Yet Another Cycling Forum
Off Topic => The Pub => Food & Drink => Topic started by: blackburnrod on 29 August, 2016, 08:21:40 am
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I'm considering getting one for domestic small family use,especially for chips.I'd be interested to hear users experiences and opinions.I am aware Philips seem to be the (expensive) market leaders,but what about other brands?
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I don't have one, but a colleague recently bought one (nothing expensive I think) and she thinks it's the mutts nutts.
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We have one and it is brilliant. Seriously useful bit of kit and it does what it says on the tin - perfect french fries without the use of oil. Plus squid rings and other stuff one might fry. I think we just bought the one that sells most on Amazon.
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Is this like the chip vending machine that someone installed in one of our university colleges? Basically a souped-up hair drier? It's only redeeming feature was the novelty of a vending machine for chips.
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The redeeming feature is the absence of loads of fat or a deep fryer etc. I have convinced myself the chips are therefore healthy! Anyway we use it loads, unlike other gadgets like the sous vide/food processor and so on.
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How does it differ from or compare to oven chips? What, really, is it?
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Oven chips don't tend to come out as well as proper deep fried chips. I am sure you know the thing - unevenly cooked, burned or dried out, or soggy etc. They tend to be a substitute type of chip - nobody ever says mmm what lovely fries. You just know real fries are better...
The air fryer uses blown hot air forced through a basket and gets a result pretty much just like a good fryer, but does this without the use of a vat of oil that has to be changed etc or cleaned up. And it doesn't make a smell, or hot greasy fumes. It is clean and extraordinarily easy to use.
You can whack a kilo of chips into the basket from the freezer, switch on and give it a shake or two and in 15 mins you have lovely perfect chips to accompany your steak!
I know I sound like a promoter but I have to admit the air fryer is a simply brilliant bit of kit.
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We have a Philips air fryer which I bought in the hope that I could dump the oily mess that was our De Longhi roto fryer.
The Philips is clean and easy to use but I have to say that the chips are much inferior to those deep-fried in the De Longhi. We don't use the Philips for chips any more - it is occasionally used for other things. The De Longhi lives to fight another day.
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Fat is good for you anyway, it's the spuds that'll kill you.
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Oven chips don't tend to come out as well as proper deep fried chips. I am sure you know the thing - unevenly cooked, burned or dried out, or soggy etc. They tend to be a substitute type of chip - nobody ever says mmm what lovely fries. You just know real fries are better...
The air fryer uses blown hot air forced through a basket and gets a result pretty much just like a good fryer, but does this without the use of a vat of oil that has to be changed etc or cleaned up. And it doesn't make a smell, or hot greasy fumes. It is clean and extraordinarily easy to use.
You can whack a kilo of chips into the basket from the freezer, switch on and give it a shake or two and in 15 mins you have lovely perfect chips to accompany your steak!
I know I sound like a promoter but I have to admit the air fryer is a simply brilliant bit of kit.
We have a Philips air fryer which I bought in the hope that I could dump the oily mess that was our De Longhi roto fryer.
The Philips is clean and easy to use but I have to say that the chips are much inferior to those deep-fried in the De Longhi. We don't use the Philips for chips any more - it is occasionally used for other things. The De Longhi lives to fight another day.
This is what I'm wondering about. Without actually being fried in oil, can air-fried chips be much better than oven chips (which are perfectly good IMO but not as tasty as chip-shop chips)? Of course they'll be healthier etc than deep frying, but compared to oven ones? And what sort of chips do you cook in this device; oven chips, with their coating of oil, or is it just chopped up real genuine potatoes with no catalysts, lubricants, etc etc?
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I cook oven chips. In fact I am doing some right now. We are having some lovely Ginger Pig sirloin with french fries. In my opinion you have to use McCains though. They are better sized - you don't want a load of scrappy bits which is what the Ol and cheaper frozen cups are full of.
Frankly haven't bothered with chopping up potatoes since we got the air fryer. Life's too short.
My results are as good as I used to get with the fat fryer and real potatoes - it's very important to shake the chips quite often though.
But the best thing is the kitchen doesn't stink of chips etc.
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Could you use one for samosas?
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Yep..
http://www.rachnacooks.com/2015/05/25/samosa-made-in-an-airfryer/
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Necroposting here...
I bought a Philips last week because every time we did chips (bits of real spuds, unpeeled) in the oven MrsT would shove something ungodly like carrots in as well and the chips would come out soggy. Quite liked the air-fryer result, certainly crisp.
I'm struck, though, with the limitations of the thing - certainly you can do a lot with it, but it's only good for one thing at a time. If you wanted to do chicken & chips you'd have to do them one after another, meaning one would be cold before the other was ready. Either that or get a battery of the things and blow the breakers (or set fire to the wall, depending on the honesty of your electrician).
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Necroposting here...
