Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Brava and I was gifted a Brava to use and test out. Thank you for supporting the brands I love – your support helps me keep my blog running. The opinions in the post are entirely my own.
Brava Oven kitchen experiments, as a new user !
As a new owner and user of the Brava oven, I want to share my Brava kitchen experiments with you, so you can see how food turns out in the oven.
I have documented the various functions that I have used, what dishes I have cooked, as well as feedback on the outcome of each function. As a bonus, I have a detailed video below that showcases all the experiments I mentioned in the post.
Using the oven often is the best way to understand the oven’s capabilities. Let the cooking and food speak for itself!
How to cook with Brava?
First of all, let’s learn more about the Brava and how it cooks! The Brava is a beautiful smart countertop appliance that uses pure light cooking technology, paired with Brava Chef-developed recipe programs to create delicious meals.
Using light means that food can be targeted and adjusted resulting in food cooked to your desired doneness. The countertop unit connects to your Wi-Fi and has a touch screen right on the oven, with a companion Brava app.
The 3-zone cooking enables users to combine foods on one tray at the same time with double decker cooks to make even more food at once. The touch screen also tells the user which zones to use depending on the quantity and recipe. Additionally, users can watch their food cook on the Brava screen or or on the app.
The Brava has 8 cooking features including sear, roast, bake, air-fry, dehydrate, slow-cook, toast, and reheat.
Ways that Brava will save you time!
- No pre-heating (except when baking)
- It can heat up to 500 degrees F in under a second!
- 2X-4X speed of a traditional oven
- 3-zone cooking to enable you to cook a combination of foods on one tray at the same time
- Over 1000 chef-developed recipes for restaurant-quality meals at the press of a button
Read my full review of the Brava and guide for first time users.
My fun kitchen experiments!
The cooking features I have used?
Over the past few weeks, I have used the cook feature, sear, toast and reheat function. Let’s see what I have cooked.
Cook function
Let’s get crackin’!
The first thing I cooked was eggs using the Brava egg pan. I was amazed that I could cook four eggs in four to six minutes.
For the fried eggs, I sprayed the pan with cooking spray and seasoned the cracked eggs with a bit of salt and black pepper. I found the default timing to be a tad overdone and will lower the timing next time. The over easy eggs did not require the cooking spray, and came out to my liking with a runny yolk.
Momma Mia!
We are pizza obsessed in our house and happy to say that the Brava does pizza very well!
We often use naan bread at home to cook pepperoni pizza and I used the “French Bread” setting. I was able to get a cheesy pizza with crispy pepperonis and crust. It all took only eight minutes based on the default time.
The Brava is only able to cook one pizza at a time and I am hoping it can cook two in the future.
I have not mastered how to stretch fresh dough but ideally the dough is evenly spread out in the metal pan. Similar to the naan pizza, I am happy with the results that included a crust that’s fully cooked through (even the sections where the dough was thick). In the end, I got a crispy crust in twelve minutes.
Croutons
I was happily surprised to see that there was a crouton recipe on the Brava. The croutons took a tad longer than if I used the toast function in the Brava but they were perfect. They were toasted all around, golden, and crunchy. I simply drizzled the croutons with extra virgin olive oil and salt.
Using the TempSensor
I tested the TempSensor on chicken drumsticks that were simply seasoned with salt and black pepper. The sensor was easy to use! The probe was fully inserted into the thickest part of the protein sideways and the other end was plugged into the Brava.
What I liked was that the chicken did not need to be at room temperature first. I pulled the cold chicken out of the fridge and into the Brava.
The chicken was first estimated to be cooked between 30-40 minutes but took only 15 minutes. I was amazed how fast the whole process ended up being. It resulted in a chicken that was golden and seared on one side.
Reheating food
The reheat is a great function over the microwave; not only for speed, but also to evenly cook the dishes back to when it was first cooked.
I reheated the chicken drumsticks in six minutes and they were revived!
Toast function
I was able to toast two bagels in about two to four minutes. The default timing toasted the bagels to a perfect golden brown. Some parts of the bagel were more golden than others, but I can live with that.
Sear Function
I went off the beaten path and did not follow recipe instructions for this dish but it turned out great. I decided to “sear” pre-brined pork chops that were less than one inch thick.
Make sure to pat dry the pork chops and have as little liquid in the pan as possible to get a good sear.
I had six pork chops and cooked them two at a time in zones one and two while testing various timings and sear options. The sear options include bottom sear, top sear, or top and bottom sear. My preferred option was using top and bottom sear for nine minutes, four minutes one side and then flipped and cooked for another five minutes.
They were incredibly juicy, fully cooked through, and delicious!!
Combination dishes
My last test was to cook two ingredients at the same time in the Brava. I chose bacon and eggs and it was easy to do. About five strips of bacon are added to the pan and cooked first in the Brava and then the eggs are cooked with the bacon for a short period of time. The multistep was to ensure the eggs do not overcook.
I retouched the bacon a few times to get it to my desired crispiness. The total time was about fourteen minutes for four eggs and strips of bacon.
I’m looking forward to trying the Custom cook, baking feature, and other cooking features!
Join the Brava Community and share your kitchen experiments in the Facebook community. Connect with me on Instagram @maryshappybelly where I am most active, and let’s talk all things Brava and your home cooked meals.
Tips for Brava kitchen experiments for new users
- Do follow all on-screen instructions before you start a recipe program. On the Brava, the LCD interface has a touch screen.
- Use “default” timing option suggested by Brava, and then adjust the timing after your first try.
- Have fun and cook often with the Brava!
See my Kitchen Experiment YouTube Video and like, comment and subscribe to my channel!
Follow Brava on Social Media
- Website: https://www.brava.com/
- Facebook: /bravahome
- Twitter: @MyBravaHome
- Instagram: @bravahome
- Hashtags: #Bravalife #BravaLife #Brava
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