Monsieur Cuisine Connect under test: cheap Lidl food processor

With Monsieur Cuisine Connect, Lidl will provide smart kitchen machines starting, at a fraction of the price of Vorwerk Thermomix. Is it worth buying or is Lidl bargaining? Our test of Monsieur Cuisine Connect will tell you.

table of Contents

1. Price setting and availability
2. Alternatives to Monsieur Cuisine Connect
   1. Mr. Gourmet Plus
   2. Thermomix TM5 and TM6
   3. Krups prepares and cooks
3. Mr. Cooking Test Report
4. Processing and construction
5. Setup and commissioning
6. Overview of important dates
7. Continuous development
8. Cooking pilots achieve your goals more easily
9. basic skills
10. Cover collapse
11. Applicable smartphone and tablet applications
12. clean
13. in conclusion

In May 2018, the Monsieur Cuisine Connect kitchen machine was launched for the first time at a price of 299 Euros and was sold out within a few hours. While interested customers waited for months of replenishment, this food processor was offered on eBay or eBay classified ads at an astonishing price, up to 600 euros. The popularity of kitchen helpers continues to grow. Mr. Gourmet’s food was sold on the market again, and was quickly sold out.

Price setting and availability

From May 7, 2020, the food processor will be available again in the Lidl branch and will be launched soon. However, you must study the pocket more deeply, because the device is now priced at 349 euros instead of 299 euros. However, you will receive a second spatula for this, which is not available when the market launches. For this set of products, Silvercrest, the manufacturer of Lidl, usually asks for 399 euros.

The official export of Monsieur Cuisine Connect is still Lidl. Occasionally, kitchen machines are briefly used in two other stores, but this is no longer the case. Sometimes, you can buy a kitchen helper at the same price on the eBay auction platform, but the price increase here is very dynamic. After Lidl was sold, prices often skyrocketed. We do not recommend that you purchase Monsieur Cuisine Connect at an excessive price in other markets. Usually, discount stores will restock every six to twelve months.

Alternatives to Monsieur Cuisine Connect

If you are unlucky and do not want to wait for the purchase of a smart food processor, we will introduce some alternatives for you below. However, you will either have to reduce the various features or study more deeply when you buy.

Mr. Gourmet Plus

Monsieur Cuisine Plus is the direct predecessor of the Connect model and is still available for purchase. At Lidl itself, the machine is currently out of stock, but it usually costs about 180 Euros. On eBay, you can usually buy the device permanently for about 170 Euros-of course it is new. The cheap version masters almost all the functions of the successor, but you have to make some cuts. Therefore, there is only a small, untouchable display in the cooking container, and there is no scale. In addition, lack of cooking assistant and WiFi connection. From there, you can get a high-quality food processor with many automated programs at a very reasonable price.

Thermomix TM5 and TM6

With Thermomix TM5, you can find real but more expensive alternatives. However, Vorwerk can currently only purchase the successor TM6. On eBay, you can get Thermomix TM5 for about 1,000 euros. This device has the same functions as Monsieur Cuisine, and first convinced us with its excellent manufacturing quality in the test. Starting at about 360 Euros, Vorwerk can provide the follow-up model TM6. Monsieur Cuisine Connect surpasses this function in function. The food processor can be cooked in vacuum, fermented, caramelized, slowly cooked and fried.

Krups prepares and cooks

Another option is Krups Prep & Cook. You can buy food processors from various retailers for about 359 euros. Compared with Monsieur Cuisine Connect, the device has a power of 1,550 watts and a significantly higher output power. There are various automatic preparation procedures, but you can complete some functions of the Lidl competition without the help of this kitchen helper. There is no built-in scale, and there is no cook assistant on board. There are many accessories and powerful and quiet motors.

Mr. Cooking Test Report

You do not yet fully understand whether Monsieur Cuisine Connect can fully meet your expectations, what is the build quality and what functions can be used? In the following content, you can read our detailed test report to understand the performance of Monsieur Cuisine Connect in daily cooking and what the device can do.

Processing and construction

If you bought Monsieur Cuisine Connect from Lidl, it is best to drive with a car and a neatly equipped trunk. The device comes with many accessories, so the packaging is very thick and not light. In addition to the actual food processor (including stainless steel mixing vessel and lid), additional steam cooking accessories (with flat cooking inserts and measuring cups), mixing devices, spatulas and cooking inserts are also included.

After assembling the components for the first time, it is certain that all components are very compact without any rattling-in general, the processing of all parts has left a good impression. At first we had doubts, because all the components are made of plastic, but it turns out that they are stable in the test. Only Gai mechanics have caused difficulties in the past, and more in the future. Like the previous Monsieur Cuisine Plus, the food processor is fixed to the floor using suction cups. This is particularly beneficial when preparing pizza dough where the machine must work hard.

Mr. Food is best placed on the kitchen countertop or other solid surface. Do not use a crumbling table. Planning enough space is also important, because the height of the device is getting higher and higher, with cooking accessories on the top, and the steam will escape upwards during cooking or cooking. Therefore, it is not recommended to operate under the wall cabinet.

Setup and commissioning

Once the device has found its place in the kitchen, it can be set up. This is done through a 7-inch color display with touch input. Even for novices, control and operation are very simple and easy to understand, and finger input can be performed without delay. Inside the facility, we create a user account and connect to our home WiFi.

Mr. Gourmet Connection

You can also use the food processor offline, but there are almost 160 recipes for you to cook. On the other hand, through an Internet connection, you can access more than 140 other recipe suggestions that are regularly updated. In addition, kitchen machines will continue to receive updates in the future, for example, to eliminate errors or add new functions. Once Monsieur Cuisine Connect is established, you can start cooking.

Overview of important dates

Continuous development

With the introduction of new models, smart kitchen machines have continued to develop. The first thing that will definitely draw your attention is the new screen. All physical buttons have been deleted, and everything can now be controlled by finger input. There is only one large control button below the display. Or, you can use it to press and turn. A good idea for developers, because sometimes it is difficult to operate the screen with wet fingers-for example, we know this effect from a smartphone.

Otherwise, the new presentation will be a great thing: we can flip through the recipes and see the mouth-watering pictures of meals directly. The ingredient list and recipe instructions are easy to read, and there are no problems with mixing and cooking levels and timing adjustments.

If the previous product did not have an external scale for the mixing container, it is now directly integrated under the container. Therefore, you can weigh the ingredients (up to 5 kg) directly in the blender cup without washing another jar. Even if the integrated scale still has defects, it is very practical: unfortunately, the weighing will work later.

If you add about 150 grams of flour to the recipe, you must be careful when pouring the flour, because the weight display will only change after about a second. Therefore, in our testing, we added too many things several times. In the worst case, you will mess up the recipe and must start again. We hope that this issue can be resolved through software updates.

Cooking pilots achieve your goals more easily

A new core function is the so-called Digital Cooking Assistant Cooking Pilot. If you decide to use one of about 300 recipes, the digital assistant will guide you through the entire cooking process. To this end, the ingredients required are listed, and then the “cooking pilot” will guide you through each step. These are displayed on the display, unfortunately, there is no voice output like Google Home.   

The assistant will pre-set various settings (time, mix and cooking level) in each step, so you don’t have to worry about anything else. After completing a step, click the arrow pointing to the right on the display to go to the next one. Tips and important information will also be displayed to you. For example, yeast dough says: “Let the dough rise in a warm place for at least 60 minutes.” Or after preparing tomato sauce for pizza: “Preheat the oven to 240 degrees and then brush the baking sheet with olive oil.”

With Cooking Pilot, especially a novice or muffle furnace should be interesting, because with the help of preset settings and appropriate information, it can make your work easy from the hand, and it is easy to get results. So far, there are about 300 recipes that need to be expanded regularly.