I bought a Philips last week because every time we did chips (bits of real spuds, unpeeled) in the oven MrsT would shove something ungodly like carrots in as well and the chips would come out soggy. Quite liked the air-fryer result, certainly crisp.
I'm struck, though, with the limitations of the thing - certainly you can do a lot with it, but it's only good for one thing at a time. If you wanted to do chicken & chips you'd have to do them one after another, meaning one would be cold before the other was ready. Either that or get a battery of the things and blow the breakers (or set fire to the wall, depending on the honesty of your electrician).
In that case you can use a halogen oven, I find it has a similar result as an air fryer only bigger. Not quite as good bu not far off. Benefits being you can cook an entire roast in one.
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If you wanted to do chicken & chips you'd have to do them one after another, meaning one would be cold before the other was ready. Either that or get a battery of the things and blow the breakers (or set fire to the wall, depending on the honesty of your electrician).
...or fry the chicken first, then leave the chicken in your oven at a very low temperature while you fry the chips.
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... you can use a halogen oven, I find it has a similar result as an air fryer only bigger. Not quite as good bu not far off. Benefits being you can cook an entire roast in one.
I didn't think of those. I don't know much about them other that you can mod them to roast coffee.
If you wanted to do chicken & chips you'd have to do them one after another, meaning one would be cold before the other was ready. Either that or get a battery of the things and blow the breakers (or set fire to the wall, depending on the honesty of your electrician).
...or fry the chicken first, then leave the chicken in your oven at a very low temperature while you fry the chips.
Something like that. Larger models than ours take dividers that allow you to cook a couple of things at once, but I imagine that shaking stuff up would be fiddly.
Our microwave has a couple of grill/convector functions I've never plumbed, mainly because ICBA cleaning up fat splatter inside, but they might be useful to keep stuff hot.
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I keep seeing references to air fryers in recipes and blogs. Are they worth investing in?
Thank you
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Merged the last thread on air fryers to save you the trouble of looking too far...
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I keep seeing references to air fryers in recipes and blogs. Are they worth investing in?
Thank you
If you do, get a big model rather than a small one, then you can do much more.
Re worth it, by and large I'd say yes. Here are two of the more palatable videos on them (if you can stand people who say baysil and oRIGano). This guy uses real ingredients rather than proprietary stuff:
https://youtu.be/OtGBQw_UIQg
https://youtu.be/qdWhFjmuGmM
So far I've just done chip and chicken parts, separately. The chips have always been good, although they could do with a bit more oil on them at the end - they come out dry. I have an oil spray on the way. The chicken was excellent once and bleh the second time because I put too much basil & pepper on and burnt it when I bumped up the temperature at the end.
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Thank you to the mergers and to those who responded.
we are tending to eat more and more healthily so small piece of chicken and steamed vegetables or similar. So the inability to cook two things does not really worry me. I think we will invest.
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Have fun! Let us know how you get on.
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Isn't that funny? 20 minutes ago I had never heard of an air fryer and now I NEED one.
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Still a fan here. A bit fatter than when the thread started though.
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Tried doing a supermarket entrecôte today. No herbs, garlic etc., just salted both sides, left it a bit then dabbed it off with kitchen paper and stuck it in the air fryer. 200°C, judged cooking by colour rather than time but it took around 6 minutes for 180g. Best I've eaten in years.
Only drawback was that it took up the whole basket, so cooking for several would be out. Fortunately, MrsT is vegetarian.
Oh aye, it was one we had in the freezer, so a fresh one should be even better.
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Have been using a single air fryer for some time now. As there is only two of us it meets our needs for chips, baked/roast potatoes/sausages/fish, reheating etc and is much quicker in operation than the oven and therefore less expensive to run. The none stick properties of the crisper tray are somewhat disappointing but otherwise the unit very good. I have seen somewhat terrifying videos on u tube where people are using water in the trays to steam/bake puddings etc, deary me. Another caution is using baking paper in the bottom of the unit during pre heat. Due to the air vortex, the fan has a habit of lifting the baking paper onto the heating element and catching fire. Take care. I have just bought the Ninja type Sur le Table double tray air fryer from Costco as it allows cooking at different temps and fan speeds with a choice of independent or synchronised finish. It is a good size and a bit of a bargain at £70 odd. We will see how we get on.
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I've been wondering recently about getting an air fryer. There's just two of us now so using an oven (even a modern efficient one) seems wasteful.
My question to the panel is, what are the best or your favourite foods to cook in one? (except chips, which seems a given).
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Been doing most Asian cooking for the last year and a bit so the air fryer rarely comes out these days, and then mostly for rejuvenating croissants.
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We do anything that might have been under the grill or in the oven. Sausages, burgers, fish, chops, whole chicken (has to be a small one to fit in ours). We find that you can pretty much knock 20% off the cooking times suggested on the pack, eg Waitrose small chicken - time reduced from 1h 25m to 1h is pretty much done. Allow 1h 10m to make certain.
