Air fryers

[Guest2]

I searched and couldnt see a specific thread for Air Fryers. Mods, please move to 'la-cuisine' I didnt see that sub

We bought a Tower T17023 Air Fryer (2.2l) the other day, primarily for its compact size but have since returned it and bought a Ninja Foodi Mini Oven [SP101UK] 8-in-1 Flip Mini Oven, Air Fryer, Bake, Grill, Silver.
When we looked at some of the Tefal and Ninja specific air fryers they were quite bulky and the Foodi mini over also folds up when not in use.

Any recommendations on good things to air fry and who has one?

Pics below

Tower


Tower could fit 14 eggs


Ninja

 

[Guest2]

Air Fried eggs are pretty awful.

Chicken Wings are delicious though. As are chips. Even frozen chips! But home made chips in the air fryer, isn't far away from being deep fried.

Already done air fried (boiled) eggs, they were great, took 8 mins in total and easier to peel. How were you doing them? All I did was preheat for 1 min at 200 then put 2 uncooked eggs in on 135c for 7 mins. Eggs were just to show size example by the way, not cook 20 eggs

A whole banana was great air fried, just made it like a banana fritter but without all the unhealthyness

 

[Guest2]

Is the dehydrate any good?

I'm thinking jerky etc

But a lot of fruits and vegetables are really nice as well.

I've not tried it yet but imagine it is. How cost effective it is over buying dehydrated fruit and jerky though is another thing.
In the booklet it has herbs at 4-6 hours at 60c, fruits at 6-8 hours at 60c. meat, poultry and fish and at 70c for 5-7 hours with turkey jerky at 5-8 hours.

 

[Guest2]

Why would you air fry an egg? The whites and yolk cooks at about 65-70c. If you blast it at 200c by the time that heat travels into the center into the yolk the white would be way too cooked. A bit like cooking a steak on a really hot pan you end up searing the outside, except you are doing it to the whites, but you are not frying it on the pan so without that maillard reaction with a bit of oil, the egg shell becomes the heat plate.


I’ve done things like Cookies, Bread, Chicken Wings, pork belly.

You dont blast it at 200c.

"All I did was preheat for 1 min at 200 then put 2 uncooked eggs in on 135c for 7 mins" The two eggs turned out perfect (runny, not horrible hard boiled) and easier to peel.

 

[Guest2]

You don't air fry eggs lol

Really? - https://cookathomemom.com/air-fryer-eggs/

Just a note that this Ninja mini oven is powerful! The Tower Air fryer cooked a couple of small bits of bread in 15 minutes on 200c perfectly (inc pre heat)
I stuck 7 small pieces of bread on 200c for 10 minutes (inc pre heat) in the Ninja and it came out like charcoal Guess 3-5 mins is enough or a lower Air fry heat (or use grill/toast setting)

Should have known really as the Tower air fryer was 1000w, the Ninja is 2400w

 

[Guest2]

Air fried Kale turns into 'Crispy seaweed' after 3 mins on 200c. The stuff that's sold in Chinese restaurants!

 

[Guest2]

Update on this thread.

We replaced the Ninja mini oven with a Ninja dual zone air fryer which is a lot better. 100x easier to clean and cooks quicker.





It's possible to cook at whole 1.6kg medium chicken in half of the air fryer, leaving vegetables and chips or something else in compartment 2





@BUDFORCE I would recommend this one (Ninja AF300UK) - https://ninjakitchen.co.uk/product/ninja-foodi-dual-zone-air-fryer-af300uk-zidAF300UK
As above, it has two compartments and is 7.6l capacity.

Maybe for a family of 4 go for the larger 9.5l capacity - https://ninjakitchen.co.uk/product/ninja-foodi-max-dual-zone-air-fryer-af400uk-zidAF400UK

We also just had this months electric bill, £74.69 instead of last months £132. Now im not saying it saved £60 a month but I think we have turned the oven on once this month, so guess it helped somewhat

 

[Guest2]

We got ours back in December when the oven packed up. My partner wasn't thrilled by it at first but now she's basically always speaking highly of it.
We now only really use the oven if we are having oven pizzas. Otherwise all of our cooking is either done in the air fryer or pressure cooker.

Still haven't tried using it for a whole chicken yet. What function did you use for it, roast?

