The Marvel That Is… The Air Fryer

People you already know will discover the air fryer and when they do, you will hear about it. I promise you that will hear about it.

I watched from afar as other people I knew got them and told the world. I would be semi taken in, but no, for a long time, superior me would say to myself in the manner of Peter Kay saying garlic bread, an “air” “fryer”? You mean, frying… with air? Negative ghost-rider, that’s not going to fly (or fry – laughs to self). When trying to clear your counters and look minimal and classy, who needs another significant counter-top gadget that requires too much cleaning to be bothered with.

But of course, one day, the glee of the initiated got too much for me. I searched and assessed Amazon ratings, clicked on the one, and about two days later, I am the owner of a medium sized Ninja Air Fryer.

Omagosh people, how many regrets? Zero.

Zero, I tell you. This thing is a good gadget.  The first thing I tried to make (prepare?) in it was oven chips. I warmed it up for two minutes, put in oven chips and ten minutes later – perfect oven chips. By perfect, I mean these chips feel like they have been fried. They are browned and crispy on the outside, but fluffy in the middle. This is in a way I have never achieved by cooking oven chips in an oven. Maybe you have better ovens than I have had, but my experience of oven chips, cooked in ovens, is a perennial exercise in chip disappointment. There is a magic moment when oven chips, cooked in the oven are perfect. You will never see that moment. It’s too magical. The two moments you will see are: a) soggy, no change in colour, the potato inside almost crunchy or b) burnt husks with no sign of obvious potato.

The air fryer is an oven chip game changer. In the same way, anything breaded that you have in your freezer, that would normally be cooked in deep fat, is perfect for an air fryer; browned and crispy on the outside, as it should be in the middle.

OK, this type of food is the stuff of foodie dreams. But I am a mother of a seven and ten year old. Full disclosure, my Annabel Karmel phase, that included de-skinning and de-seeding tomatoes, ended in 2013. These types of food are every other day foods chez-moi and well, fish fingers, oven chips and mushy peas, with a dollop of Hellmann’s.  I have also been very successful with salmon and roasted vegetables and have a whole book of recipes to try. The great news is, even if I don’t, which is likely, it doesn’t matter!

And just to conclude this celebration of my gadget purchasing, here are a selection of other gadgets in which I have invested that have gone both ways:

Paid back over and over:

1. Cuisinart Mini Chopper/Food processor – easily assembled and washed up, perfect for herbs and small batches of things only I ever eat. The brilliance of this, I believe, is made stronger by knowing how faffy it is to clean a full size Magimix.
2. Stick blender (various brands over the years) – lumpy things on the stove, begone!
3. Pampered chef apple corer and chopper – ‘Mum, can I have a snack?” – “Here, homemade apple!”
4. Lakeland potato masher – lumpy mash, begone! (By the same token and physical conversion of power via leverage, I include my lemon and lime, long handled squeezers.
5. Strawberry corer – stick, twist, bosh, compote anyone?

If I had my time over, I wouldn’t…

1. Very expensive posh blender – it didn’t change my life in the way the book I was reading promised. That could have been two pairs of VERY posh shoes, that almost certainly would have changed my life.
2. Spiraliser – it cut me, not just once either.
3. Mandolin – as above.
4. Burger Press – it’s more fun and more ‘artisan’ to squidge ‘em.
5. Mango corer – mango preparation is witchcraft. Nothing can over-ride this.

The Air Fryer though. Be like Jackie. Get an Air Fryer.