Cooking with an Air Fryer

[mgaretz]

Tonight I cooked a burger and some snap peas on the grill in "lid open" mode to see how it did vs the Philips Indoor Grill.  The burger came out OK, nice crust but still medium rare inside.  I would say a little better crust than the Philips.  The snap peas cooked OK but the grill has a slant so the grease can run down and collect in a trough at the front side of the grill.  The peas kept rolling down and into the trough, and a standard pair of tongs was too wide to pick them out easily.  So I would say it's not for grilling things that can roll or slide easily.

 

My replacement grill arrives tomorrow, we'll see how that does.  I have yet to try the air fry mode.

 

At this point I am on the fence about whether to keep this one or revert back to my smaller one.

 

 

[mgaretz]

The replacement arrived today and a test showed the thermometer works fine. 

[Norm Matthews]

With Bed Bath & Beyond going out of business and everything on sale, I figured it was time to get one.  I made french fries today.  They were better than oven baked in a gas stove but I was disappointed that they said frozen store bought fires do better than fresh cut ones.  Tomorrow I'll do some fried chicken thighs.

[ElsieD]

11 minutes ago, Norm Matthews said:

With Bed Bath & Beyond going out of business and everything on sale, I figured it was time to get one.  I made french fries today.  They were better than oven baked in a gas stove but I was disappointed that they said frozen store bought fires do better than fresh cut ones.  Tomorrow I'll do some fried chicken thighs.

 

Curious - which one did you get?

[Norm Matthews]

Its Power XL Vortex Pro Air Fryer.. 6 qt size

[Tropicalsenior]

9 minutes ago, Norm Matthews said:

frozen store bought fires do better than fresh cut ones. 

In my experience this is true if you just compare the frozen potatoes with fresh potatoes in the air fryer. But! If you do a little prep work, and I know you're not afraid of that, you can wind up with something that is way better than frozen.

Bear in mind that I cannot get russet potatoes here and I can very seldom get good yellow potatoes so I have to use the waxy white ones.

The way I prepare my potatoes is to cut them in wedges, microwave them in salty water until they are about 3/4 done. Then I drain them and dry them. After this I coat them with a couple tablespoons of cornstarch and let them dry for a while. Before putting them in the air fryer I drizzle them with a little bit of oil and shake them thoroughly. At this point you can add any kind of seasoning that you want but do not add more salt.

 I make pretty small batches so about 15 to 20 minutes at 400° turns out a pretty crispy, almost puffy french fry.

Just don't forget to shake them as they are frying

[Norm Matthews]

@TropicalseniorThanks for the tip. I will try it.  

[Tropicalsenior]

12 minutes ago, Norm Matthews said:

@TropicalseniorThanks for the tip. I will try it.  

Yeah, too many times people that are comparing the two forget that the Frozen potatoes are prepped up the ying yang.

[Norm Matthews]

 

 

@Tropicalsenior  I think I'll try this recipe I have had for a few years and it turns out very well. I will cut them thicker and freeze them without the first fry time, then use them in the air fryer;

 

McDonalds French Fries

 

Cut potatoes into 1/4-inch strips, soak in water a couple minutes, transfer to pot with water to cover.. about 4 cups.  Add 2 Tbsp salt and 2 Tbsp. white vinegar and turn heat on high.  When boiling, time for five minutes, then transfer to cold water to stop cooking.  Spread on dish towel and dry.   

 

Fry @ 375 for just one minute.  Drain and freeze.  When ready to cook fry from frozen@ 375 for three minutes, transfer to paper towels, salt and enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2

[Tropicalsenior]

Sounds like a great recipe, especially the fact that you can freeze them. I just have one problem with it. It doesn't specify what type of potato is best to use. I would suspect that they are using russets.

[Norm Matthews]

I believe the recipe said to use Russet potatoes but I didn't add that when I copied the recipe. I just took it for granted.  It might work with other types that you can get.

 

@heidih The air fryer seems to be basically a small hyper convection oven.

 

[paulraphael]

To my dismay, my girlfriend bought one. Took up almost as much space as a chamber vac or commercial ice cream machines (things I deny myself, because there's no room to spare).

 

Her dream was to make crispy sweet potato fries. That project failed, so she sent it back, thank Bezos.

[gfweb]

8 minutes ago, paulraphael said:

To my dismay, my girlfriend bought one. Took up almost as much space as a chamber vac or commercial ice cream machines (things I deny myself, because there's no room to spare).

 

Her dream was to make crispy sweet potato fries. That project failed, so she sent it back, thank Bezos.

 

Crispy sweet potato fries are a challenge with deep fat fryers too.  I've never been happy with ones I make.

 

I think SPs lack the starch that potatoes have and  there's less to crisp-up.  Perhaps a starch coating.....

