The Air Fryer topic

[Anna N]

 Yesterday.  Another pork chop with some frozen whole leaf spinach which was cooked in the microwave. I had intended to be a little more experimental but I must’ve been extremely hungry. 
 

Today was frozen chicken nuggets. This is the first time I have tried them. I was not impressed and neither was my four-legged roomie. He who lives for a bite of chicken turned his nose up at them. Don’t think this had anything to do with the method of prep. Will try another brand next time. 400°F for 10 minutes. 

[Anna N]

Although I am aware that there are posts about hard boiled eggs in the air fryer the very idea struck me as foolishness. No one even mentioned perhaps poking a hole in the egg before attempting this.  But since I had committed to pushing the limits I decided in for a penny in for a pound. I did not poke a hole in it!  The thought of an exploded egg in there made me extremely anxious but damn it worked just fine! 

 

250°F for 16 minutes (straight from the refrigerator) large size supermarket egg, peeled under cold water.  Easy peasy. 

[lindag]

Tonight’s dinner will be Hot Italian sausage with pepper and onions and tomatoes.  
I’ll roast a few of my Hatch peppers on the Ninja grill and toss them in as a test.

 

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, lindag said:

Tonight’s dinner will be Hot Italian sausage with pepper and onions and tomatoes.  
I’ll roast a few of my Hatch peppers on the Ninja grill and toss them in as a test.

 

I’m not quite sure what you are saying. Will the sausages, pepper and onions be done using  the air fryer function and then the hatch peppers using the grill function?

[lindag]

7 minutes ago, Anna N said:

I’m not quite sure what you are saying. Will the sausages, pepper and onions be done using  the air fryer function and then the hatch peppers using the grill function?

No.  I’ll be adding the Hatch peppers roasted in the Ninja into the Italian sausages.

[chileheadmike]

Fried chicken in the Ninja Foodi.

[gfweb]

1 hour ago, chileheadmike said:

Fried chicken in the Ninja Foodi.

Whats your method/recipe?

[chileheadmike]

Pretty basic. Seasoned flour (paprika, Lawry's, a lot of cayenne, white pepper, black pepper thyme. Egg wash. Flour, egg, flour. Then in the preheated Foodi set to air crisp for 23 minutes.  Turned once at the 8:00 minute left mark. 

[mgaretz]

2 hours ago, chileheadmike said:

Pretty basic. Seasoned flour (paprika, Lawry's, a lot of cayenne, white pepper, black pepper thyme. Egg wash. Flour, egg, flour. Then in the preheated Foodi set to air crisp for 23 minutes.  Turned once at the 8:00 minute left mark. 

 

Try spraying with some oil before putting it in.  Really crisps it up nice.

[chileheadmike]

6 hours ago, mgaretz said:

 

Try spraying with some oil before putting it in.  Really crisps it up nice.

 

Oops, I left that out. I did spray with a little PAM. 

[Anna N]

9 hours ago, chileheadmike said:

Foodi set to air crisp

Is there only one setting? If so do you know the temperature of that setting? Thanks. 

[chileheadmike]

55 minutes ago, Anna N said:

Is there only one setting? If so do you know the temperature of that setting? Thanks. 

There is an Air Crisp button. By default it is 390F, which is what I used. The temp can be set up or down from there. 

[mgaretz]

Did some fries made from scratch in the Ninja Foodi Grill (Air Crisp mode).  Russet potato, skin on, soaked in water for 30 minutes with a few water changes, dried then tossed with some peanut oil.  Book called for 20 minutes at 390F and these were pulled at 18 minutes.  They were yummy, mostly crisp on the outside with a creamy interior.  None overcooked or burnt.

 

[Anna N]

 These are sold as shoestring frozen fries.  They would’ve benefitted from a little longer in the air fryer (or a higher temperature).  But sprinkled with a little of TJ‘s umami flavouring they were quite good. 360°F for 10 minutes. No added oil. 

[Toliver]

Wait a second...I am counting more than six French fries in your servings there.

Does @Shelby know about this?

Thank you all for your ongoing cooking trials with your respective Air Fryers. It is immensely helpful to see what is working and what needs more adjustments.

[Anna N]

Second attempt on the shoestring fries.  This time 10 minutes at 400°F. Definitely better. Might still add a couple of minutes next time. 

[rotuts]

after seeing the AltonBrown @ Home vid 

 

( an improvement over GE I think , except for the expletives 

 

that added nothing )

 

an AirFryer moved up a few notches on a theoretic list.

[mgaretz]

Kirkland Panko-breaded shrimp and sweet potato tots, air crisp mode at 390F for 16 minutes.  Both came out great.

 

 

[ElsieD]

27 minutes ago, mgaretz said:

Kirkland Panko-breaded shrimp and sweet potato tots, air crisp mode at 390F for 16 minutes.  Both came out great.

 

 

 

It sounds as those you are liking the air fryer itself a lot more than the air fryer function on the BSOA.

[mgaretz]

12 hours ago, ElsieD said:

 

It sounds as those you are liking the air fryer itself a lot more than the air fryer function on the BSOA.

 

Yes, so far, but the BSOA has it beat for capacity.  But I am also liking the grill part of the Ninja, which I will now call the NFG, not a great set of initials for something that is actually pretty good...  😉

[palo]

So you're saying the NFG is PFG?

 

p

[mgaretz]

For those that are interested, Amazon has some refurbished Ninja Food Grills on Deal of the Day: https://amzn.to/3mSNV1w $104 for the model without the probe, $169 with.

[chileheadmike]

I did some "fried" zucchini in my NFG. Did not come out very well.

I sliced it into sticks, flour, egg wash, bread crumbs. Into the NFG with a spray of PAM.

 

Came out pretty dry and just not very good. The breading was hard. Zucs were fine. 

 

I think I'll stick to good ole fashioned oil. 

[mgaretz]

Thursday my plan is to do a "french-fry-off" making from scratch fries in both the NFG and the BSOA.  

[mgaretz]

Here are the not-so-great results of the "fry-off".  For the test, I used a single potato (russet) sliced and water soaked for 30 minutes, dried then coated with a small amount peanut oil and some salt.  The potatoes were then weighed and evenly split into two batches.  My last success with the NFG was 18 minutes at 390F, so that is what I used for both, with a stir half-way in.  My experience with the BSOA is that it either takes longer or needs a higher temp than a smaller air fryer, but for this test I decided to do apples-to-apples with the only variable being the machine.  That proved to be a bad choice for several reasons as will become evident.

 

First up are the fries from the NFG.  They were clearly over-done and very crispy and the insides all but vanished.  The time was obviously too long.  Why did it work last time?  The amount of potatoes was half of the successful attempt so I am sure that was the factor.  

 

 

Next up are the fries from the BSOA, which had the opposite problem - they were underdone.  Cooked all the way through but limp.  The taste was good and the insides were fluffy, but they either needed a higher temperature or more time.

 

 

So neither was a success.  The NFG pre-heats about a minute faster than the BSOA.  I am sure both would have made good fries if the timing or temp had been adjusted, so more testing is in order.

 

Is there a winner?  Not yet, but the NFG clearly has the time advantage, while the BSOA has ton more capacity.  I did eat all of them!

 

Stay tuned...