill or two grills. With this combination it allows you to make eggs and bacon on one side and to grill a meat on the other side. There's even additional plates that you can purchase to make it a nice big waffle maker which I will be buying soon.Here's a list of my pros and cons.Pros:- this thing looks very handsome and professional in the kitchen- time it takes to heat up to be able to start using is pretty quick I would say just a couple minutes- this comes with a small plastic scraper tool that fits perfectly into the griddle ridges to make cleanup easy- the LCD screen is very easy to read and makes a beep sound whenever it's ready to use- big enough to press three hoagie sandwiches at the same time- it can close or open up flat to cook on both sides- the booklet itself comes with amazing recipes- it's awesome that you can flip the plates around and have a grill and a griddle or two griddles or two grills and I love that you can also buy waffle plates for this as well this makes at least three machines in your kitchen obsolete and you can just have this one machine and switch out the plates as needed.Cons:- just about one of the only things I would change on this machine is the knob that lets you select grill or griddle and this is also used to change the temperature. Instead of just continuing to turn it to the left or to the right and having the temperature continue to go up or down you just turn it a little bit and you have to continue doing that to increase the temperature to the left or the right I would have preferred just a smooth premium knob that you can continue to turn all the way to the right or all the way to the left.Ultimately I would say buy this machine and you won't be disappointed. You'll have fun making recipes that you probably never used to make just because of how easy it will be. You might find yourself going from boring meals to fancy meals!We had the original griddler for at least 10 yrs. It served us well and we used it mostly during late fall and over the winter when BBQing wasn't an option.When I saw the the new griddler I immediately saw that they had changed some of the features that I didn't like on the original.1. The plates are now reversible from grill to flat so you don't have to store the extra set of plates.2. The grease catching system is now enclosed rather than positioning 2 cups near the edges to catch the drips, which was awkward as if they weren't positioned perfectly the grease ended up on the counter and they tipped easily if you accidentally hit them. I used to just place some paper towel on the counter at each corner to catch any drips.3. the space between the grills is wider allowing for easier clean up and the coating seems better than before.We use it often, mostly as a grill and panini press but occasionally the flat side for pancakes.All in all it is a great product and am looking forward to using it for at least another 10 years.I would have given this a higher score if it was exactly what it claims to be, but the 5-in-1 is a complete stretch.The top grill seems to have a lower temperature than the lower grill, so you really have to watch the bottom and not judge if something is done by the top. Also the bottom grill, if using to cook on directly the area towards the front of the plate is hotter than the back. Not sure why it's like that. Maybe I got a dud?Panini's are great, don't get me wrong, but if you plan on using this for the griddle function or to use the grill to make burgers etc, I'd look elsewhere. I made a bacon and egg meal using the griddle and had the temp on high, and it took forever to cook my food. Not only did it take ages to get back up to temperature, because it wasn't holding temp very well the egg I put on the griddle starting going straight into the drip tray in the back because the surface isn't completely flat to let grease get into the tray. Little disappointing because I was hoping to mainly use it for panini's and pancakes, but even pancakes, it takes too long to bother. It does get very hot, but the distribution and retention is horrible.I've used it for making steak and chicken, and while it does a decent job, it doesn't really give the meat a nice sear unless you leave it too long and dry it out.A+ for Panini's F for everything else.Have used this for a couple months now and really enjoy it. The grease trap works well, the plates are easy to clean, and it cooks my food thoroughly. Certainly a lot better than making things in a fry pan.As others have said is the top plate doesn't get quite as hot as the bottom, likely due to the whole "hot air rises" thing. They probably should have bumped up the power in the top element to compensate, though that could have caused problems when you open it flat and use both plates. It's not a huge difference, and if it bothers you a simple solution is to flip your food half-way through the cooking.Another issue is the "hot" part of each plate is more towards the middle, the edges don't get nearly the same heat, just due to where the element is under the plates: The element only starts a few cm from the edge. My guess is this was intentional as otherwise the body of the grill would get dangerously hot (not that it's exactly safe now, but I can imagine it being a lot worse). As such, you really can't get more than about 2 normal-sized hamburgers or sandwiches cooking on there at once unless you don't mind rotating them and moving them around to get them all cooked evenly. The plates are some kind of Teflon-coated metal so they do spread the heat around but again due to the laws of thermodynamics you just can't get it to be the same temperature all the way to the edge. I don't consider it a huge problem as food cooks really fast on this compared to other options, but it's something to keep in mind if you hope to make a lot of food at a time.A few other issues people should be aware of before buying this:- The top plate is rather heavy. Great for a panini press, but if you are hoping to make something like a grilled cheese sandwich you may need to stick something between the halves to prevent crushing your bread (unless you like that)- The top plate unlocks to freely rotate to ensure proper contact with food of various heights. However, this means when you go to open it the top tends to stay horizontal, which can lead to dripping fat/oil behind the unit. Solved by using a spatula or oven mitt to push the top-plate back into the "locked" position as you lift it so it keeps dripping onto the bottom plate and into the drip tray- The drip tray is not cat-proof.- The metal body of the grill gets REALLY hot; the handle is fine but you'll need oven mitts to touch any other part.Overall, great product, would buy again, but there's always room for improvements!I loved the look of this device as seen in Amazon marketplace however after receiving it I discovered it’s only for US electrical supplies. It had to be returned. I was disappointed to discover Cuisinart don’t supply a U.K. version - U.K. models are inferior in facilitiesReally struggles to maintain heat in griddle setting. Not great for frying eggs, French toast, or anything that requires a sustained frying temperature. It takes forever to get up to temperature, holds it for about 10-15 seconds and cools way down and takes several minutes to recover (frying an egg took 20 minutes to get up to heat and get it barely cooked)Works well in panini mode, grilling chicken was quick and the removable plates made cleaning easy, but thats all I'd expect to use it for from now onUPDATE: Total waste of money. Really cannot hold heat for more than a few seconds in any mode. Very disappointing, better off buying separate appliances that can do what they are supposed to
