Cooking with an Air Fryer

[Kerala]

32 minutes ago, Anna N said:

@Kerala

Nice meal. Not often I see somebody willing to indulge so generously in raw onion. Glad of the company. Equally glad there are 3000 miles between us!

Not on school nights!

[Chimayo Joe]

9 hours ago, lemniscate said:

Costco had panko breaded frozen shrimp as a "Hot Buy".   I impulsed bought.   

I put them in my newly acquired Chefman for about 10 min.  Maybe that was a *bit too long, but they were satisfyingly crispy.   Nice size shrimp.  I dipped in a sweet and sour sauce.

Anyone do frozen clam strips/bellies in air fryer yet?  That's my favorite all time breaded seafood dish, so hard to find anymore as bar food.   If so, what supermarket brands are good?   

 

I have noticed that the air fryer can be a convenience food enabler (ie egg rolls, fries, breaded shrimp).   I have never been a frozen food/meal buyer per se, always wanted to do from scratch.   Now I have those things in the freezer, for better or for worse.

I haven't tried a lot of seafood in my air fryer, yet.  I've had a couple of varieties of SeaPak shrimp. I liked the jumbo coconut shrimp better of those, but the jumbo butterfly shrimp was okay, too.  I've had a half dozen types of breaded/battered fish (Gorton's, Van de Camp, SeaPak.) They cook better in the air fryer than in the oven, but they're still not very good. I've had waterfrontBISTRO breaded calamari which was pretty bad. waterfrontBISTRO is a Safeway store brand.  I'll probably give their shrimp a try sometime.  SeaPak has breaded clam strips, and I'll probably give those a try, too.

[Kerala]

Just put some chicken drumsticks in the Ninja Foodi with a thrown-together dressing including fish sauce. The kitchen is filling with the pungent savoury smell of chicken fat and fish sauce, and my mind with a nagging worry that this will be repeated every time I use the Ninja from here on... I'll keep you posted.

[Okanagancook]

I tried this last night with too small a piece of belly.  It got over cooked but I learned a lot of technique and will try again with a larger piece.  My piece was only 10 oz and one inch thick and also very lean.

 

I like cooking it at a low temp for 20 minutes to soften the skin to make it easy to poke holes in it.  I also found his comment about not too many holes interesting.  I like the little foil boat to hold the meat.  It kept the mess under control. 
 

i don’t think I would make such deep cuts in the meat.  My meat was dry.  I cooked it at 400f for about 15 minutes but the meat was getting too cooked.  I should have taken it out to inspect the skin at 12 minutes.  We ate it

 

[rotuts]

@Okanagancook

 

what an excellent video

 

than k you for sharing

 

BTW :  any idea on the make and model of the AF ?

 

Im begging to get tingling , here and there

 

re :  an AF w a window 

 

as are others on eG

[Okanagancook]

No idea of which AF it is.

[BetD]

1 hour ago, rotuts said:

@Okanagancook

 

what an excellent video

 

than k you for sharing

 

BTW :  any idea on the make and model of the AF ?

 

Im begging to get tingling , here and there

 

re :  an AF w a window 

 

as are others on eG

 

 

I looked on Amazon and found what appears to be the same fryer   Alt airfryer

 

The page includes other fryers with windows as well.  Happy hunting!

[Chimayo Joe]

On 8/28/2022 at 8:31 AM, lemniscate said:

Anyone do frozen clam strips/bellies in air fryer yet?

I had the SeaPak breaded clam strips. They're okay and have decent clam flavor.  I was half expecting them to have the texture of rubber bands, but they're fairly tender.  Shrimp are still my seafood of choice in the air fryer, but I might buy these again sometime.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Chimayo Joe (log)

[Kerala]

On 9/14/2022 at 2:47 PM, Kerala said:

Just put some chicken drumsticks in the Ninja Foodi with a thrown-together dressing including fish sauce. The kitchen is filling with the pungent savoury smell of chicken fat and fish sauce, and my mind with a nagging worry that this will be repeated every time I use the Ninja from here on... I'll keep you posted.

All good, no worries!

[lemniscate]

18 hours ago, Chimayo Joe said:

I had the SeaPak breaded clam strips. They're okay and have decent clam flavor.  I was half expecting them to have the texture of rubber bands, but they're fairly tender.

 

I'll give those a try.  Maybe on a roll like like a po' boy.

[Okanagancook]

I tried another piece of pork belly using the method from the video up thread but this time my belly was thicker…about two inches.  That was the difference because it was not over done.  I watched it carefully checking it every 5 minutes once I set the AF to 400F.  Very easy to make.

[Chimayo Joe]

I've had several items that were new to me since the last time I posted on this thread:

Regarding shrimp, none have topped my favorites SeaPak Jumbo Coconut Shrimp and SeaPak Jumbo Butterfly Shrimp, but they've all been pretty good.  waterfrontBISTRO Butterfly Shrimp I think are next best after the two previously mentioned SeaPak shrimp. waterfrontBISTRO is a Safeway store brand. Kroger Crunchy Coconut Shrimp and Kroger Crunchy Butterfly Shrimp have batter that's a bit too thick for me, but other than that, they're good.  I probably expected too much from SeaPak Tempura Shrimp. They're okay but missing the light crispiness I want from tempura. The jury is still out on SeaPak Budweiser Beer Battered Shrimp. I've only had part of the package of those, and I overcooked them.

 

Moving on to potstickers & similar, Bibigo continues to be my favorite brand.  I had the spicy version of Bibigo Mandu Pork & Vegetable Dumpling earlier, and while the regular Mandu Pork & Vegetable Dumplings aren't as much of zing to the palate, they're also very good.  Bibigo Pork & Vegetable Mini Wontons also get a thumbs up from me. Others I've liked (roughly in order of preference) are:

Wei Chuan Vegetable & Pork Dumplings Gyoza

Beksul Crispy Potstickers Vegetable Beef & Pork Dumplings

Sprouts Pork Gyoza Pot Stickers

Annie Chun's Organic Pork & Vegetable Potstickers

Wei Chuan Korean Pork Dumpling

InnovAsian Pork Potstickers

Tai Pei Pork Potstickers

Daylee Pride Pork Gyoza Potstickers

Annie Chun's Organic Shiitake & Vegetable Potstickers

Ling Ling Potstickers Pork & Vegetable Dumplings

Daylee Pride Beef Gyoza Potstickers

Chung's Pork Potstickers

 

Only one frozen potato product to add, Ore-Ida Mini Tater Tots which is the best of the Ore-Ida tater tot varieties that I've had.  Not as good as my favorite Alexia Yukon Select Puffs, and not as good as Great Value Taters (which were a surprise find), but maybe 3rd in my tater tot rankings (slightly ahead of about a dozen others.) 

 

 

Edited October 19, 2022 by Chimayo Joe (log)

[Chimayo Joe]

I finished the SeaPak beer battered shrimp that I had, and of the frozen battered shrimp I've tried, I liked it the least.  The batter is too strongly flavored and there's too much of it for shrimp.  I've had SeaPak beer battered fish a few months ago, and it works better on that.  I didn't think the fish was great, but it was better than the other battered or breaded frozen fish I've tried.

[ElsieD]

@blue_dolphin. When I first got the Breville, I tried air frying things like chicken wings and French fries, both regular and sweet potatoes.  Everything stuck to the basket and when I tried to loossen the food the skin came off the chicken and pieces of potatoes stuck to the basket.   This happened even when i used a food spray on the basket.  I found it also cooked unevenly.  Since he BSOA replaced a BSO and I did not buy it for the Air function I didn't really care that the air frying function didn't work for me.

 

I'm very happy with my recent purchase of the Vortex Plus Air Fryer.  My wings come out perfectly crispy and I love that I can stick an egg in there, time it to hard cook and walk away.  This things like tator tots turn out nice and crunchy and I love the grilled cheese sandwiches.  I don't do anything exciting with it but for what I use it for. It's great.

