Several different types of cookers presently exist on the market. Each of these cookers is adapted for a specific use and cooking process. To this day, different cookers are provided for different cooking processes. For example and just to name a few, woks are designed to stir-fry foods together, pressure cookers cook food under high temperature and steam pressure and frying pans are designed to fry food.
For most of these cookers, the essential component allowing effective cooking of foods is provided by the cooking vessel or the base unit. Therefore, the covers for most of these cookers act only as a secondary component, or an accessory that is not essential for the cooking process.
Furthermore, in most cases, a substantially amount of oil is needed for cooking the food. If not enough oil is used, the food, especially meat, will become very dry and tough. If too much oil is used, the food will be very oily and unhealthy to eat.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,511,466 is concerned with a cooker that has an annular trough on the periphery of the cooking vessel to allow separate cooking or treatment of foodstuff.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,287,798 is concerned with a high temperature dry steam cooker. According to this patent, foods are cooked with high temperatures steam created within the confinement of the cooker. In use, water is placed in the base unit and food is placed on a rack that sits above the base unit containing water. During cooking, a tray and a steam baffle is installed over the rack containing food and the cover is then installed thereon thereby creating the cooking confinement.
In view of the above, there is a need to design a cooker that is simple in structure, multifunctional and allows a healthy way of cooking foods.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds