Are Air fryers useful gadgets? Most definitely the air fryer is a must-have item. It saves a lot of time and effort when preparing meals, or bulk cooking. I particularly like the Tefal Actifry becuase it stirs the food as it cooks it. For instance, if you’re doing a Japanese curry – although stir-frying the ginger, garlic and onions is best done in a wok or Mediterranean casserole on the stovetop – it’s much quicker and more efficient to do the companion veg and tofu or substitute meat in the hot air fryer. This means as soon as the sauce (onions, garlic, ginger, spices and coconut milk) is ready the rest of the ingredients can be immediately added. Then all that’s required is a quick simmer to integrate the ingredients & flavours, and it can be served. So you have much more control over how much each ingredient is cooked and it compresses the time taken massively. Also, because it has a timer (my preferred airfryer the Tefal actifry does at least) there’s never any risk of burning or over cooking. The same is true of any casserole-style dish – tagines, curries, stews, aubergines in black bean sauce etc.
It’s also a fantastic way to cook chips! Brilliant for ordinary potatoes or sweet potatoes (or a mixture of the two). It takes much less oil 10 to 15 ml/grams per kilo – and you can use cold-pressed oil!
A great trick here is to set the timer to say 26 minutes for chips – then (when the 26 minutes is up) add anything you like to season them – soy sauce, paprika, garlic powder, cajun spices, oregano, chipotle etc – just be creative! Give it a good shake to distribute the additions/spices – then put back on for 3 minutes or so to bind/lightly brown and finish the seasoning. If you added the spices at the beginning they would become over cooked – you’re just looking for a coating with a lightly browned effect. You’ll never go back to plain chips after you’ve tried these I guarantee!
This trick works with new potatoes halved, cauliflower florets that’s been part steamed. This is simply a brilliant gadget. Another spice that’s good to add is Chinese chilli oil – brilliant on part steamed and then Actifried cauliflower florets.
Air fryers are such useful gadgets as they will even cook veggie sausages (Linda McCartney) or spring rolls/chickless nuggets direct from frozen in 10 to 12 minutes! No need to even add oil – they have enough already! No more standing by a pan endlessly turning them to stop them burning – it stirs and times them for you!
So good – I’ve got two!
