Air fryer

Mwelolo said:
I once knew a man who had a deliberately limited existence in a degree of what I would term squalor.

He cooked things in a metal tin on a concrete floor and became quite adept at it, in his own way.

He was fiercely defensive of his chosen culinary practices when questioned, in his zeal finding all sorts of arguments to justify his alternative approach.

Ultimately he was left to it.

I was just happy that I had an oven and other established devices that made food the way I like it.

His methods were certainly not for me but each to their own really.
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Aye that's totally comparable here to you just wanting some deep fried chips as if they're some kind of culinary masterpiece.

A device 12 years old and in 30% of homes is an established device.

Air fryers are just ovens so anyone saying they're sh*te are just making themselves look stupid. It is a heating element with a convection fan, literally a fan oven, in a different size/shape. So if air fryers are sh*te, ovens are sh*te. If air fryers are sh*te, grills are sh*te as again, it's a heating element above the food.

You can't use one effectively - that's ok to admit. If you're happy good taking longer in the oven or under the grill and don't want to have it done quicker that's your call I guess, some people struggle with change.
 
I never realised that air fryers could inspire such an enthusiastic following 😂

Maybe I was too quick to ditch mine, it looked great in the cupboard next to the toastie maker and soda stream.
 
ThatFragranceGuy said:
Aye that's totally comparable here to you just wanting some deep fried chips as if they're some kind of culinary masterpiece.

A device 12 years old and in 30% of homes is an established device.

Air fryers are just ovens so anyone saying they're sh*te are just making themselves look stupid. It is a heating element with a convection fan, literally a fan oven, in a different size/shape. So if air fryers are sh*te, ovens are sh*te. If air fryers are sh*te, grills are sh*te as again, it's a heating element above the food.

You can't use one effectively - that's ok to admit. If you're happy good taking longer in the oven or under the grill and don't want to have it done quicker that's your call I guess, some people struggle with change.
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My original point was that I rarely eat chips but when I do I want to enjoy an optimal chip, not an inferior alternative which is healthier or more economical to produce.

You carry on with your not so little gadget, you’re obviously pleased with it.
 
Mwelolo said:
My original point was that I rarely eat chips but when I do I want to enjoy an optimal chip, not an inferior alternative which is healthier or more economical to produce.

You carry on with your not so little gadget, you’re obviously pleased with it.
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So what do you cook that is better, and how?
 
I have not looked at the details in the 5 pages of replies. So apologies if this reply is out of place.

I love our air fryer.

Easy baked salmon with teriyaki sauce is great. Fajitas are good. There is a lot of other stuff we use it for as well.

We are a 2 person household and I regularly cook meals using a combination of a 5.8 air fryer, hob, oven and microwave in our small kitchen.
 
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Alexander Supertramp said:
What size air fryer would people recommend for cooking 2 portions of things?

Chips / fried chicken etc.


The sizing seems to be in litres. 4L? 8L?
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The larger the fryer, the more you can do in one go, but when you go really big (I've seen some 30L ones!) its losing some of the benefits because you wind up having something oven sized.

If its 2 people and you will do 2 things at once, I would look to either;

1) Get two air fryers - this is what we did, but we have the counter space. One is a multi cooker so it does grilling, air frying, roasting, dehydrating etc, and the other is a pure air fryer. The advantage of this is you can do different cooking styles, e.g grilled chicken and air fried chips with zero faff.

2) Get a dual tray air fryer - if two devices out is unpalatable, then go this route. Many you can time things to finish at same time automatically

Advantage of both of these is you can do everything in one go, and its much quicker than using an oven. Alternatively, just get a decent sized tray one and batch cook but that isn't ideal imo, or like spanishman says - combine it with things on the hob etc, but with you calling out chicken and chips you'll probably want one of these options.

Despite being told this is a fad above, we've used our oven twice in the last 3 months, both times were to heat up pizzas which were cooked in an Ooni oven outdoors, and purely because they don't fit in an air fryer.

