Ninja Foodi FlexDrawer Dual Air Fryer AF500UK assessment: can this versatile design fulfill the entire family?
Arguably, an air fryer’s most important job is to cook a batch of chips to be crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. Fortunately, I managed to see great results with both homemade and frozen chips in this air fryer. I set the time to 15 minutes and the temperature at 180C with a pause mid-cook to pull the drawer out and shake, which seemed to work well for me.
I also used the device to cook a batch of frozen chips in one compartment and salmon in the other, and was pleased with how even the results were for both foods. I set the air fryer to 200C for 16 minutes and got crispy salmon that was flaky inside.
However, the Ninja model really comes into its own when cooking complete meals in one in the roomy 10.4-litre capacity. You can cook a one-dish whole leg of lamb with vegetable or toad in the hole, for example. I attempted making Ninja’s roast chicken and root vegetables recipe as shown in the accompanying booklet. It was as easy as marinating the chicken in oil and rosemary twigs before placing it inside the air fryer on the 190C roast setting for 55 minutes. With 18 minutes to go, I added carrot, onion, parsnip and potatoes around the sides.
The recipe says that cooking is complete once the internal temperature of the chicken reads 75C, and I took a reading of 90C after 55. However, I did need to give the vegetables a bit longer than 18 minutes as they weren’t completely cooked when the cycle ended.
My family enjoyed the dish as the chicken was evenly cooked with nicely crisp skin, but my partner commented that the chicken wasn’t as juicy as it would’ve been in a traditional oven. I could only put this down to not being able to baste the chicken and the vegetables as much as I would’ve done in the oven. Though I did keep adding a bit of oil to the veg, some of them came out more cooked than others, particularly the thin carrots.
The recipe suggested inserting the crisper plates into the drawer before cooking to drain the fat away underneath, making it hard to access any juices as it roasted. In hindsight, I would exclude this and make sure to pause the cooking cycle at regular intervals and baste the chicken with the juice underneath.
While I don’t think air fryers in general can ever quite reach the results of a traditional roasted chicken cooked in a standard fan oven, I was very impressed at the speed and performance of this design. I also think I’ll be making my partner do the washing up after this process.
Ease of maintenance: 9/10
Source: telegraph.co.uk
