(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to the channel. Now you guys have been asking us to test air fryers for ages. So today we have teamed
up with Instant Brands, who have sent us one of their machines, and challenged us to create
an epic five course meal using your suggestions. So myself and the food team have had a proper play with this for a few weeks to get to grips with it, but, today's the first time that our normal home cooks
are getting their hands on it. - Five courses in one video? - Five courses in one
meal sounds about right. (upbeat music) I'm just gonna use my "chef-y" intuition and say pané station. - [Ben] Yep. So we're
gonna make croquettes. So Spanish in approach and method, but we're gonna mix up the flavors to use some other global influences. You've got a béchamel
sauce in front of you which is really thick and then cooled. - [Jamie] That's a
shortcrust pastry. (laughs) - [Ben] Divide it by two. So put half into the big
bowl with two other flavors, charred corn and jalapeno. And then the remaining half can be mixed with dukkah and sultana. - I've never handled a béchamel sauce. - No. (laughs) - [Ben] And once you've done that, we're gonna double pané them, so back through egg and breadcrumbs. The reason being they're
going to have the cooking in the air fryer across eight minutes, rather than maybe three or
four in a deep fat fryer. And therefore they'll have
chance to expand the heat up. You don't want 'em to pop. So it's gonna give you
the extra bit of security. While you're finishing off your balls, if one of you have got
a relatively clean hand, you can preheat the air fryer. So select air fryer, 205
degrees, eight minutes on one of the drawers
and then just sync cook. And it'll automatically
put the second drawer at exactly the same. When it gets the temperature. It will tell you to load the drawers. You can put one flavor in one drawer, and one flavor in the other. - This is completely alien to me. I've never used an air fryer before. I hear about it everywhere. So I'm still trying to work it out. - Yeah, I've never air fried before. - [Ben] So essentially it's
a heating element at the top. And then a fan that pushes that
hot air down onto the food. So it tends to cook quicker, but it's not submersed in the oil. So it's a little bit healthier. One flavor in one drawer,
give them an oil spray, and the other flavor in the other drawer. - So they're going on
a rack that's raised, they're like in the middle of the oven, so they get air all around. - Yeah. So the the fan
is basically gonna spray and circulate that hot air. - And then it automatically
starts timing down. - While you're waiting for it, you can make a super simple dip. - Oh, hello! - So you could make a dip, or you could get some chefs
to put all the ingredients in a bowl on I'm guessing
we are going to... - We're gonna make a five course meal, and I don't wanna be here all day. I know what you two are like. So what you've got is
yogurt, mayonnaise, mustard, lemon juice, lemon zest, salt, and pepper. - Stir your own dip! You stir the dip! - [Ben] The perfect dip that will work with both charred corn and jalapeño and our sultana and dukkah. - Get a nice sense of achievement there. - [Ben] Yeah. - (laughing) (upbeat electronic music) - [Ben] Serve them up. - [Barry] That was not a lot of time and they are very hot and crispy. - [Jamie] (laughter) - [Ben] Garnish with some fresh herbs, and you got your dipping sauce to go. (upbeat electronic music) - Cheers - Cheers - Woo - That béchamel has gone lovely and gooey. - [Ben] Gooey on the béchamel. I can hear the crunch. - [Jamie] That's got the
magic combo of gooey middle and crispy outside. I'm a fan of that. - As a five course meal,
we're off to a banging start. I just realized we're
gonna eat every course when we go along. - Yeah, you don't have to
eat all of every course. - We are! (upbeat electronic music) - So one of the suggestions was that a toasted cheese sandwich or a grilled cheese works
wonders in an air fry. - Ooh yes! - [Ben] And there was also
people saying they used them just to reheat things. So we thought, let's combine the two with French onion soup. So in this instance, you're gonna use the drawers
for different things. Drawer one is going to be on reheat, 140 degrees Celsius, and drawer number two is gonna be on bake at 160 for six minutes. So variable control and
variable temperatures. And in the reheat drawer, you're gonna spoon your French onion soup into your dishes and reheat
them whilst you bake the croûtes in the other side. - Obviously we've got a fancy air fryer. That's got dual drawers in it. Would you just do this
one after the other, these processes, if you had a standard, single-drawer one? - [Ben] Yeah. The fact