 

As a final note, the air fryer is much faster than the BSO"A" ever was. 

[Anna N]

13 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

I love the grilled cheese sandwiches.

I must admit, I have never tried a grilled cheese sandwich. I did not have much success with chicken wings, but then they were these tiny things that might’ve come off an ortolan!  I have not bought wings since because I can’t see them to see if they are reasonably sized. (I have to do all my shopping online.)

[ElsieD]

26 minutes ago, Anna N said:

I must admit, I have never tried a grilled cheese sandwich. I did not have much success with chicken wings, but then they were these tiny things that might’ve come off an ortolan!  I have not bought wings since because I can’t see them to see if they are reasonably sized. (I have to do all my shopping online.)

 

I can't bring myself to buy the Itty bitty chicken wings you see in grocery stores because I look at them and think "those poor little chick's never had a life".  I do, however, buy them at the Costco Business Centre.  They sell big chicken wings.

 

As for the grilled cheese sandwich, they air fry up really crispy and even better, both sides stay crispy as you eat it.  No flabby underside.

[mgaretz]

The new Ninja arrived today and guess what, I'm going to try a pork chop tonight!  It seems mostly well thought out (all the parts nest for storage, unlike my regular sized one).  It can grill with the lid open but there doesn't seem to be any particular "smokeless" feature when you do that, like the Philips grill.  Will test that soon.

[Anna N]

32 minutes ago, mgaretz said:

The new Ninja arrived today and guess what, I'm going to try a pork chop tonight! 

😂😂

[mgaretz]

So the pork chop came out a little underdone but that could be where I placed the thermometer.  Still quite edible but not as many crispy bits as with the old grill.  Straight grill marks on this version though.  The non-stick seems to be much better and the grill grate and "catch basin" are all one unit so less to clean.  Even though this one is bigger, it actually seems lighter in weight.

 

 

[lemniscate]

Another convenience food success:  canned "popping" biscuits.     My little air fryer is set to 380F and I do ~10 min and then flip over to brown the bottoms for a couple more minutes.

 

I've had limited success with the "from frozen" individual biscuits.   I think I need to flip them about halfway through instead of near the end.  Like at 6 min into the time.  Otherwise they are slightly raw in the middle.

Edited November 6, 2022 by lemniscate (log)

[lemniscate]

Thanks to those who recommended the Alexia brand frozen fries.   We were pretty pleased with the crinkle version in the air fryer.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

1 hour ago, lemniscate said:

Thanks to those who recommended the Alexia brand frozen fries.   We were pretty pleased with the crinkle version in the air fryer.

 

Alexia fries are on my menu for tonight -- assuming I can force myself to be hungry enough after the large, late breakfast I had at sundown.  Standard time throws everything off.

 

[Chimayo Joe]

23 hours ago, lemniscate said:

Thanks to those who recommended the Alexia brand frozen fries.   We were pretty pleased with the crinkle version in the air fryer.

Which Alexia crinkle fries did you have?  I like many Alexia products, but I haven't had their crinkle fries except for the sweet potato crinkles.  The big supermarkets here don't have them.  Sprouts appears to carry Alexia Garlic Fries (which are crinkles), and Natural Grocers appears to carry Organic Oven Crinkles and Smart Classics Crinkles (which are lower fat.) I don't go to those stores as often, but I'll pick up some Alexia crinkles next time I'm there.

[lemniscate]

1 minute ago, Chimayo Joe said:

Organic Oven Crinkle

These.  Whole Foods has them.  I also bought the Yukon Gold frozen ones, but left them with another household for their air fryer.  There's a Crispy Rosemary Fries that I thought about but didn't buy.  I may pick those up later.  

 

FYI, the Crinkles don't get very brown but they do get crispy.

[mgaretz]

Second try in the Ninja.  This chop came out better than the first one, very moist and juicy with enough crust.  However the device is a lemon.  The first time I used I had to plug the thermometer in a second time to get it to recognize it.  I chlaked it up to me not having plugged it in all the way.  Last night it took about 30 tries to get it to work, so it's getting exchanged.