 

 

[Norm Matthews]

The cookbook that came with mine suggested spritzing with oil on some low fat things that you want to be more like fried food.

[Kerala]

Well, the nutrition facts are funny. Ingredients list is hard to quite believe.

Proof's in the puddn': how did it taste?

[Norm Matthews]

@Kerala I wouldn't believe the nutrition facts.  Other spray fats make the same claim but the amount they call a serving is a nano second worth of spray.  Any amount of duck fat will have the same amount of fat and calories as any other fat.

 

@donk79 and everyone else here is what I did and what we thought about the results.

 

These are the ingredients I used and I cooked 4 thighs in the air fryer.. that is how many I could put in without crowding too much.   Just before I put them in the fryer, I sprayed two of them with the duck fat.  I used just enough to tell they were evenly covered but no more.  Maybe about a second or two worth of spray on each side. i didn't tell Charlie that one was different until he'd tasted both.  Both of us thought the one with the duck fat was tastier.  I don't think it made any difference in texture or appearance but we both thought the duck fat one was better tasting.

 

Air Fryer Fried Chicken

 

1 C. Buttermilk

1 Egg

 

 

marinate chicken in above 30 min.

 

dredge in seasoned flour:

 

2 C. flour

1 T. salt

1 1/2 tsp. dried thyme

1 T. galic powder

1 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

1 tsp. ground mustard

2 T. Paprika

1 T. onion powder

3/4 T. ground white pepper

 

Let rest 20 min.

 

cook according to air fryer directions.

Edited April 28, 2023 by Norm Matthews (log)

[weinoo]

18 hours ago, paulraphael said:

To my dismay, my girlfriend bought one. Took up almost as much space as a chamber vac or commercial ice cream machines (things I deny myself, because there's no room to spare).

 

Her dream was to make crispy sweet potato fries. That project failed, so she sent it back, thank Bezos.

 

18 hours ago, gfweb said:

 

Crispy sweet potato fries are a challenge with deep fat fryers too.  I've never been happy with ones I make.

 

I think SPs lack the starch that potatoes have and  there's less to crisp-up.  Perhaps a starch coating.....

 

 

 

I think similarly about sweet potatoes; I've never seen them crisp, only tried them in restaurants, and they're always not good.

[gfweb]

Airfryers do well with wings @TicTacbut not much else, certainly not breaded food.  Its really just a convection oven.  I've actually done lots of airfried stuff but have returned to oil in a pan.

 

I find t he small electric fryers all have an unavoidable temp drop due to low oil volume if you put a big mass of food in.

 

Korean fried food uses starch rather than flour and has a two stage fry that results in crispy stuff.

 

You can also add a proportion of Evercrisp or Trisol to the starch or flour and get crunchy crust.

[Tropicalsenior]

On 4/27/2023 at 5:12 PM, Norm Matthews said:

McDonalds French Fries

I'm just curious. Have you tried this yet in your air fryer?

[Norm Matthews]

I cut up a potato and boiled it today.  It is in the freezer now.  I'll try it out when it's frozen. That may be later today. If it is, I'll report back later.

Edited May 3, 2023 by Norm Matthews (log)

[Norm Matthews]

I  made some fries with fresh potatoes as prepared above, some Ore-ida fries and Ore-ida shoestring.  The one with the least number of fries is the one I did first because i ate some while the other two were cooking. They are the ones made with fresh potatoes.  I used the preset for fries @400º for 18 minutes.  While they were cooking I read the back of the fries package and they said to cook them for ten minutes so i did and there were no Air Fry instructions for the shoestring potatoes so I cooked them for 10 minutes.

 

You can see the from fresh did not brown as much. They were dry on the outside but not crispy. The inside was creamy... maybe a little too creamy but they tasted more like potatoes that the other two.  The other two looked and acted like fries but did not have as good a flavor IMO.  I thought the shoestring potatoes were the most successful over all.  PS I reheated the first batch for 1 minute to reheat them but they did not improve the texture.  Sometime in the future, I'l  see if pre-frying the potatoes for a couple minutes or until they take on a little color makes any difference, but by then, I don't really see the point unless they still taste better.

Edited May 3, 2023 by Norm Matthews (log)

[paulraphael]

On 4/29/2023 at 6:59 AM, weinoo said:

 

 

I think similarly about sweet potatoes; I've never seen them crisp, only tried them in restaurants, and they're always not good.

I've had really good ones. Just don't know how to make them (but I don't know much about deep frying).

[Tropicalsenior]

I made some fries using the cornstarch method that I posted above. They were 2 small white potatoes that I cut into eight wedges each. I cooked them for about 15 minutes at 400°. Since dinner was delayed a bit, I let them set for about 10 minutes and then cooked them for another five. To my taste, they were just a tad overdone but they were nice and creamy inside.