We recently acquired a new kitchen appliance. A small one. In French, it's called une friteuse sans huile or une friteuse à air. Maybe you already have one. It's a miniature convection oven that quickly browns foods on the outside, letting the heat move through them from the outside in. It's an air fryer. You can cook foods that resemble deep-fried or pan-fried foods but without using a big vat of hot oil or having grease spattered all over the stove. The foods cook in a big, deep drawer. On the right is a photo that I grabbed off the Amazon.fr website. BTW, it cost about $75.00 U.S.
Above are some photos I took this morning. The fryer has a glass top which serves as the control panel. The drawer has a non-stick lining that makes it really easy to clean. A non-stick rack fits into the drawer, so foods don't stick to it either. It can be run through the dishwasher. So could the drawer itself, but we haven't felt the need to do that. It's so easy to wash it by hand.
So what have we cooked in it? French fries, of course, both frozen ones out of a bag (no need to thaw them first) and ones made using fresh potatoes. I drizzle a spoonful of olive oil onto the fresh-cut fries and toss them around in it before putting them in the fryer
We've also cooked a boneless beef chuck roast (une basse-côte de bœuf) that weighed almost two pounds. There it is raw in the middle photo above, and browned on the left. It browned very quickly and didn't have to end up with a mess to clean up on the stovetop or in the oven. I wasn't worried about whether it would be rare, medium, or well done inside, because after it had browned I was going to braise it (in tomato sauce, actually, with onions, carrots, bell peppers, and mushrooms.) We've also cooked chicken thighs, drumsticks, and boneless, skinless breast filets.
Aren't they marvellous!!? You can get a silicon basket with two handles for yours... I use one in ours, although it wasn't designed for it, and it means that that is the only thing to clean.... but, if you are wanting to steaks and chips, the steak needs turning halfway through and the basket needs shaking from time to time.
ReplyDeleteOurs is a cross between one of those little worktop "fours" that the French seem to love and that went out of fashion in the UK in the late '80s and a normal air-fryer.... but that allows for a small rotisserie, a 6x kebab holder [short ones] and a rotating basket for the chips which means that you don't have to shake the basket. With that and the microwave/normal-convection oven, the main oven hardly gets used these days... and then, normally, at 70° Centipede for keeping dishes warm!! Wouldn't be without it now!!
Can you give me a link to a site where I can learn more about the kind of oven you describe?
DeleteKen, I'll message you later today.... am getting ready to sho one of my music/video soundscapes at a friend's vernissage.... expect a Facebook Messenger message around 8PM
DeleteSo far I have only used my very small one to finish off a jacket potato after it has had a good micro waving.
ReplyDeleteOhhhh, these are all the rage in the U.S. these days. I fought the idea of having another appliance on the counter, but we finally bought one, and I'm glad we have it (but, I don't store it on the counter). I haven't used it for any actually cooking, just heating things up... but, it's been excellent for heating up frozen egg rolls, crab rangoon, and spanakopita, and tater tots. I feel like I would not have a feel for how to cook meat from raw in it.
ReplyDeleteWe don't keep the air fryer on the kitchen counter either. We keep in the closet in our guest bedroom. It always gets put away clean so it doesn't smell the place up. And it's easy to get it out when we want to cook something in it. Before, we used a deep-fat fryer to cook pommes frites. We kept that fryer in our cellier (cold pantry) which at ground level, which a sand floor, that stays fairly cold except when we have a long hot spell. The problem was that it had to be carried up to the kitchen when we wanted to use it and then carried back downstairs after we had cooked in it and let it cool down. The danger was that it would get dropped on the stairs and grease would go everywhere. I got more and more nervous about it. So now it is replaced and their is no danger of spillage with the friteuse sans huile. Also, the peanut oil we used in the deep-fat fryer was expensive and it had to be replaced on a regular basis.
Deletewe had to get a new oven recently so we ended up with a GE that has an air fryer built in...I haven't quite gotten the hang of it yet though.....everyone love their small ones.....but if there are splatters I would have to clean the whole oven I think so not worth it
ReplyDeleteTo me, the easy clean up with the air fryer, with all spatters contained, is one of its big advantages.
DeleteWe bought a small one during the pandemic. It cooks salmon really well and cinnamon toast, etc
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean by a "small" air fryer? Our has a drawer with a capacity of five liters. I want to try cooking a whole chicken in it. I just don't know if it needs to be a small chicken. First, I'm going to try cooking a whole chicken breast — maybe today. I bought a whole chicken and cut it up into two leg-and-thigh pieces, two wings, and the breast with the bone left in. We'll see.
DeleteVery small- just holds one piece of toast. I don't have much counter space or cabinet space anymore.
DeleteSo interesting - we don't have one - wondering how the inside of your chuck roast came out?
ReplyDeleteI didn't check the doneness of the chuck roast as it came out of the air fryer because I was just going to braise it anyway. It would finish cooking in tomato sauce and be well done when we ate it.
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