Air Fryers

[koolkat]

I am sure many of you have an air fryer. This info is intended to help those who don’t and may consider getting one.

General

Air fryers are considered a much healthier alternative to deep fryers, as they use practically no oil and the food has far fewer calories. Additionally, they are less messy and do not give the kitchen that old stale oil stink. And they are faster and more economic than regular ovens.

The general rule is, if you can cook it in a deep fryer or an oven or a grill, you can cook it in an air fryer.

So I’ve finally decided to buy a mini air-fryer, finding its bargain sale price of 44.90 Euros (38 pounds, 51 dollars) irresistible. At 2 liter/500g food capacity and 1000W power, it’s only suitable for cooking a single meal, but that’s what I do. For a family of more persons, I’d recommend a higher capacity and power, e.g. 4lt 1500W. Don’t be fooled by the volume spec, as you can only fill it to less than 40% capacity.

In Use

Use and cleaning are very simple.

The bench space taken is minimal, much less than half that of a microwave, and it’s less noisy too.

As a first meal, I fried fish fingers with chips at 200 deg C, as recommended by the simple icons on its top. After 15 mins, the fish fingers were perfect, but the potatoes could do with 5 extra mins. So the total cooking time would be 20 mins, with the fish being added 5 mins after the chips. I turned over once. It can cook without any oil, but if you sprinkle the chips with a little oil, less than a teaspoon, they become crispier.

Conclusion

An air fryer is a better and healthier choice than a deep fryer and a more practical choice than a regular oven.

But it’s much slower than a microwave, though I suppose still much faster and more economic than a regular oven. Its advantage over a microwave is that it produces crusty rather than soggy results. So it’s a complement rather than a replacement of a microwave, and if I had to choose one, it would certainly be the latter.

Edited December 28, 2021 by koolkat

[koolkat]

To facilitate use of the air fryer, I attach simple Cooking Chart with tips.

Air-Fryer Cooking Chart.pdf