Air fryer for the boat?

[mrsmelly]

3 hours ago, M_JG said:

 

Bless, he wants to provoke a row.

 

Not getting one here matey.

Its obvious he wouldnt understand, he has said he doesnt like chips  Like you, I tend to post my opinion, not that of others. It is of course fact that PROPER chips are deep fried, they were for countless years before new fangled fads came along.

[Hudds Lad]

16 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Its obvious he wouldnt understand, he has said he doesnt like chips  Like you, I tend to post my opinion, not that of others. It is of course fact that PROPER chips are deep fried, they were for countless years before new fangled fads came along.

Ahhh, new fangled fads  

 

The Victorians thought that if women travelled at speed on a train their uteruses would fly out of their bodies, and that men were driven to insanity until the train slowed into a station.

 

The earth isn't flat, come and join us in the future, we have air fried cookies  

[tree monkey]

5 hours ago, Hudds Lad said:

 

The Victorians thought that if women travelled at speed on a train their uteruses would fly out of their bodies, and that men were driven to insanity until the train slowed into a station.

 

Looking at the world right now they might have been right, well maybe not the uterus bit that would have been obvious and fairly messy

 

Oh and proper chips are deep fried

Edited July 31, 2023 by tree monkey

[MtB]

6 hours ago, tree monkey said:

Oh and proper chips are deep fried

 

Quite right too.

 

Now we have Proper boaters, Proper beer, and Proper chips. Excellent. 

 

Them McCain oven things are perfectly palatable but thems ain't 'chips'. Thems "French Fries", innit. 

 

Thems also made of UPF, which is real bad for one. 

 

 

 

 

[Hudds Lad]

6 hours ago, tree monkey said:

Oh and proper chips are deep fried

Bark chips don't count  

[IanD]

1 minute ago, MtB said:

 

Quite right too.

 

Now we have Proper boaters, Proper beer, and Proper chips. Excellent. 

 

Them McCain oven things are perfectly palatable but thems ain't 'chips'. Thems "French Fries", innit. 

 

Thems also made of UPF, which is real bad for one. 

 

 

 

 

Ultraviolet Protection Factor? Surely that's good for you?

[tree monkey]

1 minute ago, IanD said:

Ultraviolet Protection Factor? Surely that's good for you?

Not if you deep fry it

[MtB]

1 minute ago, IanD said:

Ultraviolet Protection Factor? Surely that's good for you?

 

Ultra Processed Food. 

 

Anything that comes wrapped in plastic and contains at least one ingrediment you won't find in the average English kitchen cupboard. 

 

Other definitions are available.

[IanD]

Just now, MtB said:

 

Ultra Processed Food. 

 

Anything that comes wrapped in plastic and contains at least one ingrediment you won't find in the average English kitchen cupboard. 

 

Other definitions are available.

Joke alert... 😉

[MtB]

https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/news/behind-the-headlines/ultra-processed-foods

 

[IanD]

Just now, MtB said:

https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/news/behind-the-headlines/ultra-processed-foods

 

So *proper* chips aren't a UPF then, which means they must be good for you... 🙂

[MtB]

9 minutes ago, IanD said:

So *proper* chips aren't a UPF then, which means they must be good for you... 🙂

 

Correct. 

 

No hydrogenated fats, no artificial preservatives, no lecithin, no carnauba wax, no glazing agents, no.... oh you get the picture! 

 

The hypothesis is, all this stuff makes UPF very easy to eat and difficult to actually stop eating, so people over-eat. Designing food this way is a deliberate business strategy to sell more of it and make more profit. Hence the western world obesity problem. If we only eat food we prepare ourselves, we don't 'over-eat'. 

 

Supposedly. And I'm inclined to agree with the thinking. 

 

 

Edited July 31, 2023 by MtB

[IanD]

33 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Correct. 

 

No hydrogenated fats, no artificial preservatives, no lecithin, no carnauba wax, no glazing agents, no.... oh you get the picture! 

 

The hypothesis is, all this stuff makes UPF very easy to eat and difficult to actually stop eating, so people over-eat. Designing food this way is a deliberate business strategy to sell more of it and make more profit. Hence the western world obesity problem. If we only eat food we prepare ourselves, we don't 'over-eat'. 

 

Supposedly. And I'm inclined to agree with the thinking. 

 

But all that fat and salt and crunchy potato goodness is what makes real chips (or proper roast potatoes...) so easy to eat and difficult to stop over-eating too... 😉

 

Edited July 31, 2023 by IanD

[Sea Dog]

7 hours ago, MtB said:

Thems also made of UPF, which is real bad for one. 

