Air fryers?

OK, so no one has ever accused me of being the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to cooking and the tools and utensils used in the pursuit thereof.

Since Connie passed away, her exclusive domain of the kitchen has passed on to me. And honestly, I never had any reason to learn how to cook beyond something that would pop into the microwave cold and come out hot. And frankly, had I attempted to foist that control from Connie, I seriously think a row would ensue with her agonizing over the thought that her cooking was not good enough for me. Which is patently false, of course, and I am sure had I attempted making a meal and she were to taste test it, her fears would prove to be 100% foundless.

As a matter of point, my first attempt to make myself scrambled eggs with chopped up ham in it proved to be a disaster. Everything was in tiny bits and I had to grab a spoon in order to eat it. Then I had to tackle scraping the egg that had stuck to the bottom of Connie's frying pan (made out of stainless steel) and I was quickly coming to the conclusion that there would be no further eggs in my future unless I went to a restaurant to have them made for me.

After watching some youtube videos, I learned my mistakes, and the biggest of which was the suggestion to use a non-stick frying pan. So OK. Connie didn't have any of them. I know she had talked about it, but she was extremely health conscious (which in hindsight now seems to have been wasted effort on her part) and didn't like the idea of whatever was being used for the non-stick coating to contaminate our food. But I thought things had progressed quite a bit with that technology, so bought a set of non-stick pots and pans. My next attempt at scrambled eggs turned out pretty darn good, and cleanup was so easy it was laughable. Score one for the cooking newbie!

So, looking to make my forced cooking foray even easier, I began reading about air fryers. Not sure why Connie never got one of those, but perhaps it was the non-stick coating also in them, or it could just be that she was used to a conventional oven and didn't see any reason to change her cooking style. But I was intrigued. Cook things faster and easier? Well, right up my alley!

And off to Best Buy I went today and bought one. Had about the best reviews, so I bought a Ninja brand. And it would allow me to cook two different things at a time with different temps and cook times for each. Like shrimp in one basket and french fries in the other. Time it so they both would get done at the same time. Now that sounded like what I wanted.

Right now I am waiting for the "new appliance burn-in smell" to dissipate from the kitchen. It is actually quite strong and irritating. Kind of a combination of hot melting plastic and hot metal after welding. Not at all pleasant. And certainly nothing at all like what I would want food cooked in it to taste like. I have done two cycles so far, and yet the manual never mentioned doing this. I would have been quite upset had I wasted a couple pounds of shrimp in this thing to have them tasting like plastic and hot metal and be thrown in the garbage.

One thing (there will likely be more soon) that really puzzles me about this air fryer is that it is supposed to work by having fans blow hot air off of the heating coils over and around what you are cooking. That sounds all well and good, but this thing (and so did nearly every other air fryer I looked at) has incoming air vents and exhaust vents. So it is sucking in cool air, and blowing out the hot air. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Wouldn't it be much more energy efficient to just circulate and recirculate the already heated air to do the cooking rather than having to constantly heat up all that cool air being drawn in while the hot air is exhausted out of it? Seems to me the device would use a whole lot less electricity that way plus get the food cooked much, much quicker. So what am I missing? Heck, maybe Connie knew about this and that is the reason she never got one. Sure wish I could ask her about it........

Anyway, might be a moot point if that odor doesn't go away REAL SOON. I will give it a day or so, but honestly with all that hot air being exhausted, it raises the temperature in the kitchen to blast furnace level. Which is OK in the winter months, but during the summer, well I might have to move it outside on the porch.

Soooo, not real impressed so far. Sometimes "easier" has substantial strings attached.

My wife's previous toaster oven died a while ago. She bought herself a new one that also has an air fryer setting.

We have long made oven french fries -- wedge up some russets, toss in olive oil, add some seasonings and bake hot in the oven on a sheet pan. Works pretty well, though you have to flip them a few times.

I tried making french fries with the air fryer setting on the new toaster oven, and never will again. The little bit of oil on the potatoes splatters everywhere inside the oven, and the kitchen smells like fries for days. They didn't taste any better than the oven fries either.

