Air fryers?

[Cooper27]

I'm thinking about getting one, but wondered what the general consensus is? If you have one, is it any good?

I'd like to try making my own pakoras and puris, and the occasional gluten free battered items which usually need a deep fat fryer, but i don't fancy the fat that goes with it! Can they handle anything that isn't chips?

[SukiV]

Never tried one sorry. Have you thought about making pakoras in the oven?

[Cooper27 in reply to SukiV]

Oh i didn't think of that! It's an option, I'm just not so sure how it works for battered pakoras, or Puri (i think i can shallow fry those, but it uses a lot of oil)

[SukiV in reply to Cooper27]

I've tried fry light spray and then stick them in the oven. Not exactly the same as shallow frying but much more healthier and still tastes nice.

[Cooper27 in reply to SukiV]

Thanks, I'll give that a try!

[Microbabe Restart June 2024]

I've got air fryer and love it but don't think your pakora would work ... with the paddle in the batter would come off with the paddle out they would stick... it's great for stir fries and chips etc and I've been told you can do omelettes ... hope this helps 😊

[HubbysMissMouse]

I've got an Air fryer, you only need a spoonfull of oil there are many things you can cook with it. I don't know about Pakoras but I also cook things like battered mushrooms and onion rings, they aren't bad but slightly softer. It does take longer to cook with them which is why you do get a booklet with it that tells you things you can cook in it and how long for. We don't always even put oils in it either. I am so glad I have it though because I don't have many things covered in fat either. The only bad thing with it is the time it takes to cook but most of the time you are having something with it that takes this long too.

[Cooper27 in reply to HubbysMissMouse]

Hmm, sounds like it's maybe not as great as it looks! Do things taste fried or is it no different from how it'd taste out the oven?

[HubbysMissMouse in reply to Cooper27]

It varies but as far as chips go there are not much difference to a fryer except not smitten in fat. When I said about it taking longer to cook items I wasn't meaning longer than the oven. Sorry there, I was meaning longer than a fryer. Where it only takes 3-4 mins for a lot of fryers with chips it takes around 20 minutes. You get to tell the machine how many mins and it tells you when the time is reached. We really like this too. Most meats we cook take around 20 mins so cooking chips this time don't bother us. I love it though.

[roseabi]

We tried cooking falafel in our air fryer and it was a resounding failure!

[Cooper27 in reply to roseabi]

Probably wouldn't work for what i want then! That's a shame!

[TheFatMonk]

I use air fryer mainly for 3 dishes - onion rings, fried wings and French fries. Everything is perfectly fried until crisp without a single drop of butter, BUT! Consider several features of this cooking. I will explain on the example of cooking French fries. If you use a conventional deep fryer, we just cut the potatoes and throw them into the boiling oil. With air fryer for a real crunch, some preparation is needed.

A) Soak the potatoes in water for 20 minutes that would leave the excess starch.

B) Put the sliced soaked straw into the air fryer, you don't have to use the oil, but if you want so, then two teaspoons will be simple enough to not let the potatoes stick together, drop the oil and mix well.

С) Then put for 20 minutes at a temperature of 360 and then another 15 minutes at 390 degrees.

That is, cooking with the usual crunch without oil requires a little more effort, but you can eat French fries, or wings without a huge amount of cholesterol, and this is an important point.

If you do not know which air fryer to choose, here are the comparative characteristics of several manufacturers. Also on this site are described all the pros and cons of each model. (The site is not commercial, you can only read) bestadvisers.co.uk/air-fryers