Vegetables
Mushrooms
Five minutes, and the fastest vegetable here — as long as they are not crowded.
What it does in fast-moving hot air
A mushroom is a sponge of around ninety per cent water held in a protein structure that contracts sharply when heated. In moving air it expels that water fast, and if the air can carry it away the mushroom browns and concentrates; if it cannot, the mushroom sits and boils in its own liquid. That is the whole difference between a good air-fried mushroom and a grey one, and it is decided by how many are in the basket rather than by time or temperature.
Why the cut matters
Mushrooms are the quickest vegetable in the catalogue at around five minutes, and the one where crowding does the most damage, because what they release is water and there is a lot of it.
Cooking pages
- Mushroom slices — Half-inch slices, five minutes at 200°C. The fastest vegetable in the catalogue.
- Portobello mushrooms — Seven to nine minutes, against five to seven for ordinary mushrooms.
- Dried mushroom slices — Six to eight hours at 60°C, and the published instruction is not to wash them.
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.