An air fryer is a small

countertop A countertop, also counter top, counter, benchtop, worktop (British English) or kitchen bench ( Australian or New Zealand English), bunker ( Scottish English) is a raised, firm, flat, and horizontal surface. They are built for work in kitchens ...

convection oven A convection oven (also known as a fan-assisted oven or simply a fan oven) is an oven that has fans to circulate air around food to create an evenly heated environment. The increased air circulation causes a fan-assisted oven to cook food fast ...

designed to simulate deep frying without submerging the food in oil. A fan circulates hot air at high speed, producing a crisp layer via browning reactions such as the

Maillard reaction The Maillard reaction ( ; ) is a chemical reaction between Amino acid, amino acids and Reducing sugar, reducing sugars that gives browned food its distinctive flavor. Searing, Seared steaks, fried dumplings, cookies and other kinds of biscuits, b ...

. Some product reviewers find that regular convection ovens or convection

toaster oven A toaster is a small electric appliance that uses radiant heat to brown sliced bread into toast. Types Pop-up toaster In pop-up or automatic toasters, a single vertical piece of bread is dropped into a slot on the top of the toaster ...

s produce better results, or say that air frying is essentially the same as convection baking.

Cooking

Air fryers circulate hot air to cook food that would otherwise be submerged in oil. The air fryer's cooking chamber radiates heat from a

heating element A heating element converts electrical energy into heat through the process of Joule heating. Electric current through the element encounters resistance, resulting in heating of the element. Unlike the Peltier effect, this process is indepen ...

near the food, and a fan circulates hot air. The original Philips Airfryer used radiant heat from a heating element just above the food and convection heat from a strong air stream flowing upwards through the open bottom of the food chamber, delivering heat from all sides, with a small volume of hot air forced to pass from the heater surface and over the food, with no idle air circulating as in a convection oven. A shaped guide directed the airflow over the bottom of the food. The technique was patented as ''Rapid Air technology''. Traditional frying methods induce the

at temperatures of by completely submerging foods in hot

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...

, well above the boiling point of water. The air fryer works by coating the food in a thin layer of oil and circulating air at up to to apply sufficient heat to cause the reaction. Most air fryers have temperature and timer adjustments that allow more precise cooking. Food is typically cooked in a basket that sits on a drip tray. The basket must be periodically agitated, either manually or by the fryer mechanism. Convection ovens and air fryers are similar in the way they cook food, but air fryers are generally smaller and give off less heat.

History

Convection ovens have been in wide use since 1945. In 2010,

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...

introduced the Airfryer brand of convection oven at a consumer electronics fair in Berlin. By 2018, the term "airfryer" was starting to be used generically.

Cooking

History

See also

References

Further reading