There are three air fryers in my new kitchen — and no microwave

We’re trailblazing the air fryer world and the modern kitchen. Quite by chance, really. Our new kitchen is smaller than the last, and we’re making it work in surprising ways.

With our move from the Eastern Cape back to the big city, we ditched the old microwave, and didn’t even bring the toaster with us. And, while we might yet buy a new toaster, that microwave is history.

In its place – and in place of the big Bosch gas stove we used to have – is a 25-litre countertop “microwave+oven”. My older air fryers are much smaller in capacity – the largest is 5.7 litres. All three of my air fryers behave differently. The older Kenwood is a twin-drawer affair, while the Instant has one larger drawer. I often have two different vegetables cooking in each drawer of the old Kenwood. At different temperatures and timings. And you can sync them to end their cooking periods simultaneously – the one that needs less time simply starts a bit later of its own accord once you’ve set both sides of the machine.

That Instant Vortex, despite its smaller capacity (5.7 litres compared to the 25 of the new larger Kenwood), can take a whole chicken or even a small leg of lamb. I’ve cooked pork belly joints in it too.

In fact, I’ve even cooked a single chicken in one drawer of the twin-drawer Kenwood while potatoes roasted in the other. I love that machine too. I love all three now, in fact, and they are all playing their own roles in my new kitchen.

In which there isn’t even a working hob at the moment. Later in Januworry we’ll call the gas people in to install the gas properly with the bottle outside; I’m not comfortable having a gas bottle in the house. Until then, the air fryers are ruling the roost.

This new 25-litre creature is unlike the average sort of air fryer that is limited in what it has the capacity for. I chose it precisely because I’d decided to leave the old Bosch gas oven back in Cradock, and to replace it with the largest countertop oven I could find. In truth, there were bigger ones – one was 30 litres in capacity – but the extra 5 litres was outweighed by what this machine has: not least, the rotisserie.

This machine has many settings, from preheat, slow cook, defrost, dehydrate and “keep warm” to bake, cake, pizza, bagel, rotisserie and even “proof”. I haven’t used most of those yet, but we’ll get there as the weeks go by. So stay with me as this story grows.

Whether we acquire a new toaster, in time, depends on how we feel about the way the newest air fryer oven does its work as a toaster. So far, it’s super efficient. Fast, fuss-free, and it toasts both sides of the bread at the same time. And I’m thinking: is that different in any way from the way a regular, much smaller, toaster works?

I’ve already used the setting for proving bread three times. I’ve roasted a whole chicken on the rotisserie once. There’s a tubular chips basket too, which attaches to the rotisserie. (See main picture.)

I haven’t slow-cooked anything in it yet, but I’m thinking: lamb shoulder? Pork belly, before blitzing it to get the skin all crunchy-like? A pot of mutton curry? Leipoldt’s tomato bredie?

Meanwhile, the old defrosting machine which used to double as a coffee warmer, remained behind too. And while I do know (and respect) that some people cook a lot of things in their microwave ovens, I have hardly ever used it for more than those two things.

For my first attempt at a rotisserie chicken I asked my son-in-law Neal Derman to help me out. I was batting to secure the rotisserie forks (pegs that remind me of dart flights) but Neal made it look like child’s play.

Here’s that chicken rolling on the rotisserie, but I’ll revisit this before writing a full recipe for you.

I had a go at fish, straight from the freezer, as well. This was a Cape Point product, “hake fillets skin-on”, and the quality when cooked was exceptional. Here they are:

I also cooked a nice piece of rumptail, a 1kg hunk which I first cooked for 15 minutes at 200°C, then turned the heat down to 160°C and continued cooking it for 10 to 12 minutes per 500g, hence another 20 minutes, after which I turned the oven off and opened the door for the meat to rest. And it was perfect, have a look…

So the entire cooking time for that 1kg piece of rumptail, with a lovely cap of fat on one side, was 35 minutes, and this of course is for medium rare, perhaps edging towards the rare end of things. So to speak.

And yes, I have used the toast setting. Couldn’t be simpler. Turn on “toast” and it sets for 4 minutes, with both grills coming on instantly – this machine has elements above and below, hence the bread toasting top and bottom at the same time. You place a rack or rack basket in the middle, and it accommodates 4 regular slices of bread.

Once done, it’s toasted lightly, exactly the way I like it. If you want it toasted harder or darker, you just switch it on again and stop the machine when you’re happy.

It has an oven light, just like your conventional old oven, so you can see the bread colour alter while it toasts.

I’ve also toasted nuts this way, and sesame seeds. You could toast breadcrumbs too.

I haven’t baked a cake yet, or cooked pizza or bagels. I’ll grab some pizza bases soon and have a go.

Do I miss the mike? Not for a single day, though I suppose there’ll be a moment when I’ll want to warm up a cup of coffee quickly. But I can manage without that and it’s certainly not worth having a machine dedicated to one tiny purpose. As for defrosting, the big machine has that option.

Oh, and guess what: I’ve cooked eggs in it. Fried eggs. I’m not kidding. And scrambled eggs. I didn’t photograph either of these because in both cases I want to try them a few times more to get the hang of the methods. But they did work, with reservations. I’ll come back to this topic.

In the meantime, I’ll enjoy the privilege of having this big machine as well as the other two with their drawers and baskets, especially on those occasions when all three machines are in service at the same time: a chicken in the big one, perhaps, potato wedges in the Instant Vortex, butternut cubes in one drawer of the twin-drawer machine and mushrooms in the other.

And nothing at all on the stove. Welcome to the new kitchen. DM