My chef friends Dennis and Eric adore combi ovens but I've been skeptical. About fifteen years ago, I was doing an Asian dumpling training session at Nestle headquarters and the chefs there were so excited about their combi oven in the kitchen. It can steam, bake, roast and so many other things. Let's try it out to steam dumplings, they said! We had made hundreds of dumplings to share with their colleagues for a tasting and I agreed to cook some of them in the oven. The oven can handle large quantities of food for crowds. Unfortunately, the oven we used back then didn't have enough steam so the dumplings were not cooked with enough suppleness. People loved them anyway for their freshly made skins and fillings. I was relieved.
Last year at a professional food service conference, I tried a hamburger that had been cooked in a Rational combi oven. The plush buns had been baked in the combi oven and the patty was seared and cooked in it separately and then assembled for tastings. It was a fantastic burger. That particular combi oven was for professional kitchens. The size of a small fridge, it's expensive but promises to replace many appliances in the kitchen. I've been curious about a home kitchen equivalent so I tried out the Ninja Combi, a compact countertop combi oven (more on what it is below!). Let's test drive the Ninja Combi to evaluate its capabilities and worthiness for your kitchen.
What is the Ninja Combi and what can it do?
This smallish squareish box describes itself as a multi-cooker that seems too good to be true. The Ninja.com product description promises the world:
- Every ingredient is perfectly cooked in minutes-juicy on the inside, crispy on the outside. It's the most effortless way to cook-the Combi Way™.
- FROZEN TO TABLE IN UNDER 30 MINUTES: No need to defrost-super-heated steam will quickly thaw frozen ingredients and cook them to a safe temperature in under 30 minutes.
- 14-in-1 VERSATILITY: Combi Meals, Combi Crisp, Combi Bake, Rice/Pasta, Sear/Sauté, Steam, Bake, Toast, Pizza, Slow Cook, Proof, Sous Vide, Air Fry, Broil.
- COMPLETE MEALS THAT COOK IN 15 MINS: Cook your proteins, veggies, and pasta or grains all at the same time and make a meal 50% faster than in a wall oven.
- ONE STOP SHOP IN YOUR KITCHEN: With its all-in-one functionality and included accessories, the Ninja Combi is the only appliance you will ever need-no more cluttered countertops and endless piles of dishes to clean afterward.
- EASY CLEANUP: The Combi Cooker Pan doubles as a serving dish and all accessories are dishwasher safe to make cleanup a breeze.
- NINJA COMBI™ COOKER TECHNOLOGY: HyperSteam and Air Fry combine to create juicy insides and deliciously crispy outsides all at once; super-heated steam evenly cooks and locks in juices while rapid cyclonic air crisps food to perfection.
On first looks, the Ninja Combi is a compact steam oven that's cleverly designed to allow home cooks to use efficiently dry and steam heat to cook food. Conventional ovens and air-fryers usually operate with just dry heat and the difference is how the air circulates. The steam aspect of any Combi oven is this: steam helps to keep food moist while cooking it faster than dry heat.
Many of us have limited counter space and households of four or less people. People also have limited time to cook and clean. Luxe combi ovens made by Miele cost thousands of dollars. Counter top ones can run $500. The Ninja Combi looks awkward (their designs will never win any awards) but it's more affordable than the competition -- about $200. Size and affordability makes the Ninja Combi attractive. Here's a video of how it works.
In summary, there's a little learning curve with the Ninja Combi. The instruction manual has minimal instructions and only on the top of the unit does it say to not operate the Ninja Combi under kitchen cabinets! By the way, the slider feet I stuck on the bottom of the Combi are these, which would work well on other countertop appliances too.
What I've cooked in the Ninja Combi thus far
I was excited for the air fry function so I put the Ninja Combi to the test with something that I've not succeeded in cooking in an air-fryer: fried squid! The squid usually comes out wind tunnel dry. In the Ninja Combi, it was chewy crisp, even after two tries. The flavor reminded me of squid that's been left to dry in the sun in Vietnam; there was a pleasant briny chew. Alas, the texture was not up to par, my husband said. I tried the air fry mode on a couple shrimp and they were much more successful than the squid.
Air-frying goes on atop the perforated tray. I coated the squid and shrimp with a little oil, then a mixture of salt, pepper, Thai rice flour and tapioca flour. In about 8 minutes on 390F, the shrimp were done. The squid took more like 20 minutes. Always shake and turn whatever you're air-frying to ensure even cooking. The Ninja Combi difference is this: food does not dry out as it does in a regular oven, toaster oven, or air-fryer. It has a lot to do with how it traps steam in the cooking chamber, I suspect.
In the above photo, the vapors coming out is steam from the squid. I didn't put any water into the oven. (And, if you're curious, we dipped the goodies in sweet Thai chili sauce.)
After the squid and shrimp, I did something easy: roast peanuts. They came out more evenly roasted than in the oven and were done faster than usual. I was very surprised. I used the bake setting. Then I moved on to something more interesting -- baking bread in the Ninja Combi.
Focaccia baking on the Ninja Combi bake mode
I did a side-by-side test of the foccaccia in the oven and in the Ninja Combi. In the Ninja, I selected the Combi bake mode, added 1 cup of water to the baking pan, put the perforated tray in place, then set the risen focaccia atop the tray. Then I put the whole thing in the Ninja Combi and set it to cook. I should have probably preheated it first but I was giddy with excitement and didn't know what I was doing! My bake was a whole wheat version of the focaccia recipe in Richard Hart Bread but put it in an 9-inch square pan; I applied 390F heat in the Ninja Combi and set the timer for 20 minutes.
As the video showed, the hypersteam action was real. You see so much steam emanating from the top vents of the oven during the baking process. What's also cool for geeky cooks like me is the bread browned practically before my eyes because you get a very close up look at the cooking process in the Ninja Combi. It's fun for food geeks like me. At the 15-minute mark using the Combi Bake mode, I turned down the heat to 350F to slow down cooking. I actually pulled the bread out at 18 minutes because it looked cooked and the temperature signaled doneness. Meanwhile, the regular oven had just preheated to 450F, the original recipe temperature.
What did the focaccia's interior look like? Here's a comparison of the oven-baked one and the focaccia that resulted from the Ninja Combi Bake mode.
The Combi baked bread is the lower one. Look at how the bubbles seemed to push more upwards in the Combi oven baked bread. The dough was the same batch. So, you get a different bake due to the steam action that happens for about half of the bake time. When you bake certain breads, steam is help for for crisp crust but I didn't think it would do much for focaccia. Guess I was wrong!
Clean up and summary thus far
As for cleaning the Ninja Combi, it was all much easier than expected. I washed the removable parts by hand but they are dishwasher safe. The oven gets very hot so after turning it off, I unplug it and leave the door open to hasten cooling. Then I wipe down the oven walls, if needed. The pans themselves, including the perforated tray was so much easier to clean than the tray for my Cuisinart air-fryer, which I have loved for many years.
Will the Cuisinart air-fryer be replaced by Ninja Combi? I don't know yet. These initial experiments with the Ninja Combi make it a very interesting appliance to play with. Let's see what else it can do and how well it can do it. I'm interested in what "combi crisp" does!
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