I’ve never been tempted to buy a air fryer but reading some junk mail today I seen this one it has a GLASS cooking basket https://www.harrisscarfe.com.au/ele...ith-glass-cooking-basket-snaf650g/BP648168-nc I’ve used about 6 different brands belonging to other people but yet to be convinced I need one ….i keep thinking of space one would use either in the pantry of cupboard …and keep telling myself Nah …
People keep recommending these kinds of things, but I'd want some real value and frequent use before I'd spend the counter space on one. Chicken is good, but it sounds like they really only handle this well if you do a whole chicken in a rotisserie appliance. So it really sounds like most chicken still gets cooked in a pan or baked in the oven. Then there is the cleanup, not to mention all of the cooking of side dishes. I'm just not feeling the benefits here. Why not just go traditional? I don't think I'm jaded I just cook meals for one, plus leftovers.
I’ve experimented with different foods / air fryers and the only food I’ve said oh that’s REALLY NICE … is chunky pieces of fresh Barramundi the fish was lightly browned / crispy on outside …and still nice and moist / flakey inside My traditional oven is fan forced so I can achieve the same results in that @Jacob Petersheim
Many moons ago (decades), we got an air fryer after an earthquake in Los Angeles ... mainly because the gas was out at our condo (so no cooking) and because it would drain off the fat. That was supposed to be great. Well, to us, the "no fat" tasted like ... pretty much dry paper. There really is something to be said (to me) for having a little fat/oil in your food. Like ... it tastes good!
The one thing I've seen over & over again that air fryers do well is chicken thighs. My issue with them is their tiny capacity. I usually cook in bulk so I have leftovers and freeze-ahead meals. To me it's not worth making a mess for one meal. When I first got mine, I tried recipes for Air Fryer Onion Rings. They were not good.
Except for Bobby cooking his deep fried catfish, we never deep fried anything anyway, and he eventually gave the deep fryer to the thrift store. Then, he got his small air fryer, but he really didn’t use that a whole lot either, although he liked what he cooked in it . I think he mostly cooked meat. When I got the Emerille toaster oven, one of the functions is as an air fryer. I use that when i am baking potatoes or squash, and if I cook chicken in there. When I am just baking Bobby’s Fiber Cakes, then I use the oven, but not the air fan part of the oven. We never have to use our big oven for anything anymore. Even pizza will work in the toaster oven when I put it in half at a time and alternate the slices, so it makes one long container of pizza.
Yup. The only thing I use my regular over for is when I'm making Italian bread or batches of cookies. The convection oven I got almost 4 years ago has a semi-circular bump-out in the back so you can put a round pizza stone and a round pizza pan in it and still close the door. The "problem" I have is since I can fit large baking pans in it, I was making lemon curd bars and apple cakes and a bunch of other dessert stuff I would never have fired up my large oven for. And even though this has an air fryer function, food is in the open oven cavity with the lower elements exposed, so you cannot air fry anything that drips grease unless you set up ad-hoc catch trays (that interfere with the air flow.) All I've air fried are Potato Bites made from riced cooked potatoes. meh