Vegetables

Brussels sprouts

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

What it does in fast-moving hot air

A sprout is layered leaves around a dense core, so heat has to travel through a thick, low-moisture structure. Halving exposes the core and gives a flat cut face that browns, and the browning is what converts the sulphurous compounds people dislike into something sweeter. The loose outer leaves are the risk: they are thin and dry and will char to bitterness at the temperature the core needs.

Why the cut matters

Sprouts are a dense little cabbage and behave like one. Halving them is not optional — a whole sprout in an air fryer chars on the outside while the core stays raw, which is the same failure as a boiled one in reverse.

Cooking pages

Brussels sprouts, halved — Fifteen minutes at 200°C, halved — and halving is not optional.
Whole Brussels sprouts — Twelve to sixteen minutes whole, against eight to ten halved.

There is deliberately no cooking time on this page. A food does not have one — a cut, at a thickness, in a state, at a loading, in a particular appliance does. That is what the pages above are for.