Don’t Buy It, Until We Try It: Chef Basket | Video

Amy Fox | 12/28/2012

When you’re making dinner, it can take a lot of gadgets to boil, steam and fry your food. But, there may be a way to combine all those gadgets into one, handy tool. In this week`s "Don`t Buy It, Until We Try It," I tried out the Chef Basket.

The Chef Basket is advertised as a 12-in-1 kitchen tool. All you have to do is take it from the pot to the plate. It is advertised as ideal for steaming vegetables, deep frying foods and boiling pasta. But, does this product actually work? Well, "Don`t Buy It, Until We Try It."

Every morning, Sammy`s Pizza manager Angie Osborn`s daily routine begins at 9:00 with a little steaming, boiling and deep frying.

"The first person comes in that early because of the marinara sauce. And she`s got to start the soup and everything.”

Osborn says she always looking to save time in the kitchen.

"It can`t take very long when we are busy. It`s got to be quick."

So we decided to put the Chef Basket to the test. While the fryer was heating up, we pulled the basket out of the box. Then we put a hand full of breaded mushrooms in the Chef Basket and began frying.

Osborn said, "It doesn`t stand alone where I can walk away and do other things."

After three minutes, the mushrooms were finished. Next, it was time to steam some vegetables. We repeated the same steps, but this time, we had a little trouble getting the basket to stay in place. While the veggies were cooking, some of them fell out in the boiling water.

"The vegetables, you know, I did lose some in there, but not a lot," said Osborn.

Once we were done trying out the breaded mushrooms and vegetables, it was finally time to boil the pasta. We put a cup of penne pasta in the basket and waited for it to boil.

"It`s disappointing, isn`t it? They make it look like it holds it so nice, but it didn`t do very well with my penne, and we didn`t try the spaghetti and fettuccini today. But, I don`t think it would do very well with that then."

After putting the Chef Basket through the fryer and boiling water, the basket is a little lopsided. It looks like the heat really took a toll on the basket. The basket didn`t make cooking any easier, especially when we had to go fish out the vegetables and pasta in the boiling water. Not exactly what they advertise on TV. This week`s "Don`t Buy It, Until We Try It," earns a thumbs down.

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