We have the Cosori single tray 5.5L air fryer and its very good at about £80ish on Amazon. The multicooker we have is the Ninja Max Pro Grill XL. This is one of the few that has a true grill element underneath, meaning it can be heated from below and above, and can be used with the lid open so its a bit like an indoor BBQ. It can get to very high temps so meat will have proper griddle marks and blacken. The ninja dual tray gets decent reviews. Ninjas are expensive but well regarded, and you can often make good savings when ebay runs a code.

There are facebook groups, youtube channels, pinterests, reddit sections etc all full of recipes that are easy to follow, but the key thing is that, size permitting, anything you can cook in an oven you can cook in an air fryer, which is why they are so good - because it will not only cook faster, but taste better due to being crispier with just a few sprays of oil. Zero advantage to using an oven other than things that don't fit into the air fryer. They preheat in 2 minutes, and you can basically just wipe off 20-30% cooking time of a convection oven at the same temperature.
 
ThatFragranceGuy said:
The larger the fryer, the more you can do in one go, but when you go really big (I've seen some 30L ones!) its losing some of the benefits because you wind up having something oven sized.

If its 2 people and you will do 2 things at once, I would look to either;

1) Get two air fryers - this is what we did, but we have the counter space. One is a multi cooker so it does grilling, air frying, roasting, dehydrating etc, and the other is a pure air fryer. The advantage of this is you can do different cooking styles, e.g grilled chicken and air fried chips with zero faff.

2) Get a dual tray air fryer - if two devices out is unpalatable, then go this route. Many you can time things to finish at same time automatically

Advantage of both of these is you can do everything in one go, and its much quicker than using an oven. Alternatively, just get a decent sized tray one and batch cook but that isn't ideal imo, or like spanishman says - combine it with things on the hob etc, but with you calling out chicken and chips you'll probably want one of these options.

Despite being told this is a fad above, we've used our oven twice in the last 3 months, both times were to heat up pizzas which were cooked in an Ooni oven outdoors, and purely because they don't fit in an air fryer.

We have the Cosori single tray 5.5L air fryer and its very good at about £80ish on Amazon. The multicooker we have is the Ninja Max Pro Grill XL. This is one of the few that has a true grill element underneath, meaning it can be heated from below and above, and can be used with the lid open so its a bit like an indoor BBQ. It can get to very high temps so meat will have proper griddle marks and blacken. The ninja dual tray gets decent reviews. Ninjas are expensive but well regarded, and you can often make good savings when ebay runs a code.

There are facebook groups, youtube channels, pinterests, reddit sections etc all full of recipes that are easy to follow, but the key thing is that, size permitting, anything you can cook in an oven you can cook in an air fryer, which is why they are so good - because it will not only cook faster, but taste better due to being crispier with just a few sprays of oil. Zero advantage to using an oven other than things that don't fit into the air fryer. They preheat in 2 minutes, and you can basically just wipe off 20-30% cooking time of a convection oven at the same temperature.
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Ours is a Cosori. However I have noted some problems with handles breaking on some models. Touch wood not a problem for me.
 
We got the NINJA AF100UK Air Fryer - Black, which is 3.8 litres but found this a little small and it's a bit annoying having just one section, so ended up getting the NINJA Foodi MAX Dual Zone AF400UK Air Fryer - Black also, which is about 9 litres. Most nights we just use the dual zone, using one half for two decent sized portions of chips, and the other half for chicken or fish fingers whatever.

Sometimes we even get both the dual and the single on the go, they're both great at what they're intended for.

We got the air fryers in the old house, and they basically made the oven redundant overnight. The new house has two AEG top of the range ovens, built in, neither have been used in the last month, such a waste! I wish I would just have one oven space taken up by four air fryer zones, would be far more cooking and space effective.
 
BoroFur said:
Forgive the personal question BBG but how many are you cooking for?

Just trying to gauge the size I need to go for.
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This one cooks for 6 people but I think it will still be efficient with smaller amounts in it. Sometimes there will just be two or three of us.
 
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