Air Fryer: The Fryer That’s Not a Fryer

Written by Joe Wabe

Most of my friends and people around me know that I have a passion for cooking, so usually, during special days like Christmas or my birthday, I receive a lot of kitchen utensils and appliances that have turned my home kitchen into what looks like a restaurant cookery. This past Christmas, I received a big box from my friend Claire. The box was not wrapped, so I could see printed on it a picture of what looked like a very fancy and modern kitchen appliance. Upon closer inspection, I could read “Air Fryer” on the label. I remember seeing or hearing about this somewhere and got really excited about my new toy, so I headed home to unpack it and begin experimenting.

My first stop was YouTube, where I checked out a few recipes, chopped some sweet potatoes, got some herbs and spices, and kind of went from there. My first try was a success! I managed to put together some crunchy chips that tasted pretty good. I later moved on to some meat, first trying pork and chicken, and it all worked pretty well. I thought, “Wow!” This UFO-looking appliance kept me busy, so I just kept on trying different things, and they worked just as well. “The sky is the limit,” I thought. After substantial playing around with my new toy, I suddenly came to realize something that was actually pretty obvious. This wasn’t a fryer; it was an oven!

What Is an Air Fryer?
I hadn’t realized that the “air fryer wave” was so huge in Korea. Many people around me were buying one or thinking about buying one, hoping to master the ultimate quick meal and dreaming of possessing one of the latest and most productive kitchen appliances that has ever existed. When I first got mine, I thought, “What a great invention, frying with no oil!” For those who have tried deep-frying at home and know the inconveniences and difficulties of this task, this seemed to be a dream come true. But the real “true” is that this wonderful machine is not a fryer! The dictionary defines the verb fry as “to cook in a pan or on a griddle over direct heat, usually in fat or oil,” which is far from what the air fryer does. So what is it exactly?

The air fryer is just an oven with a fan! What makes it different from a conventional oven is that, with an oven, heat is applied mostly in the upper and lower parts; this concentration of heat inside allows other parts on the sides of the food to cook well, assuming the proper time and temperature are applied. Now, with the air fryer, heat is applied only to the upper part, but because of the fan inside, hot air flows in a spiral wave evenly inside the appliance, allowing things to cook faster and uniformly – or almost uniformly – since we still need to turn over the food at least once; otherwise, the extra heat from the top could burn the food being cooked.

The Myth of the Air Fryer
As I mentioned before, the air fryer does not fry food, and you will not be able to achieve the same texture or flavor as you would when you fry food with oil in a pan. So most pictures that come with the recipe book in the box are probably not real. A friend of mine called me once because her chicken recipe did not turn out the way she had wanted, and when I asked how she had made it, she told me that according to the recipe she followed, you could cook raw chicken in 15 minutes. I was a little shocked by how misleading this information was. Even in a deep fryer at a high temperature, a 15-minute fry for chicken is nearly impossible to achieve. So if you are considering getting an air fryer, please keep in mind that you will be buying a faster, more efficient oven than the one you probably have, but that you also will not be buying a real fryer.

Should You Buy One?
If you already have an oven at home, I would not recommend that you buy an air fryer. They take up a lot of space in the house and can be a pain to get clean after cooking. In many of the recipes I have seen, chefs recommend putting cooking paper at the bottom of the tray, thereby making it easy to clean. But the problem with this is that by adding paper inside, you are covering some of the tray holes that are in fact needed for the proper flow of hot air. Many people want to get on board with the trend because they believe things can be cooked at a faster speed. Although it will cook a bit faster than a normal oven, the difference will not be that much. Good food requires patience and time. You will only be gaining somewhere between five to ten extra minutes, so the cooking time difference will not be that much.

Benefits of Having One
Do not get me wrong – I am not an anti-air fryer, I just wish people would stop thinking that this is the invention of the century. What I think is most amazing, ingenious actually, is the fancy name – air fryer – which makes people crazy about buying these machines. Probably the same people who created the concept of selling bottled water might be behind this promotional scheme. One of the benefits is that it is portable, and since it is light, I can easily take it places and cook at ease outside my kitchen.

As with most ovens, the health benefits of cooking with less fat or oil are also rewarding. The airflow makes things cook evenly and, if used properly, we can achieve some level of crunchiness that is sometimes hard to get in a normal oven. Finally, your Instagram will look a lot cooler if you post pictures of food made in an air fryer rather than in a regular oven.

There are days when I feel like making fried chicken and days when I feel like doing baked chicken. I am glad I now have both options.

The Author
Joe Wabe is an established photographer and Gwangju local business entrepreneur. He has been contributing to the GIC and the Gwangju News for more than eight years.