Did you mean MDF?

[blackrose]

I ended up going for a manual Tower 3 litre capacity air fryer mainly because of the relatively low power draw (1000w) and also because it was only 35 quid from Argos.

 

Just using it for the first time now but it doesn't seem to be working very well. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, I'm just trying to cook some veg with chicken (which was already cooked) and bacon. It's taking ages. So far I've had it on for 10 mins at 160c, 10 minutes at 180c, and then another 20 mins at 180c and finally another 8 mins at 180c, stirring between each go and halfway through the 20min period.

 

It hasn't cooked the veg very well. I could do this quicker and much better in a wok. Some of the veg is burned and other bits of the same veg are half raw.

 

I'm not impressed so far. What have I done wrong? Are air fryers for people who don't know how to cook or have I bought a dud?

 

On 31/07/2023 at 10:50, MtB said:

The hypothesis is, all this stuff makes UPF very easy to eat and difficult to actually stop eating, so people over-eat. Designing food this way is a deliberate business strategy to sell more of it and make more profit. Hence the western world obesity problem. If we only eat food we prepare ourselves, we don't 'over-eat'. 

 

That sounds like a modern snowflake excuse for gluttony to me. Everyone knows when they've eaten too much and that's mostly down to personal choice. It's a bit like how being overweight or obese has been normalised in this country by the body positivity movement.

Edited August 18, 2023 by blackrose

[IanD]

Air fryers don't like being filled up, especially not really cheap low power ones from Argos... 😉

[blackrose]

30 minutes ago, IanD said:

Air fryers don't like being filled up, especially not really cheap low power ones from Argos... 😉

 

Thanks. Perhaps that's it. I'll try cooking something else.

 

It seems odd that they give a MAX mark in the cooking bowl if it doesn't work when filled to that level.

 

Edited August 18, 2023 by blackrose

[cuthound]

We have recently bought a Ninga AF300 dual tray air fryer.

 

We decided on the Ninga after reading many reviews of air fryers. Not cheap at £150, but didn't want to."buy cheap, buy twice".

 

So far we a very pleased with it and use it instead of the main oven. I tried hunter's chicken and vegetables from scratch and the chicken was amazingly moist.

 

The only minor disaster was cooking oven french fries, when my youngest son rang me, preventing me from shaking them at the half way through and the outer ones had overcooked slightly by the recommended time.

 

As others have said, don't overfill and shake the contents of the trays regularly to ensure even cooking.

[nicknorman]

18 hours ago, blackrose said:

 

Thanks. Perhaps that's it. I'll try cooking something else.

 

It seems odd that they give a MAX mark in the cooking bowl if it doesn't work when filled to that level.

 

Well to be honest, if you buy one that is 1/3rd of the price of known good ones, it can’t be too surprising if it isn’t great.

[peterboat]

9 minutes ago, cuthound said:

We have recently bought a Ninga AF300 dual tray air fryer.

 

We decided on the Ninga after reading many reviews of air fryers. Not cheap at £150, but didn't want to."buy cheap, buy twice".

 

So far we a very pleased with it and use it instead of the main oven. I tried hunter's chicken and vegetables from scratch and the chicken was amazingly moist.

 

The only minor disaster was cooking oven french fries, when my youngest son rang me, preventing me from shaking them at the half way through and the outer ones had overcooked slightly by the recommended time.

 

As others have said, don't overfill and shake the contents of the trays regularly to ensure even cooking.

AF100 for Jayne at home and myself at the boat, we also take it out in the campervan brilliant bit of kit, not cheap but great quality 

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

Push the boat out and have a “Bombay Bad Boy” pot noode AND with the left over hot water in the kettle make yourself a coffee, winner, winner. 🍜☕️😂👍

Edited August 19, 2023 by BoatinglifeupNorth

[blackrose]

2 hours ago, nicknorman said:

Well to be honest, if you buy one that is 1/3rd of the price of known good ones, it can’t be too surprising if it isn’t great.

 

Well it's £60 at other retailers and has very good reviews on different websites so most users seem to think it's good. On the other hand had it occurred to you that perhaps you'd paid too much for yours? You shouldn't need to pay more than £60 from what I've seen on the market.

 

I'll try cooking some chicken legs today but if I'm still unconvinced it's going back to Argos. 

 

To be honest anything that's drawing more than about 1kw isn't really suitable for use on my boat unless the boat's hooked up to shore power which I'm trying to avoid. So the more powerful and more expensive air fryers like yours aren't going to be for me.

