AirFryday: Shop-bought pepper steak pies in your air fryer

It’s not often that I buy something readymade rather than making it from scratch myself, but I know from experience that our readers appreciate being pointed to a frozen product that they can fling in the air fryer for a quick and relatively effortless supper. My review of frozen crumbed hake fillets cooked in an air fryer attests – it flew.

Browsing the freezers of my local Groot Phesantekraal View SPAR this week, I spotted what I thought was a packet of two sizeable round pepper steak pies. I was wrong: there weren’t two, there were six, each purportedly weighing 160g apiece. But I hadn’t even thought of reading the small print – my mind simply assessed the size of the pie in the picture against the size of the packet, and stupidly decided it contained two just like that one. That’s on me, not the manufacturer.

Here’s that pie packaging – you can see why I thought I was buying two of them: that pie is photographed on a small plate.

If there had been two in it, they would have been about 480g each. But, as it turned out, two of them were more than enough for a serving for a hungry adult. So there were two left over.

So, all six of them went into the air fryer oven, which had been preheated to 180°C as instructed on the packaging. To be precise, it states:

“Cook from frozen… Oven: Preheat oven to 200°C. Place pies on oven tray, allow for adequate space between pies. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes until golden brown.

“Air fryer: Place pies in air fryer basket, allow for adequate space between pies. Cook at 180°C for 20 minutes until golden brown.

“Note: as cooking appliances vary in performance, the instructions above serve as a guideline only.”

I suspect that they would have cooked faster in my Instant Vortex 5.7l air fryer, which has given me sterling service. This is not to say my other air fryers are less impressive, only that, of the (now) three, that is the one best suited to these particular pies. Maybe.

But I’d wanted to use the new Kenwood 25l air fryer oven, which members of my family had clubbed together to buy me for Christmas. And it’s brilliant. I’m using it every day, while I get to know it. (See my companion piece about that.)

And the packaging of those pies makes a good point: air fryers do not behave exactly like one another, just like children (and adults, for that matter) and just like big conventional ovens throughout modern history. They have idiosyncrasies.

Here’s how the shop-bought pies were cooked… with necessary amendments.

Ingredients

6 Spar Puff Pastry Pies (these were pepper steak, but there are alternatives including steak and kidney and chicken and mushroom)

Method

Yes, that’s the entire ingredients list. There isn’t even need for salt and pepper, and I was delighted to find that the pie filling was wonderfully saucy. You just need to decide what you want to serve with it. I’d recommend a nice big pile of chips.

In fact, I was very impressed with these pies – I’ll be buying them again. (For clarity: I paid for them, they were not a gift from the supplier.)

I cooked them in the Kenwood air fryer+oven, preheated to 180°C as instructed, and set the timer for 25 minutes. I kept the oven light on and watched the process throughout – and when 25 minutes had passed, the pastry on top was not evenly cooked on all six pies.

I swapped them out – outside pies to the middle, and vice versa – and added another 4 minutes. They were still not quite there, so the total cooking time was closer to 30 minutes.

Your machine will behave differently. They may be just right after 25 or even 20 minutes – that’s for you to find out, so keep an eye on them along the way so that you don’t end up with overcooked or burnt pastry.

Good luck, and let me know how it goes if you try it. DM

The pies were paid for by the writer.

Tony Jackman is twice winner of the Galliova Food Writer of the Year award.

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks.