What is the Remoska Tria? It’s a Czech invention – a versatile little electric cooker that you can use as a mini-oven, a pressure cooker and also as an ordinary cooking pot for your hob.

If you’re wondering how it does all of that, the answer is lids!

In the box, you get a large cooking pot, with a trivet, and three lids: one glass, one soft-pressure, and one baking lid with a removable power cable that plugs into the end of the handle.

Depending on which lid you use, you can use the pot to fry, cook, bake, roast, or stew.  

With the glass lid, you can use the pot on the hob like any other large saucepan or stew pot. With the soft-pressure lid, you can turn the pot into a pressure cooker on the hob.

With the baking lid, which heats up to between 160°C and 180°C, you pop the pot on the stand and turn it into an electric mini-oven.

Design and build

• Use on five different hob types
• Heat resistant handles
• Excellent silicone seals on glass and soft-pressure lid

The pot itself is a black, 28cm diameter, cast aluminium alloy cooking pot with an 8mm thick base and 13cm high sides. What this means is that the pot base heats quickly and evenly, and the high sides reduce cooking spit and spray.

You can use the pot on gas, ceramic, induction, radiant, and electric hobs. It’s Teflon-coated, so non-stick, and has a 4.5 litre capacity, although the working capacity is 3 litres. The handles on either side also have a thermal insulated insert that is heat resistant to 220°C. 

The trivet is a black, heat-resistant stand that you use to stand the pot safely on a counter, either when using the baking lid, or if you just want a stand for the pot off the hob.

Now, onto the lids.

The lid is clear glass with an extremely effective silicone seal and a large knob on top.

The soft pressure lid is made of toughened safety glass with a silicone seal. It clicks into the pot handles when you squeeze the buttons on either side of the top knob, meaning you can open or close the lid with one hand. You’ll know when the lid has clicked properly because the indicator next to the regulation valve will switch from red to black. The regulation valve is one of two valves on top: the other is a safety valve.

The baking lid is stainless steel with a hard black plastic centrepiece that surrounds a glass circular viewing window. It has a black handle with a red power switch. You plug the 120cm black power cable into the end. It also has four vents which help to regulate steam and temperature.

It’s the underside of this lid that heats up when you plug it in. So, when it’s in place on the pot, it heats the sides of the pot from 160°C-180°C, which is how it bakes. But you must remember not to take the lid off and put it straight down on your worktop, because it will scorch the surface. You need to turn it upside down first.

How do you use the Remoska?

• Easy set-up
• Easy to clean
• Work out soft-pressure lid valve first

First, wash the pot in warm soapy water, rinse it with clean water, and wipe it dry. Then spray or wipe the inside with cooking oil. Finally, heat the pot over a medium heat for three minutes, or one minute if using an induction hob, and you allow the pot to cool down before wiping it again with a dry cloth.

Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to go.

Remoska says to preheat the cooking pot for one to three minutes from 150°C-180°C before you use it, and advises a “water test”, which means spilling a few drops of water into the pot to see if it fizzes. At that point, the pot is ready to use.

If you want to use the pot on your hob, just put on the glass lid and use it like you would any other saucepan or stew pot. You can, if you want, put the pot and the glass lid in the oven, but do be aware that the handles will get hot.

If you want to use the pot with the soft-pressure lid, you’ll need to have an idea of how pressure cookers work first. The idea is you put your ingredients into the pot, put the soft-pressure lid on, making sure the indicator clicks black. When the pressure develops inside the pot, it will push the valve out to the maximum position. When this happens, turn down the heat until the valve drops to half its maximum height.  

It’s a good idea to find out what the regulation valve looks like at the maximum position before attempting to work out what half of that position might be.

We didn’t figure this out until we were halfway through testing the soft-pressure lid with 1kg of Bolognese in the pot. That’s when we discovered we had no idea whether the valve had reached the maximum position or not, which led to much nervous hovering and peering at the valve to see what it was doing.

If we had simply turned over the soft-pressure lid before we even started and noted how far the valve fell out, we could have avoided a lot of fuss.

Next is the baking lid. Simply put the pot on the stand, put your food in the pot, put the baking lid on, plug the cable into the handle and the plug into a socket, and flick the switch.

Nothing is complicated to clean. The pot is dishwasher safe, but Remoska recommends you hand wash it, along with the glass lid and the soft-pressure lid, which you can take apart for a thorough clean. The baking lid needs nothing more than a wipe with a clean damp cloth once it has cooled down.

Performance

• Energy efficient
• Time saving
• Excellent results

Before we began testing the Tria, we had to figure out how to test it. The pot with the clear glass lid was easy because it’s just a lovely stew pot for the hob, but we had to research what and how you cook with a soft pressure lid and a baking lid.

The thing about cooking with pressure is that you retain steam in the pot, so need a lot less liquid, heat, and time. Some dishes work wonderfully with this method: stews, goulashes, casseroles, pot roasts, risottos – even, and quite weirdly, cheesecakes.

But some dishes just don’t work because the difference between one minute under pressure or two is the difference between recognisable vegetables or mush. You need to be careful with fish as well.

We started off using the pot on the hob just to sauté onions and garlic. The glass lid with the silicone seal fits perfectly, and a lot of moisture is retained in the pot by this lid alone.

Alex Greenwood / Foundry

The Teflon coating was a dream to work with and nothing stuck to the sides, but you’ll need wooden or plastic utensils to avoid scratching the coating.

We then put in carrots and celery before pancetta and mince, browning the meat, and then added about half the liquid – in this case wine, stock and tomatoes – that we would normally use for a Bolognese. We put the soft-pressure lid on, moved the pot to our smallest gas hob ring, and waited for the pressure to build before turning the gas down for the valve to hover halfway.

Alex Greenwood / Foundry

For a dish that we’d normally cook for three to four hours on a medium ring on low heat, we only needed an hour on the lowest setting of the smallest gas ring on the hob when using the soft pressure lid.

We admit this made us nervous – purely because to get a decent Bolognese after only an hour is mind blowing. But it was a good Bolognese. A really, really, good Bolognese with delicious bursts of flavour.

Testing the baking lid was a bit perplexing. We weren’t sure what to do with it. So we tried baking a cake.

This test revealed a lot about how the baking lid works. A lot of heat emanates from it and radiates down the sides – indeed, the lid and pot get very hot so be careful not to touch them – so you need to put your food directly into the pot to bake or roast, rather than in a tray or tin in the pot, to avoid the top and the sides of your food over-baking before the centre is properly cooked through.

Alex Greenwood / Foundry

Next, we tried frozen mini pies which we put directly into the pot. We cooked them for 30 minutes, and they came out well: crispy pastry and a hot filling. We also tried baking frozen pastries; again, they came out well, as did jacket potatoes. People have also reported success with both pot roasts and dry roasts.

As the plug-in baking lid only uses 610 watts, it’s extremely energy efficient. Depending on your energy tariff, this is likely to cost you 20-22p for an hour’s cooking. This could be less than half the price of running an air fryer – and we doubt you’ll need to use it for an entire hour.

Price and availability

Remoska makes three sizes of cooking pot, all of which are plug-in cookers. We’re testing the Tria, Remoska’s top of the line model, which comes with three lids. It’s priced at £219.99, and at the time of writing, there’s no price advantage from buying from any specific retailer. We’ve found it in stock at Currys and Amazon.

The mid-range model is the Dua, which comes with a baking lid and the glass lid in either a 2 litre or 4 litre size. You can buy the 4l model from Amazon for £202.99. The basic Remoska model is the Prima, which comes with the baking lid only in either a 2 litre or 4 litre size. The larger size is currently available from Amazon for £179.99.  

It’s not currently available in the US.

Overall verdict

The Remoska Tria is very much a cooking pot for all situations, inside or out. Indoors, it’s a cooking method that’ll cost you even less than an air fryer.

If you have a hob available, or even outdoor coals, you can use the pot with either the glass or soft-pressure lid. If you just have an electric plug point, you can use the baking lid. This makes the Tria a great choice for camping, caravanning, small living spaces or simply warming up pre-made stews or casseroles in an outdoor environment.

Yes, it is pricey, but it’s so flexible that we really think it is worth it if you are a committed camping type, want another cooking method for an outdoor kitchen or have limited space at home.