Vegetables
Courgette
So watery that the only question is whether it browns before it goes to mush.
What it does in fast-moving hot air
Courgette is over ninety per cent water in a soft, thin-walled structure with no starch and almost no sugar. There is nothing to crisp and very little to brown, and as soon as the cell walls fail the whole piece releases its water. Cutting thicker helps more than cooking hotter: a thick baton can lose its surface water and brown slightly before the centre collapses, where a thin slice cannot. It is also the food most improved by not crowding the basket, because the released steam has to go somewhere.
Why the cut matters
Courgette is the hardest common vegetable to air-fry well, and the one published time for half-inch sticks, around twelve minutes at 200°C with no state named, is doing a lot of work with a narrow margin.
Cooking pages
- Courgette sticks — One manufacturer prints twelve minutes at 200°C for half-inch sticks and another fifteen at 180°C; cut thickness decides everything.
- Courgette quarters — Fresh courgette, quartered lengthwise and cut in 2.5cm pieces, gets eight to eighteen minutes at 200°C in one manufacturer's charts for two machines.
This page gives no cooking answer of its own. A food does not have one — a cut, at a thickness, in a state, at a loading, in a particular appliance does. Any figure mentioned above is one manufacturer’s, and the page for the cut says which machine, quantity and state it was printed for, or that the manufacturer named no state.