Sausages & burgers are done in 15 minutes.
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Been doing most Asian cooking for the last year and a bit so the air fryer rarely comes out these days, and then mostly for rejuvenating croissants.
My parents have been using theirs for rejuvenating croissants too.
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Why would one need to rejuvenate a croissant?
Surely there should only be crumbs left...
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My oven door broke, I got an air fryer. It does everything I would have used the oven/grill for. I didn't buy a replacement oven.
Curly kale - chopped, straight into the air fryer, no oil. Give it a stir after a minute and a half. You get toasted kale. Sprinkle these on your stir fry or your salad. Incredible flavour.
I've also used a halogen oven, which is a big, top-loading air fryer. Awesome for roast parsnips.
Small appliances are the future.
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Why would one need to rejuvenate a croissant?
Surely there should only be crumbs left...
When they've been on display for a few hours before you buy them. Incidentally, Aldi here do excellent croissants.
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I was given a Lakeland for free as she wanted a larger one, never used one before, first thing I cooked was a sausage I was amazed on how fast it cooked to a golden brown colour then I did a few chips again really quick, I thing they are good, but I don't think I would buy one for myself living on my own.
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.... but I don't think I would buy one for myself living on my own.
Conversley that's when I would buy one, or even on e of the Ninja multi-cookers (that, and having enough kitchen real estate on which to site one)
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.... but I don't think I would buy one for myself living on my own.
Conversley that's when I would buy one, or even on e of the Ninja multi-cookers (that, and having enough kitchen real estate on which to site one)
To be honest I have a small kitchen and the air fryer takes up a lot of worktop space and it won't fit in the cupboards so it's there on show.
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We decided to get an air fryer to tide us over till our new oven arrives. We'd been considering one anyway.
The day after looking around we see Aldi doing one for a bargainous £30. Huzzah!
Weirdly though the instructions specifically say not to use it for sausages.
Sent from my SM-G525F using Tapatalk
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.... but I don't think I would buy one for myself living on my own.
Conversley that's when I would buy one, or even on e of the Ninja multi-cookers (that, and having enough kitchen real estate on which to site one)
Indeed, as there are two of us, our Ninja umpteen-in-one is often ideal, we mostly only use the oven for pizza. Last night, we needed an easy meal because it was late and I'm lazy, so I through some chopped courgette, whole tomatoes, peeled garlic cloves, dried oregano, and a good dose of olive oil. Gave it 15 minutes on the bake function at 180 degrees. Mixed it all up with a splash of white wine and a dollop of tomato puree, plonked half a block of feta on top and gave it another 15 minutes on air frier (I'm not entirely clear on the difference, they both seem to involve the machine making the same noise) while the pasta cooked. Add the cooked pasta to the baked feta and tomato sauce, mixed it all up with enough pasta water to even out the sauce. Five minutes prep, two pans, including the machine and 30 minutes to enjoy a leisurely G&T. Meal was excellent.
Tonight, paneer and chickpea curry, saute and then give it a quick blast of the pressure cooker function while the rice cooks. I still cook a lot in the pan, frantic sautéier that I am, but it gets lots of use.
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I have a question:
On occasion we've tried making (from scratch) things like lentil rissoles, fish cakes, felafels and other such things that require shallow frying a lump of stuff. Invariably it makes a horrendous mess and the result is never that great and I swear off doing it again.
Are these air fryers and good for this sort of thing or do they just make a different sort of mess?
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https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/ng-interactive/2023/sep/01/have-i-told-you-about-my-air-fryer-the-stephen-collins-cartoon
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I have a question:
On occasion we've tried making (from scratch) things like lentil rissoles, fish cakes, felafels and other such things that require shallow frying a lump of stuff. Invariably it makes a horrendous mess and the result is never that great and I swear off doing it again.
Are these air fryers and good for this sort of thing or do they just make a different sort of mess?
Never had a problem in a pan; nonstick plus plenty of oil, but yes the air fryer works but the multi thing we have has limited space. Enough for two.
Tbh, I still use the pan, as I can make a sauce.
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One landed in Fort Larrington this arvo and did a stellar job of turning the piss-poor chips* from the local chippy into, er, deeply nomworthy ones.
* Their fish is always æxcellent
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Well, we bought one. So far I have cooked spring rolls (from scratch), roast tatties, chips (frozen), fish (cod & salmon), courgettes, peppers and giant mushrooms. I even tried a fried egg - not too shabby.
Consider me converted.
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One landed in Fort Larrington this arvo and did a stellar job of turning the piss-poor chips* from the local chippy into, er, deeply nomworthy ones.
I freeze surplus chip shop chips cos I'm a stingy bugger. Five minutes in the air fryer and they're as good as the originals.