You must log in or register to comment.
Wait until you find out about microwaves!
I haven’t used my oven at all since I got the air fryer.
Oven still gets the last laugh when you learn what air fryers are
An ez bake with a fan?
They are good for quick small batch stuff, but way less efficient than modern fan oven for anything bigger. Once you run for long enough to mitigate heating the ovens larger thermal mass, oven always wins.
Cool, where can I trade in my air-fryer for a capitalism-free world that isn’t ai-enhanced descend into fascism while the planet is burning?
Let’s air fry the rich.
Can I suggest you take a break from the Internet for a while?
I prefer to fry potatoes, but you can fry shit if you like. Just keep it in your air fryer.
You’ve heard of boiling shit in a kettle, now get ready for frying shit in an air fryer
why do people like air fryers more than toaster ovens? i don’t get it
Most toaster ovens, even ones with strong convection for “air frying”, are not quite consistent enough in their heating. You have to pay far more than you would for an air fryer to get even heat coil distribution and a good door seal for that. The specific kind of rapid cooking that dessicates and browns the surface you get out of air fryer devices is just kind of hard to replicate outside of them.
If you ever look inside an air fryer you can kind of immediately see why – the heater-to-volume ratio is absurdly close. You have the equivalent of the biggest coiltop stove burner directly above a few quarts of air volume with a fan forcing air from it to circulate. It’s just kind of unfair of a comparison for both toaster ovens and even full-size ones that advertise an “air fryer” mode by comparison for that reason.
I have an old toaster oven that has a really weak convection fan but it moves so little air it is nowhere near an air fryer. The timer doesn’t work anymore and it’s ugly but I have another timer and it just works. I don’t own an air fryer and I’m not going to buy one until my toaster oven dies.
The first commercial convention oven was released in the 1940s. The first prototype of the general concept happened in the 1910s.
Even if you mean the modern household tabletop convenience version, the Nuwave convection oven was already an informercial staple by 2003.
When talking about air fryers, my husband once rightly pointed out that air fryers are just countertop convection ovens.
I walked over to him, held my index finger up to his lips, and whispered to him, “shhh. Air fryer. AIR FRYER.” 🤣
Yes. And I think it’s important to understand exactly what a convection oven actually is.
At its most basic, it’s an oven with a heating element and a fan that circulates hot air around the cooking chamber. That’s it. The circulating air improves heat transfer and helps food cook and brown more evenly.
Now, manufacturers have increasingly started calling a particular implementation of convection an “air fryer” and charging a premium for it, as though they’ve invented an entirely new cooking technology. They haven’t. Convection cooking has been around for decades.
An air fryer is essentially a compact, highly optimized convection oven: hot air is circulated rapidly around the food, usually with a basket or perforated tray that allows that air to contact more of the food’s surface.
So when you’re shopping for a range and you see one advertised as having an “Air Fry” function, don’t automatically assume you’re getting some revolutionary new appliance. In many cases, you’re paying extra for a marketing term applied to a convection system that has existed for generations.
Wouldn’t the presence of a fan turn them into a forced convection oven?
Air fryers, and to a lesser extent fan ovens, use a fan to move the air rather than just using air convection currents.
To put it in perspective, that’s just over 100 years out of 4.5 billion the earth has existed. Or 300 million years or so complex life existed (that mostly wouldn’t be able to fathom the core concepts you’d need to know to even understand what having an air fryer means, where I’d consider “figured out that forest fires can contain more delicious food in some places (where intensity is high enough to cook plants and animals but not enough to turn them to charcoal)” to be pretty smart). Or several million that hominids have existed and using stone or better tools. Or several thousand since we figured out how to manage our food production rather than depend on always finding it. Or several hundred since we got much better at harnessing energy.
Also, I’d push back on a) the invention date being more relevant than the mass release date, and b) early convection ovens counting as “air fryers”, so that 100 years should probably also be reduced.
I’d like to not be reliant on a small handful of corporations and cheap plastic devices, tbh.
What if I want to fry food with the fires of 7 Hells
I hate that I ever, or will ever, eat food that didn’t involve this. What is it?
A wok burner. It’s used a lot in Southeast Asia, and is specially associated to Cantonese cuisine.
That being said, fried rice/noodles/veggies is universal, and you might be able to buy or set up something similar yourself.
I hope that’s real brick behind that. I’ve seen some pretty gnarly damage from people using their BBQs too close to the side of the house.
Weren’t we frying shit in the air with old cast iron stoves as well?
We probably did in old Mesopotamia with clay ovens or something.
And breathing in fly ash from the coal, which contains increased concentrations of uranium and thorium.
Compared to that an airfryer is a god send.
Is an airfryer just a small fan oven?
Its a small convection oven, that works more efficiency because the heating element is like an inch above the food, and heating a very tightly confined area, so intense temperatures can be more concentrated and easily achieved.
Yes, they’re countertop convection ovens.
One of my best investments in the last few years.
The first night I owned an air fryer, I tossed in some shitty frozen tater tots that had been in my freezer for way too long, and they came out so delightfully crispy that I cooked two more servings.
I realized immediately that this would be a problem. It’s a bit too easy to make delicious stuff that’s pretty bad for me. I nearly made myself sick of wings within like 2 weeks. That was a close one. Fuckin love wings.
I got rid of my home deep fryer for health reasons. It is dangerously easy, cheap, and quick to make quality fries…
But it’s also quick and cheap to make absurdly-delicious roasted veg.
My favorite: take a bag of frozen broccoli florets, mist it with some oil (it’ll harden on them), sprinkle with some salt and pepper and toss in it at 400 degrees F for like, 15 minutes. Halfway through I pull the basket and drain the accumulated water in the bottom to increase browning.
Delicious, crispy, I can devour an entire pound of broccoli that way in like 5 minutes.
My grandma could do that already.
airfrier
The appliance that mostly everybody already had under another name (at least in Europe). An then they renamed it as another thing and everyone bought one. The marketing worked.
Same with the electric kettle. I remember being so surprised half the world had been using them for years.
Not it’s not and I’m tired of the nerds screeching.
A Ferrari is very different from a Honda.
Air friers have a much lower total volume while moving a much higher volume of air. The effect is far more pronounced and cook times are halved.
Well, the only person who is screeching are you with your car manufacturer comparison, which does not make any sense in that context. As if airfrying is ferrari and ofen with a fan is honda?
Being smaller also means cleaning the is much easier, specially when you can put the basket and lid bits in the dishwasher.
I think its the small volume that makes it worth it (faster to heat up, efficient) so I can see why people would buy one.
I personally don’t have one because I don’t exactly value my time. I throw my food in the cold oven and set it to whatever and check back later. I don’t have any motivation what so ever to care about pre heating or having my food ready 10 minutes earlier.
Most countries have ovens
Umluftofen!
We’re air frying the world too
I’ve never tried an air fryer. I don’t have the counter space for one and am concerned I’d eat more unhealthly more often if I owned one but it’s possible that’s not true.
It’s a little more complicated than this, but basically it’s just a smaller, faster convection oven. They’re cool but not lifechanging IMO
I toss sweet potatoes in there for a good snack. Roast veggies. Mostly the air fryer cooks healthy foods fast which is nice.
Nah we cook fish in ours.
Losing weight is easier (less oil) and cooking times are faster.
It’s just a more compressed oven. You can eat healthy or unhealthy with it
Breaded fish or grilled fish?
Can it toast bread?
If you can do it in an oven, chances are you can do it in an air fryer. Just be careful not to burn the outside.
