By John Fraser
For a long time, I would scoff at the very thought of using an air fryer. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want yet another gadget cluttering up their kitchen. I had an oven and a microwave, a sandwich toaster and a slow cooker. I was content in my ignorance.
Then I stayed with a friend who cooked up a batch of bacon in his air fryer. It was fast, there was much less washing up, and the bacon was great. I was now sold on the technology, and my scoffing and sneering were replaced by a burning curiosity to fry my own air, with an urge to own one of these crafty kitchen toys myself.
I soon began browsing websites for an air fryer, pondering the benefits of a double drawer device or the space-saving benefits of a stackable version, and before long the Amazon delivery arrived. (I opted for a twin-drawer air fryer, which does restrict the size of the dish you can prepare, but also allows me to prepare chips with everything while keeping the other drawer for the meal itself. Each basket has its own timer, so there is more flexibility than you would find in a conventional oven).
To date, I have focused on the basics. An air fryer makes very acceptable chips — better than you are often served in restaurants. If you are lazy or rushed, frozen spuds work well, but it is worth cutting up your own chips. Meanwhile, you need far less oil in an air fryer than for the conventional way of preparing chips, so there is a health premium.
Other staples that I have cooked well in the hot air include steaks, chops, sausages, breaded fish fillets and toasted sandwiches — not to mention bacon and poached eggs. For Christmas dinner, the air fryer worked well for the sprouts and the pigs in blankets.
However, there soon came a time when I thought I needed to see whether this gadget could prepare more elaborate meals, and this is where Jamie Oliver’s Easy Air Fryer has come to the rescue.
Oliver explains that his aim is not to treat an air fryer as a segregated, specialised, revered cooking tool, but as a versatile, flexible, accommodating everyday device.
“I knew I wanted to find out exactly why these machines are taking over our kitchens,” he says. “Writing cookbooks, for me, is all about responding to what you, the public, are asking for, so I’ve gone down a bit of an air fryer rabbit hole, experimenting at length with these convenient cooking machines to find out just what they can do.
“If air fryers are getting more people to give cooking a go, then that can only be a good thing. And believe me, they really are rather brilliant. They’re super-versatile … it’s not all just about crispy chips and spuds.”
The book begins with a mind-blowing statistic: half the households in Britain now own an air fryer. It has been reported that SA is not far behind, with about four in 10 households believed to be frying with air at least some of the time. And sales are climbing by about 10% a year.
Indeed, these gadgets have become so ubiquitous that in January this year, Stats SA added air fryers to its inflation-monitoring basket, displacing such dinosaurs as landlines, post boxes and condensed milk.
Oliver, who is arguably Britain’s best-known TV celebrity chef, explains why he thinks the air fryer is such a useful addition to the kitchen: “You can often cook stuff in less time than it takes for the oven to heat up, and generally things cook a bit more quickly, or you can cook things you’d normally do on the hob in a much more hands-off way.
“Air fryers are quite compact and energy-efficient, so they’re ideal when you just want to cook a portion of something without turning the oven on, hopefully helping you to save a bit of money, too,” he explains.
One big benefit of this book is that Oliver, who is a campaigner for healthier eating — especially for schoolkids — has produced a bookload of recipes, most of which incorporate a healthy component of veg. There are stuffed mushrooms, stuffed squash and baked beans, sweet potato and black bean tortillas, roast carrot and goat’s cheese salad, and sticky aubergine noodles.
“We want to inspire a more sustainable way of eating, so 72% of the recipes are either meat-free or … contain at least 30% more meat than a regular portion size,” we read. “Remember, a nutritious varied and balanced diet and regular exercise are the keys to a healthier lifestyle.”
Rest assured, though, the book does also cater for those of us with a sweet tooth — with indulgent puds such as delicious doughnuts, mint choc chip whoopie pies, cherry chocolate pots and peach Alaska.
There are also main courses for those who don’t want healthy food (almost literally) rammed down their throats, such as BBQ chicken lollipops, gochujang chicken burgers, punchy Welsh rarebit and roast chicken dinner for one.
I often wonder why cookbooks continue to sell so well when there are so many recipes available free on the internet, and we couch potatoes have access to so many TV cookery shows — some of which don’t feature Oliver! However, I continue to buy these books, I prize my collection and find there is still a lip-smacking pleasure to be gained from reading a cookbook, even if you never try any of its recipes.
It is also worth noting that Oliver does this for a living (a bloody good living), has written dozens of cookbooks. So he has a reputation to preserve and his recipes are likely to have a strong probability of guiding you towards an enjoyable meal.
It would be a challenge for a keen cook not to find several tempting, practical, often healthy and delicious recipes in Easy Air Fryer. It is reassuring, too, to discover that you can cook and eat so well with this cheaper, cleaner and faster technology. Don’t judge these devices by their names — they really aren’t just a load of hot air.
This review was first published in Business Day
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