One part of blogging is taking reader feedback seriously. While I focused on restaurant and street food, many, including my family, kept asking me to research this and that. Thankfully, I knew guys at Philips after the review for the Saeco coffee maker. So, I could do justice to one request that I was getting across social media and personal conversations – the air fryer.
Every appliance company seemed to have one and no one had any idea if they were any good. So, I got myself one to review and quickly went to work. The machine itself is extremely simplistic and you will expect it to disappoint. But, then the cooking process is simple , there are only two variants – air temperature and time. Thus, only two settings.
We started with the most obvious item – French fries. I cut the potatoes, sliced them, kept them soaked in water for 15 minutes to get rid of the extra starch, coated them in a thin layer of oil and put them in the fryer. The first time, I had no idea how long to cook them or at what temperature. I never trust the instructions. So, I pulled them out every 4-5 minutes and checked. All in all, eventually, I found they should take around 15 minutes.
They were a crispy, well done and had no strange flavours or smells due to the air frying. But they were not like the Mc Donald’s ones as they show in the ads. But you need to play around with the combo, they get better.
Once you realise that the thing works, it’s madness. We tossed in every vegetable that we could – sweet potatoes, brinjals, zucchini and what not. The best of the trials were the sweet potatoes, the fries were perfectly done, crispy outside, moist inside. Even, chili cheese toast.
The best of the dry roasting experience were the apples. The slices were as well done as they are in an OTG. Perfectly grilled, bubbling with caramelized sugar and bursting with every bite.
I posted a few photos on my Facebook page asked for suggestions on what to do next. People had seen the ads on TV and a reader suggested samosas. I had to wait for the weekend when we prepared two batches for easy comparision.
One batch was deep fried in oil as usual and the other one went into the fryer. The samosas from the fryer lacked on critical element – moisture. Gladly, the crust was well done and I may have payed with the temperature more for better results. Anyway, these ones were like baked ones. Not bad at all, but nothing like the deep fried ones. But if you want to have samosas regularly, this is the best way to do it.