In addition to Cooking Pilot, the food processor comes with a recipe that contains many recipe ideas. The dishes in all the recipes we have tested are available on the machine and can be easily re-cooked with the cooking pilot and his accompaniment. It also provides many basic recipes, for example for making seasonings. Unfortunately, these parts are fixed at the cooking assistant. If you follow the instructions strictly, you must be content to prepare four servings of chili sauce or two pizzas. Here, we hope to adjust this.

basic skills

At this point, we want to understand the basic functions of the food processor, their functions are impressive. When preparing dishes, you can use the following functions: cooking, burning, steaming, puree, mixing, emulsifying, weighing, crushing / crushing, stirring and kneading, and rotating left and right. Lidl machines are no less than Thermomix TM5, Vorwerk’s industry leader. Left hand rotation is a good thing.   

Since the knives of the blender run in the other direction, sharp blades are not used, so this function is suitable for, for example, a case where the pot is boiled for a long time to avoid burning. Cooking on multiple levels is also possible: if you use a blender jar with a steam accessory, you can prepare dishes with multiple ingredients at once.

Smoothies made with colorful berries don’t need to be prepared at all. (Source: Netzwelt)

In our test, we prepared about 25 minutes to mix the chicken breast wrapped in bacon with mashed potatoes and carrots. Monsieur Cuisine Connect also provides you with three automatic programs for kneading dough, steaming and baking, and a 99-minute timer. The speed of the mixer has 10 levels and has an additional turbo boost function.

In general, only when kneading the dough or high-level stirring, the food processor can work quietly, for example, the sound becomes louder. Here, the food processor will shake slightly, but due to the suction cup feet, it can stand firmly on the surface. We believe that the performance of the machine is fully satisfactory-we effortlessly crushed half a kilogram of frozen fruit and made an excellent smoothie.

Cover collapse

The elastic plastic part is located in the handle of the mixing container and can send a signal to the machine that the lid is properly placed. (Source: Netzwelt)

Mixing can only be done if the machine is covered, otherwise the device will report that the cover is not closed. Indeed, this leads to a louder voice during the cooking process. Close the lid and turn it gently. Finally, a mechanism made of two elastic plastic parts reports to the device that it has been locked.

One of the plastic parts got stuck in our test, so at first we could not finish the meal because the blender refused to work stubbornly and always let us know that the machine was not locked properly. Fortunately, after probing a sharp object, we were able to take it out of the world and everything was restored again-we hope this is an isolated case.

Applicable smartphone and tablet applications

You can get the Monsieur Cuisine app for your smartphone and tablet in the App Store and Google Play. Here you can find many recipes (also from users) as well as “Monsieur Cuisine” magazine, for example, the magazine recommends articles on the theme or seasonal dishes, such as “healthy and healthy day” or “spring is coming”. You can create favorites or manage shopping lists here. There is also a service area, an accessory store where you can order spare parts, as well as tips and videos about food processors. 

Unfortunately, the application is not as clear as we expected. Unlike the website or the machine itself, recipes cannot be sorted by category. We can only choose between “All Recipes” and “New Recipes”, “Popular Recipes” and “Member Recipes” on the start page. Therefore, it happened that we found a good recipe while browsing, but later couldn’t find it when searching using the search function, and had to dig up the messy recipe again.

We also hope that the application can better link with the food processor. For example, a recipe exchange between two platforms would be ideal. If we choose a dish on a mobile device, we want to send the recipe to the machine and vice versa. It is also very practical to exchange shopping lists.

clean

Fortunately, all parts of Monsieur Cuisine Connect (except the base station) are dishwasher safe, so they can be washed in the dishwasher. If you do not have your own machine, you only need to clean the machine by hand. In some cooking processes, it is inevitable that sediment will accumulate in the bottom of the mixing vessel in the area under the knife. However, by removing the blades, it is easy to reach all places and you can clean them. You can also easily clean the case and screen. All in all, the machine is very easy to clean.

Source: »Detailed comparison of smart kitchen machines