I was really thinking it was going to work well, but no. We have some other goofy cooking appliances that are really great, though: panini press, rice cooker. Hard to say ahead of time which is going to work before you try it, I guess.

Well, I have been running it off and on all day. Still stinks. I eventually had to put it outside on the side porch.

It concerns me that it gets the countertop and the wall behind it pretty damn hot from the exhaust. The counter top gets so hot you can't keep your hand on it. That doesn't make any sense to me. I thought the whole idea was to circulate the hot air to cook things in it more evenly. So why exhaust the hot air and bring in cooler air that it would just have to keep on bringing up to temperature? Just recirculate that hot air so the heating coils don't have to be running all the time in order to keep the inside temps up to where they should be. Have I just really lost my marbles recently where common things just don't make sense to me?

Or maybe these things were designed by the power companies? This sure would be a windfall for them the way they would suck down electrical power being nothing more than a glorified heater that also can cook food while heating up your home.

I may not know much about cooking, but I REALLY thought I had a good handle on common sense and low level physics.

Anyway, I put a couple of pyrex bowls in the baskets with some apple cider vinegar and a dab of garlic powder. Figure killing bad smells with other potent smells might be the way to go. But even if that works, the above concern with having a whole house heater like that in the kitchen might have me taking that Ninja back. Now if they are all designed like that, then I guess I just do not understand the concept behind air frying and might have to back away from this whole idea and stick with the conventional ovens. I feel like how a caveman might feel trying to figure out a microwave oven.

Honestly, this worries me. I have always wondered if I lost my mind if I would be able to tell it happened myself without having guys in while coats throwing a net over me as my first clue.

I wonder if the reason they exhaust air is to remove moisture that would make the food soggy. They're supposed to get things crispy.

Originally Posted by Socratic Monologue

I wonder if the reason they exhaust air is to remove moisture that would make the food soggy. They're supposed to get things crispy.

Sounds as good of a theory as any, I guess. I have seen pictures customers have taken where the wall behind their air fryer was splattered with what looked like grease from the exhaust. But hard to tell exactly what it was just from the pictures. Could have been water colored from whatever it originated from that was cooking.

Finished several cycles using the vinegar/garlic treatment. Now running it for 50 minutes at 400 degrees to see how things smell after that is done.

Sure am glad I moved it outside.......

Originally Posted by Socratic Monologue

I wonder if the reason they exhaust air is to remove moisture that would make the food soggy. They're supposed to get things crispy.

Well, according to this YouTube video, you are correct about the moisture.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyLsDVqmQ1c

Still not crazy about the heat being emitted onto my kitchen counter, though.

But I guess that will be a secondary concern to the odor. I could find a workaround for the heat, but not the odor.

So I will just have to see if it dissipates over the weekend with my burn-in sessions. Probably going to have a larger electric bill this month, though, with this thing going as well as the cold temps we have been having.

I don't have a standalone air fryer unit. I do have the air fryer lid accessory for my Instant Pot and it doesn't splatter oil or get nearby objects hot, but it's a very different setup.

Personally I use the instant pot a lot more than the air fryer accessory. I mainly got the add-on so I could do foods, like french fries, that I would normally do cook in the oven outside on the porch during the summer when I didn't want the oven fighting with the air conditioner. This time of year I find excuses to run the oven.

An oven on the porch would be wonderful, like the "summer kitchens" some houses had 100+ years ago.

We bake mostly all our own bread during the winter, but very little during summer -- none when the AC is on.

Originally Posted by Socratic Monologue

An oven on the porch would be wonderful, like the "summer kitchens" some houses had 100+ years ago.

We bake mostly all our own bread during the winter, but very little during summer -- none when the AC is on.

You can bake bread in the IP with the air fryer lid. It's pretty good. I purchased a 3" high x 6" diameter cake pan specifically to use for that purpose. Google for recipes, there's even a no-knead version out there somewhere. Most recipes finish in the oven but I found one or two where everything is done in the IP.

That sounds useful. I imagine it would use less energy than a regular oven, too.