Foods

These pages explain the physics rather than giving times. A reader who understands why chicken skin needs sustained heat to render can adapt to a cut this catalogue has never covered — which is more use than another table.

• Poultry

  Chicken

  The food air fryers are bought for, and the one where the difference between cuts matters most.

  10 cooking pages.

• Potatoes

  Potato

  Starch, water and surface area — the food that shows most clearly what air frying actually does.

  12 cooking pages.

• Fish

  Salmon

  Forgiving on fat, unforgiving on time — a fillet moves from perfect to chalky fast.

  2 cooking pages.

• Pork

  Pork

  High fat content makes pork products behave unlike anything else in the basket.

  9 cooking pages.

• Red meat

  Beef

  The one food where a rare centre is legitimate, and therefore the one where the safety rule differs.

  8 cooking pages.

• Vegetables

  Broccoli

  A vegetable with two textures on one floret, which is why it chars before it softens.

  1 cooking pages.

• Prepared and processed foods

  Pizza

  Almost always a reheating problem rather than a cooking one, and it is where air fryers beat microwaves outright.

  2 cooking pages.

• Prepared and processed foods

  Breaded poultry products

  Designed to be cooked from frozen, and one of the few foods where the packaging genuinely is the best source.

  6 cooking pages.

• Red meat

  Lamb

  Fatty, strongly flavoured and, like beef, safe to serve pink as a whole cut — which is the part people are unsure about.

  3 cooking pages.

• Fish

  White fish

  Lean, delicate and quick — the food most likely to be overcooked by somebody being careful.

  2 cooking pages.

• Shellfish

  Prawns

  The fastest food in the catalogue: four minutes, and thirty seconds too long is rubber.

  2 cooking pages.

• Prepared and processed foods

  Breaded fish products

  Engineered to be cooked from frozen, and among the things an air fryer does better than the oven it was designed for.

  3 cooking pages.

• Vegetables

  Carrot

  Dense, sweet and slow — one of the few vegetables that genuinely needs the time.

  2 cooking pages.

• Vegetables

  Cauliflower

  Takes browning better than any other brassica, and dries out if you let it.

  1 cooking pages.

• Vegetables

  Brussels sprouts

  The vegetable air frying rehabilitates: halved and browned rather than boiled to sulphur.

  2 cooking pages.

• Vegetables

  Peppers

  Mostly water in a waxy skin, so they blister and collapse rather than crisping.

  3 cooking pages.

• Vegetables

  Courgette

  So watery that the only question is whether it browns before it goes to mush.

  2 cooking pages.

• Vegetables

  Sweet potato

  Behaves nothing like a potato: more sugar, less starch, and it burns at the temperature a chip wants.

  4 cooking pages.

• Vegetables

  Mushrooms

  Five minutes, and the fastest vegetable here — as long as they are not crowded.

  3 cooking pages.

• Vegetables

  Green beans

  Thin enough to be done in five minutes and to char in seven.

  1 cooking pages.

• Vegetables

  Asparagus

  Six minutes, and the tips will be done well before the stems.

  1 cooking pages.

• Vegetables

  Sweetcorn

  High sugar, so it chars fast and tastes better for it.

  1 cooking pages.

• Vegetables

  Aubergine

  A sponge that drinks whatever oil it is given, and one of the vegetables air frying most improves.

  1 cooking pages.

• Vegetables

  Parsnip

  Sweeter than a carrot and therefore easier to burn at the same temperature.

  2 cooking pages.

• Fruit

  Tomatoes

  Two completely different jobs depending on the cut: four minutes whole, ten minutes halved and cooler.

  3 cooking pages.

• Vegetables

  Squash

  Dense and sweet, and it wants smaller pieces than people cut.

  1 cooking pages.

• Pastry and dough

  Pastry products

  The category air frying is unambiguously best at, because laminated pastry wants exactly what this appliance provides.

  2 cooking pages.

• Snacks

  Frozen snack products

  Factory-fried, factory-frozen and designed for exactly this: the easiest wins in the whole catalogue.

  5 cooking pages.

• Baking and desserts

  Cakes and bakes

  Possible, consistently published, and the one category where the manuals all tell you to put the food in a tin.

  3 cooking pages.

• Fruit

  Apple

  In the catalogue for dehydrating rather than cooking: four to five hours at 50°C.

  1 cooking pages.

• Poultry

  Turkey

  Leaner than chicken breast and less forgiving for it — the food where a burger dries out before it browns.

  2 cooking pages.

• Poultry

  Duck

  Filed as poultry and behaves like fatty red meat, which is why it is the one bird whose skin is the whole exercise.

  2 cooking pages.

• Prepared and processed foods

  Hot dogs

  Already cooked, so the whole job is three to five minutes of colour — the shortest meat time in the catalogue.

  1 cooking pages.

• Fish

  Tuna

  The one fish that is worse for being cooked through, and the only fish in this catalogue treated like a steak.

  1 cooking pages.

• Fish

  Sea bass

  A thin skin-on fillet that crisps better here than in a pan, and overcooks in about ninety seconds.

  1 cooking pages.

• Shellfish

  Scallops

  Three to four minutes, and the expensive thing about getting them wrong is the price.

  1 cooking pages.

• Prepared and processed foods

  Fish cakes

  Cooked fish and potato in a crumb, so the only real question is whether the middle got hot before the crumb went dark.

  1 cooking pages.

• Vegetables

  Beetroot

  Thirty to forty minutes whole — the longest vegetable cook in the catalogue, and worth every one of them.

  2 cooking pages.

• Vegetables

  Celeriac

  Behaves like a drier potato, which is exactly what makes it good here.

  1 cooking pages.

• Vegetables

  Onions

  Five to eight minutes, and the cut decides everything: halves collapse sweetly, slices char at the edges.

  2 cooking pages.

• Vegetables

  Kale

  The one vegetable with a published temperature FIFTY degrees below everything else in its chart.

  1 cooking pages.

• Vegetables

  Ginger

  In the catalogue for dehydrating only: six hours at 60°C for 3mm slices.

  1 cooking pages.

• Fruit

  Avocado

  Four to five minutes, and it is a texture change rather than a cook.

  1 cooking pages.

• Fruit

  Pineapple

  High enough in sugar and acid to caramelise properly, and the only fruit here charted both grilled and dried.

  2 cooking pages.

• Fruit

  Banana

  In the catalogue for dehydrating: 3mm slices, 60°C, six to eight hours.

  1 cooking pages.

• Fruit

  Strawberries

  Six to eight hours at 60°C, and the result is intense in a way the fresh fruit is not.

  1 cooking pages.

• Fruit

  Mango

  Charted both ways: four to six minutes on the grill, or six to eight hours dried.

  2 cooking pages.

• Fruit

  Stone fruit

  Three to five minutes cut side down, and the shortest fruit time in the chart.

  1 cooking pages.

• Fruit

  Lemons and limes

  Four to five minutes cut side down, and the point is what it does to the juice rather than to the fruit.

  1 cooking pages.

• Fruit

  Melon

  Four to six minutes for spears, and it works better than it sounds.

  1 cooking pages.

• Dairy

  Halloumi

  Two to four minutes, and the only cheese in the catalogue that does not melt into a mess.

  1 cooking pages.

• Grains and bread

  Bread

  Two to three minutes, and the fastest thing in the catalogue to burn — because the sugar is already at the surface.

  3 cooking pages.

• Prepared and processed foods

  Vegan meat alternatives

  Charted alongside the meat versions and given different times, because they are a different material.

  4 cooking pages.

• Vegetables

  Mixed vegetables

  A tray of several vegetables at once, which four manufacturers chart as a single row and which nothing else in this catalogue could express.

  1 cooking pages.