Air fry, 200c. Didnt even bother turning in over half way through. 40 minutes for that one but we did another and it needed 50 mins and was perfect (50 mins in total from turning on to fully cooked)

When it was done, my girlfriend grabbed some bread and poured the chicken fat over and made air fried chicken toast. Incredible! ...but also highly unhealthy

 

[Guest2]

Whilst not in the same league as the Ninja models, if you are on a budget, then the Tower air fryers are worth a look.

I have the model below which I got on offer for £67.00 at the time.

Also does rotisserie chicken (1.2KG). That’s the main reason I bought it tbh

Tower T17039 5-in-1 Air Fryer review: Cooks a whole chicken in 45 minutes | Expert Reviews

An air fryer with some great features at an attractive price

www.expertreviews.co.uk

We had a tower one first, whilst good it just wasnt big enough.

Chips need parboiling, that would be an instant nope. The small tower one we had i just chopped up raw sweet potato and theew them in for 22 mins, shaking half way through.

 

[Guest2]

I want to buy a air fryer, which model would you recommend?

How many people will it be feeding and budget?

 

[Guest2]

By spending £200 on an air fryer?

If it did really save us £60 on electric for the month by not using the oven, then yes.
We bought ours direct from Ninja who so far have hadcreally good customer service. As mentioned, you can usually find them cheaper on deals with random companies.
Ours, my girlfriend bought on 6 months interest free Paypal credit.

By then, we’ll owe it money

 

[Guest2]

This is £79.99 now on Amazon by the way for anyone interested

Chips need parboiling

Whaaaaat???
Also, be wary of the mini oven tyoe air fryers. Total pig to clean the back of.
A ‘standard’ air fryer with a compartment / conpartments that slot in and out is so much easier

 

[Guest2]

Ninjas stock is non existent atm. No dual fryers or health grills.

I noticed this too, no stock in retails stores too like Currys. Anyone know why?
My only guess is no stock as people try to save electric by using air fryers instead of their ovens. Ninja specific mind as other brands like Tefal are in stock

Yesterday my GF returned after going to Mcdonalds (and eating 14/20 nuggets in the process! ) had one and it was cold and horrible. Put the other 5 in the air fryer on max crisp for 3 minutes. Better than when they are served at Mcdonalds!

 

[Guest2]

We did Pork chops the other night, the excess pork fat poured into Couscous made it taste fantastic. Also after cooking a whole chicken, the chicken fat is incredible on air fried toast!
Don't waste the great fat!

 

[Guest2]

Chicken fat on toast are you sure m8

When a medium chicken has cooked and some of the juices have collected under the tray, pour them onto toast / whatever else. It's no different to say using the juices from Turkey for perfect gravy.
Probably not recommended all the time for people that do no exercise. Quite unhealthy but then fats cant be that bad seems as they're the first thing animals go for in the wild when hungry

 

[Guest2]

Hi

Did you use any oil on the chicken, or just a seasoning?

Better with a bit of olive oil rubbed onto the skin

 

[Guest2]

Was speaking to an Aldi manager this morning who was saying people are travelling some distances and queuing up long before the store opened to grab one of these.

Why are they so hard to get hold of all of a sudden?

 

[Guest2]

They're hailed as the holy grail of energy saving compared to your normal oven. Lots of "influencer" hype around them on social media, basically the usual reasons things end up hard to get hold of unless you want to get scalped

Guessed as much. Interestingly we didnt use our oven all month when we first got the air fryer, the electric bill was £40 cheaper than normal

 

[Guest2]

I wanted to do a whole chicken in ours but didn't know to what extent I should jam it in so it's ok touching the sides etc?

I saw some mention cooking it breast side down for half, then turning it over?

I had a 1.6ishkg bird in the fridge when we opened out ninja and just didn't look like it would go in, I'll be braver!

Yeh, jam it in. It'll fit!
I just stuck it in and left it and it was fine. The legs did get a bit stuck when I opened it after 50 mins though, had to break one slightly but it was nice and cooked so ate it

 

[Guest2]

The only time our oven goes on now is for something like a big cottage pie or pizza so it's almost certainly saved us some electric.
Whether it's gained back the £150 we paid in June who knows, but it's so much more convenient.

Similar, pizza (which we have hardly ever) or xmas dinner!
Its way more convenient that farting around with the oven scraping things off the tray. Like when we used to do sweet potato fries in the oven and chicken