Edited August 19, 2023 by blackrose

[Guest]

1 hour ago, blackrose said:

 

Well it's £60 at other retailers and has very good reviews on different websites so most users seem to think it's good. On the other hand had it occurred to you that perhaps you'd paid too much for yours? You shouldn't need to pay more than £60 from what I've seen on the market.

 

I'll try cooking some chicken legs today but if I'm still unconvinced it's going back to Argos. 

 

To be honest anything that's drawing more than about 1kw isn't really suitable for use on my boat unless the boat's hooked up to shore power which I'm trying to avoid. So the more powerful and more expensive air fryers like yours aren't going to be for me.

 

The simple truth is that Air Fryers (despite what the marketing and You Tube influencers say) are not the solution to all cooking needs. The previous Tefal we had would have coped better with what you tried to cook in it. It was circular and had a slowly rotating paddle that moved and rotated the food whilst cooking but it was less good at cooking other things.

 

The food needs hot air around it to cook and looking at your pic. this would be restricted hence the problem you had. Chicken legs will fare better I would expect.

 

The manufacturers would have you believe they can cook just about annything but in reality this is not so. I suspect our much more expensive dual drawer Ninja would have struggled similarly. But we have not tried a dish like that in ours so cant say for sure.

 

Some things eg Steak, are just better cooked the way they have always been cooked other things cook really well and are perfectly suited to an air fryer. In the main this is things that allow air to freely circulate around them. And even then it pays to check and shake/move/turn stuff part way through. Some even have a shake reminder setting. The Cosori 5 litre we have just bought for the caravan has this feature. 

 

If I was buying 'cheaper' I would go Cosori which are sort of mid range price wise, ours was bought used but they go for about 80 to 90 quid from Amazon new.

 

Its 1500w though

 

 

[nicknorman]

3 hours ago, blackrose said:

 

Well it's £60 at other retailers and has very good reviews on different websites so most users seem to think it's good. On the other hand had it occurred to you that perhaps you'd paid too much for yours? You shouldn't need to pay more than £60 from what I've seen on the market.

 

I'll try cooking some chicken legs today but if I'm still unconvinced it's going back to Argos. 

 

To be honest anything that's drawing more than about 1kw isn't really suitable for use on my boat unless the boat's hooked up to shore power which I'm trying to avoid. So the more powerful and more expensive air fryers like yours aren't going to be for me.

If you take the view that all air fryers are identical in their ability to cook food, then you might have a point. But in fact there are big differences - apparently, according to the reviews from the likes of Which.
 

The fact that you spent £35 and are unhappy with it, whereas we spent £100 and were so happy with it we bought another one for the house, tells a tale.

 

I do take your point about your power restriction though. But it seems fairly obvious that a 1000w air fryer is going to cook food slower than a 1700w one. My question would be, why do you feel you are limited to 1000w? Inverter max power output? Or something to do with the batteries? In terms of overall Ah taken out, I would have thought that it would be much the same - 1000w for longer time or 1700w for shorter time.  Most LA battery banks should be able to manage the 160A or so peak discharge and average discharge of 80A for 10 -20 mins, unless yours is less than 400Ah or so?

Edited August 19, 2023 by nicknorman

[blackrose]

The chicken legs were better than yesterday's veg but nothing I couldn't do just as well in the oven. Nowhere have I said that all air fryers are the same. I'm not sure where you're getting that from? I'm sure some are better than others, however the reviews of the Tower T17079 3L Air Fryer that I bought on the Argos website are generally good, in fact some people rave about it in the same way some do on this thread. But I'm afraid I'm not a convert. The Argos reviews are genuine because a few wrote negative reviews complaining that theirs were faulty.

 

I am limited to 2kW by my inverter so while I could run a 1700w unit it means I've got to watch what else I'm using. It's just more practical to run smaller AC loads from inverters & batteries. But do we know for certain that a 1000w air fryer will cook slower than a 1700w unit? The cooking basket in my fryer is probably a lot physically smaller than yours which was part of the reason I bought it as I don't need a bigger model. For any given cooking space the fryers reach a cooking temperature which is regulated by a thermostat, so you might be right but I'm not sure if a smaller unit with a lower power draw will necessarily cook slower, or if it does then how significant that difference is.

 

I don't think it's the cost of the fryer that's influenced my opinion, I just don't really like the style of cooking and I'm sure I'd still feel the same if I'd spent £100. Anyway, the bottom line is that you're a fan and I'm not which is fine, we all have our own preferences and what you like doesn't have to be what I like and vice versa. 

Edited August 19, 2023 by blackrose