How it works

Why air frying does what it does — the four or five mechanisms every cooking page on this site quietly depends on, explained once so that you can work out an answer for a food nobody has written a page about.

• How air frying actually works

  It is a small convection oven with a very fast fan, and every useful thing about it follows from those two facts.

• How food actually gets crispy

  Crisp is a dry surface, and everything that makes food crisp is something that removes water from it faster than the food replaces it.

• Why air fryers dry food out, and what to do about it

  The mechanism that makes the outside crisp is the mechanism that makes the inside dry. They are not separable, only manageable.

• Shake it, turn it, or leave it alone

  Shaking is for loose pieces, turning is for flat ones, and a few foods are ruined by both. The distinction is about what is touching what.

• Using a thermometer, and where to put it

  The cheapest thing that will improve your air frying more than a better air fryer, and the one piece of technique that makes every published time optional.