Air Fryer review by a chip addict

This post is brought to you by Crazy Sales

I am a baker. Yes, in the sense that I love to make cakes but also in that I avoid frying things. Of course I’ll fry up a steak or a stir fry (because who has ever heard of a stir bake) but generally, if it can be baked, that is what I do. I love fried goodness. SO. MUCH. But when I was growing up there was a tv commercial where a woman answers the phone (old skool phone with a cord) and while she is away her chips catch on fire and burn the kitchen down. It traumatised me. From then on my nightmares were not about ghosts and monsters, oh no, house fires were the go. To this day deep-frying terrifies me. Not only do I not do it, but I don’t allow it in my house.

So I bake. Chips, fish, dim sims; anything you would usually fry goes straight in the oven. Mostly the results are great (except dim sims, not so great) but it takes a mighty long time. When Crazy Sales offered me an Air Fryer to review I wondered if I actually needed another appliance. However, my curiosity got the better of me and the lack of fire danger sealed the deal.

Crazy Sales sent me the romantically named HF-988LCD Air Fryer which translates to this gorgeous beast.

I have to be honest with you. The first thing I suggest you do is have a quick read of the safety instructions and then ignore the manual. It needs a good edit. For example my heart stopped when I read that I needed to cook chips at 2000C – that would start a house fire for sure (they meant 200C), and  in one of the recipes it suggests you ‘bake corn until brown and add burdening’. The thing is, that the air fryer is so simple to operate that you don’t really need to focus too much on instructions. There are a number of pre-programmed settings that I again suggest you interpret loosely – cooking a steak at 200C for 20 minutes (as it is preset) will  really only suit those who like their steak very well done. Similarly, fish has the same setting which may be fab if you have a whole snapper but a fillet might come out a little chewy.

What I have learnt, after some experimentation, is that the air fryer will basically halve the cooking time of anything you were intending to bake and that makes me very very happy. 

What you find inside the HF-988LCD Air Fryer is a deep tray with a removable metal ‘basket’. Above that is the element and a high-powered fan that circulates the heat and cooks the food evenly and quickly. Really it is more an ‘air-baker’ than a fryer but semantics aside it works terribly well. The air fryer comes with an LCD screen that counts down the cooking time, alerting you with a beep when the food is ready. At this point it switches into a warming mode, which is easy to override if your food needs a little more time. Similarly, when you remove the basket to shake or turn the food the air fryer temporarily turns off, freezing the countdown so you know exactly how much time is left.

I admit to not having been terribly adventurous. I believe roast chickens and cakes can also be ‘air fryed’ but I’m comfortable with tradition for these things. Having a separate option for crisping vegetables does mean that you overcome the issues of dinner components requiring different temperatures too. 

Kale chips take 5 minutes (at 180C), I knew when they were done because I could hear the crispy leaves fluttering around. Baked salmon, my Sunday night staple, takes 8 minutes at 200C and the skin emerges beautifully crisp. Pre air fryer I would bake it in the oven for 15 minutes and then finish under the griller to crisp the skin, requiring a lot more faff. Chips are a revelation. The pre air fryer process of an oven chip required par-boiling the potatoes either on stove or in microwave, steam burns to the hands because I am too impatient to allow them to cool before chopping, adding a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and then baking for 40 minutes, turning once or twice, in a hot oven. Post air fryer I chop potatoes, soak in water for a few minutes to remove starch, toss on a paper towel to dry, toss in about 1 tablespoon of olive oil before scooping the coated fries (you want to avoid tipping excess oil into the air fryer) into the basket and air frying at 200C for about 30 minutes (depending on volume and thickness of the fries) with one or two quick shakes of the basket in between. The chips emerge crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside. Still tasting like a baked chip rather than a fried one but a damn good baked chip and in almost half the time. 

Do you need an air fryer? Not really, because everything it does can be achieved in a basic kitchen. However, do you want one? If you want to make cooking easier, quicker and with less added fat then my dears, the answer is yes.

Disclosure: I was given a HF-988LCD Air Fryer by Crazy Sales for review purposes. All opinions and ideas contained in this post are my own.