George Foreman? Who Needs Him? (Tesco Health Grill)

Member Name: blonde_girl774

Product:	Tesco Health Grill
Date:	12/08/09 (170 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Compact Size, Easy to Clean, Great Price & Works Well.

Disadvantages: Only Offers One Temperature Setting.

Having recently moved into a new house with my boyfriend we are always on the look out during our weekly shop for bargain priced products. A couple of weeks ago when we first moved in we were browsing the electrical aisles in Tesco when we noticed their Health Grill was on special offer. Now I've always been a George Foreman kind of girl but sadly our moving in budget wouldn't quite stretch to one of those so we compromised by going for a cheaper model. While I was at University I practically lived off my George Foreman, I think I used it at least every other day and cooked pretty much anything and everything on it. As such I decided we couldn't possibly cope without one in our house and persuaded my boyfriend to take advantage of Tesco's special offer and purchase one of their Health Grills.

The Tesco HG35 Health Grill as it is known comes in a stylish black and silver colour which rather resembles one of the George Foreman models. On the top it simply has a small green and red light to alert you when the temperature has been reached but apart from that it's quite plain looking. It's just over 33cm in length, 31cm in width and 19cm in height making it quite small in comparison to some grills out there but adequately big enough for just the two of us and our needs. The grill is identical to the many other grills out there in that it comes stood on small legs to elevate it from the work surface and you simply need to lift up the lid to open it. There are grills on both the top and the bottom meaning that food is cooked on both sides, different to a normal oven grill where you need to turn the food to ensure it's cooked on both sides.

The grill comes complete with a drip tray which is to be placed at the bottom of the grill to accommodate any fat or grease that drips off during the cooking process. It also comes complete with a spatula for moving the food around on the grill to ensure it doesn't get stuck at all. The cooking surface is advertised as being non stick although it does recommend that you use an oil spray or something similar prior to cooking. Using the grill is very simple; you need to plug it in at a wall socket whereby the red light will come on to show you it's heating up. Once the green light comes on it means the grill has heated up enough and is now ready for you to cook on, this takes about one to two minutes I find. Before you cook remember to use some sort of dry oil spray and then simply place your food on the health grill and put the lid down to let it cook thoroughly.

One thing to point out is that this grill doesn't cope the best with oddly shaped food, my old George Foreman had a floating hinge where the two plates could accommodate even unusual shaped pieces of meat and so forth but this grill doesn't seem to cope as well. The actual grill size is fairly good and is about 32cm in length and 29cm in width which is large enough to accommodate four medium sized chicken breasts. With regards to what you can cook on the Tesco Health Grill it's really no different to any other grill so you can cook meats, toasted sandwiches, vegetables, etc. I've used it to cook lots of different things so far from beef burgers to pork chops to steak strips complete with mushrooms and onions too! It's a really versatile product and my mum even suggested frying an egg on it although I'm not so sure how this would work out!

In terms of time I find you can halve the time it would take to cook the food under a normal grill as you don't need to turn it over like you do with a normal grill. I find that most things cook within ten minutes, onions seem to take about six minutes to get them really golden and chicken breasts take about ten minutes to ensure they're thoroughly cooked. I think the grill gives a really good flavour, especially to foods such as chicken which can taste quite bland. It adds a slightly barbequed flavour almost mixed with a chargrilled effect which makes the food delicious. The other thing I really like is that the food doesn't dry out at all using this grill, although it encourages the fat to drain off into the drip tray the food itself stays really moist - I recently cooked some pork steaks and they were so moist and tender, much better than a normal grill!

Now onto my favourite part of the cooking process... the cleaning! I really don't have a problem doing the actual cooking but I absolutely hate cleaning up after myself. However this grill really does save me time, as the grill plates are non stick this means it's easy to wipe of the food residue while the grill is still warm. As long as you use butter or an oil spray this is a really effective way to clean it, a damp cloth will leave it looking as good as new! Once a week I tend to clean it with hot soapy water to give it a thorough cleaning, if there are any hard to move marks simply spraying a bit of an oil spray on will loosen these and make it easier to remove them. The drip tray and spatula are both dishwasher proof and come up clean after a short visit to my dishwasher. After using this it takes about a minute to clean it, brilliant!

Now as with the majority of things I buy I very rarely find them to be perfect. There are a few issues that I've had with my Tesco HG35 Health Grill, firstly you can't remove the grill plates from the device which means you can't really give them a thorough clean or soak them in hot water to remove stubborn stains. This seems to be quite a common problem with products like this but I would personally prefer to be able to detach mine and wash them that way. Secondly there is no temperature control on the Tesco grill, it heats up to and maintains the same temperature the whole time it's switched on which isn't always ideal as sometimes I'd like to lower the temperature to slow down the cooking process or for various other reasons. My old George Foreman had five different temperature settings which was a really good feature of it.

This grill is priced at £14.65 in Tesco although I managed to grab mine when it had a £3 saving on it making it an excellent buy. George Foreman grills start at about the £20 mark so mine was a much cheaper option. I definitely think that this grill is worth the money, for just over £10 it's a cheaper alternative to the ever popular George Foreman. I'd recommend this grill to anyone looking for one, it's really easy to clean, easy to use and it produces really good results. My boyfriend and I use it all the time, from cooking bacon sandwiches at a weekend to cooking our tea each night. It's really versatile and it comes with a two year guarantee as well from Tesco. Apart from my two little complaints which I mentioned above it certainly is a bargain product with great results, they just need to make the plates detachable and add temperature control!

Thanks for reading.

Summary: A small health grill from Tesco.