ADVERTORIAL
With hundreds of shoots held in our food studios each year, our Test Kitchen experts were keen to put the LG Series 9 – 76L InstaView Full Steam Oven with Blue EasyClean™ and 80cm Induction Cooktop with Power Boost through their paces.
We put all the oven functions to the test, including using the air fryer function for crispy pork belly and the steam sous vide function for a duck breast. And used the induction cooktop for low and high heat cooking.
Here’s the lowdown.
LG InstaView™ 6-in-1 Oven and Induction Cooktop review
- Good for: Busy families wanting to claw back time with programmable oven functions plus confident cooks looking for pro-applications to expand their cooking game.
What we love
- Slick design
- 24 heating modes in one multi-tasking oven
- Being able to peek at our food with a double knock on the oven door
- Precision temperature control
- Cleaning made easy with the touch of a button or the wipe of a cloth
What you need to know
- You will need induction compatible cookware to use the cooktop
- Care is required when opening the door after using the steam function as steam can cause burns
- A micro cloth (or two) is needed to remove smudges and smears to preserve the matte black glass finish of the oven and the Schott Ceran® black glass cooktop
What’s so special about the LG Steam Oven & Induction Cooktop?
- The oven offers six main cooking functions: convection baking, steaming, air frying, steam sous vide, dehydrating and pizza mode.
- Oven features include telescopic rails for safe handling of hot trays and a soft-closing and opening door mechanism.
- The Blue EasyClean™ technology has a 10-minute cleaning cycle, which can help keep your oven looking like new if used regularly. Plus, a deep clean setting.
- The oven door’s InstaView™ technology allows you to check on a dish without opening the oven door. With two quick knocks it will light up for visual cooking checks. The blue interior enhances visibility.
- This induction cooktop is fast, responsive and highly controllable. It features four-zones, 15 power levels, a boost setting, digital display as well as touch and slide controls.
- Busy cooks will enjoy the flexibility of setting a separate timer for each cooking zone on the induction cooktop. Plus, its safety features – zones switch off automatically after a minute, if you do happen to accidentally leave something on.
- The induction cooktop is easy to clean as there are no trivets and gas burners to wipe around.
LG Steam Oven & Induction Cooktop: materials and size
- Generous 76L matte black glass door oven with patented easy-clean enamel interior
- White LED oven lights and touch screen oven glass
- Aluminium oven handle in black stainless-steel colour
- This LG Induction Cooktop is 80cm long and has 4 zones including 1 flexi-zone cooktop.
Results from our test
LG Series 9 76L InstaView Steam Oven
For our road test we ran a recipe tailored to each mode.
Pizza mode
This uses the bottom and back wall elements in tandem with the fan. It didn’t matter which tray we used, all the pizzas had a beautiful crisp base and rise. There is also a Proof setting for dough, handy in winter months when it’s cold and equally useful in summer to control the speed of the rise.
Air frying
The Test Kitchen team have used more than their fair share of countertop air fryers and love the results they deliver. Sometimes you do need a larger capacity, which is where an oven with an Air Fry function can be useful. For our test, we tried pork belly and potatoes together. The large piece of pork alone would have been a struggle to fit in most air fryers and the crackling and potatoes were spot on. You do need to factor in longer cooking times than a countertop unit for some recipes.
Steaming
The oven’s Steam Mode is a healthy way to cook delicate food, such as seafood and eggs that are easily overcooked. We tested fish fillets and were pleased with the perfect fork, flaky moist fish.
Steaming Sous Vide
The Steam Mode has other applications, one of which is sous vide cooking (which translates as under vacuum). To get started, you also need a vacuum sealer and bags to seal the food in. Typically to sous vide, you’d need a specialised countertop appliance filled with water in order to cook at a consistent low temperature, but not here, the oven will do it all. For our test, it was as simple as placing duck breasts and a few aromatics in a bag, vacuum sealing and popping them into the oven on Sous Vide Steam Mode.
To finish the duck, we placed it skin-side down in a hot pan on the induction cooktop for 5 minutes to crisp before flipping briefly to the other side. The result was restaurant-quality impressive at our first go at sous vide.
Dehydrating
For the Drying Mode test, we tried our Popcorn Cauliflower recipe and loved that we were able to cook a larger batch of the recipe. We’d recommend this mode for making healthy children’s snacks and citrus slice garnishes.
Convection
We live and breathe cakes in the Test Kitchen, so it was only fitting that one of our tests included a cake. For this setting, we tested a twist on our Basque Cheesecake, finishing it using the oven’s grill to nail the prerequisite dark top. Testers commented on the even cooking and silky texture.
Other functions
Beyond combining six appliances into one oven, this clever oven includes countless other useful functions, such as defrost mode, cooking from frozen, dish warmer, grill options and much more. The standout smart intuitive technology makes the cooking experience confident and joyful, while assisting with the duller stuff, like monitoring, precision control, taking the guess work out of settings for food. Plus, the dreaded cleaning, leaving more time for the good stuff
LG induction cooktop
The ability to control the cooktop’s temperature with precision makes this appliance so versatile. The temperature can be set low enough to melt chocolate directly in a pan, without the need for a bowl over simmering water, while the Boost function enables fast boiling of liquids or preheating of pans for searing food.
We tested making caramel and were impressed at how evenly the syrup changed from clear to golden, to amber.
Where to buy LG Kitchen Collection appliances?
Available at The Good Guys and LG.com.
How do induction cooktops work?
Induction is an economical and efficient way of cooking that uses an electromagnetic current to generate heat directly in cookware which in turn heats the food. To work, it requires compatible pans, which you’ll find are most good-quality, flat-based pans made of stainless steel, carbon steel, cast-iron and nickel, all of which contain ferrous magnetic metals. Aluminium and ceramic pans don’t and therefore won’t work. Carbon steel woks will work, providing the base is flat. If in doubt, a quick test with a magnet will confirm if your cookware is suitable.
