If you’ve recently bought your first air fryer and you don’t know where to begin there are a few bits of knowledge that will power you off in the right direction! Check out the video below to get a speedy walk through your latest kitchen gadget
Transcript
So you’ve just bought an air fryer and you don’t know where to start with it. This video is for you all the information that you need to get off the starting blocks in hopefully about three minutes
so let’s start with the basics an air fryer is a small oven that circulates hot air quickly in a small space and so it cooks food quicker than a conventional oven and it’s great at making stuff crispy
But a weird thing happens when people buy an air fryer, they sort of Lose their mind and they start trying to cook absolutely everything in it like boiling eggs it’s not a cooking challenge you don’t have to cook absolutely everything in it because honestly some stuff is just better cook the regular way and that’s ok
That’s ok so what about all the different buttons the buttons are most air fryers very three things time temperature and fan speed you want a hot temperature and a fast fan to cook small things like chips but a slower fan and a slightly cooler temperature for bigger things to cook right through if in doubt the bake setting is usually a safe place to start
now one of the first things that you need now that you have an air fry to go with it is actually free it’s a conversion chart I’ll link one in the description below and what that will do is give you a guide of timings and temperatures for cooking in an air fryer versus a normal oven and it will help you transition from cooking in your regular oven to cooking in an air fryer
now you’ll want to spray those things that you put in air fryer with oil in order to make them crispy with the exception obviously of things like cakes, don’t buy one of the pre-filled aerosols because there is some suggestion that they contain ingredients which may damage the non-stick surface of air fryers which we don’t want to do so just buy an empty spray bottle and fill yourself with oil
now behind the heating element in your air fry is a strong fan to push the hot air around now that means that loose things that you put in an air fry like grated cheese can fly around and you need to anchor them down, in the case of the grated cheese mix it with a bit of mayo and it will stick onto the top of whatever dish it belongs to
if you’ve got leftovers to reheat airfryers are brilliant at it, no more warmed up limp stuff coming out of the microwave instead spray a bit of oil on it and put it into the air fryer and it will come out crunchy and warm
if you’re going to put something in the air fry like a dish that might be tricky to lift out when it’s hot and the drawer is hot make yourself tin foil sling and then you can use that to lift the dish out at the end
Now a lot of people are confused about the crisper tray which sits at the bottom of the drawer of your air fryer it is there in order to help warm air circulate underneath what you’re cooking and to give it a crisp bottom however if you’re cooking something that doesn’t need a crisp bottom and you need the extra height in the drawer you can remove it with no problems
you’ll notice that you could buy silicone liners for your air fryers don’t rush out and buy them if you haven’t already got them lots of people myself included think that they actually aren’t much use, because they prevent the air from circulating in the drawer which is what it’s supposed to do. If you want to contain the mess in your drawer your better off buying perforated parchment sheets their link below
And finally, one of the best sources of information for air fryers if you’re new to them are Facebook groups join one and you’ll find loads of knowledge and free recipes. I’ve linked those in the description as well