that this has kind of got the six cooking functions, essentially it's adjusting the temperature at which it operates. So for the reheat lower temperature you can reheat your soup. Then you can, once it's up to temperature, you could bake off your croûtes. And finally, once both of those are done, grate the cheese, add it onto the croûte, add the croûte onto the soup, and then grill at a higher
temperature for less time. - Onions have been reheated. - [Ben] And the beauty
about this particular dish is it now goes soggy on the
bottom from the onion soup and kind of crispy around the edges, but also the molten cheese that we love of a grilled cheese on top. And then we're going to grill it at 200. And whilst we wait, we can make
a lovely French salad to go with it, which is
cornichon all chopped up, mixed with mustard, vinegar, and then toss that through
with some fresh watercress. - [Barry] This grill is like mega intense. The thing with my like oven at home, it takes a while to grill to heat up. And it's a big oven, and
that's not a very big dish. It seems to be more focused. - Focused. And obviously
you've got the fan which is pushing the hot
air directly onto it. - That does look a little bit special. - It does. (upbeat electronic music) - [Ben] Dig in - [Jamie] Oh! - [Barry] Oh, cheesy onion goodness. - Oh - Stunning. - I love French onion soup because the richness and the indulgence of it, the beefiness and the cheesiness. So don't have soup and a
grilled cheese on the side. - Cook a grilled cheese in your soup. - Yes. - Happy? - Did you eat my crouton? - Was that yours? I, sorry. (laughs) (upbeat electronic music) - Nibbles, soup course. - Fish course. - Ooh. - [Ben] Really excited for this one. This is combining lots
of different suggestions. It's gonna start with roasting asparagus. So preheat one of the drawers to roast at 200 degrees Celsius for six minutes. And as soon as it's preheated,
you can whack the asparagus. All you need to do is
give it a quick spritz of oil and they'll roast
in there in six minutes. Super simple. So it's pretty good for
roasting all sorts of veg, but there was one suggestion for barbecue seasoned asparagus. And what I thought was I quite like the idea of doing asparagus but we're gonna mix up the
flavors to take it to India. - Okay. - [Ben] Because the second suggestion was something like fish fingers. So we're gonna make ourselves
Indian-inspired fish fingers by taking salmon, coating it
in egg white and corn flour, and then dipping it into
smashed up Bombay mix. - [Barry] And I'm guessing,
does the Bombay mix almost like protect the fish from
the heat a bit more then? - Yes. And in the same breath, don't forget it's already been fried. So whereas the first course we had dry breadcrumbs that
we had to spray with oil. Anything you buy, that's
already been fried, fish fingers, chicken
nuggets, chicken dippers, anything that's already been fried is ideal in here because the
fat on the thing sizzles. - Are we just doing a single dip? - [Ben] Yep. Single dip
on this, just to coat it. And then you can preheat your
second drawer to air fry. 205 degree Celsius, four minutes. - 205 feels really hot. - 205 is definitely hotter
than if you were doing oil. You would have it at
maybe 180, 190 at a push. Before you start getting
to a smoke point of oil. Here you've got the
fierce heat, which is why four minutes is enough. - [Barry] Look at that. - [Ben] Give it a little
sort of mix up on the plate with some of that aubergine pickle. - [Barry] What you doing? - He said... (laughs) - [Ben] I just kind of
meant just zhoosh it up! - I've just zhooshed it up! - [Ben] To cut through the oily fish and the spice of the pickle,
a little yogurt raita. You've got cucumber, fresh
mint, all the ingredients there. Zhooshy-zhoosh. - Oh! - [Ben] And with a bit of
luck, four minutes at 205, we should have bain que which
means literally just cooked. So you have the salmon inside
that's just on the edge. - He's got it. No!! Oh it's great. - [Ben] Why did you sound so surprised? - Teamwork! - Look at us! (upbeat electronic music plays) - Oh, you've just got a
little bit of...here we go. - Right, what you reckon? - Oh! - As you said Ebbers, perfectly al dente. Cheers. - We've panéed with bread crumb. We've panéed with crisps. Why have we never panéed
with Bombay mix before? - Does all the hard work for you. And because it's already been fried, it is a wonderful even
golden brown in the fryer. And I think the asparagus
roasting is super quick. And then you can toss it through any dressing for the summer. - Well, it's nice, but you
got little charred black bits. And usually it takes quite a long time in oven to get that char. And by that point, they
sometimes can be quite dry. - Fancy a meat course? - Thought you'd never ask? (upbeat electronic music plays) - [Ben] So we're thinking roast chicken, roast potatoes, and a romesco sauce. Start with a romesco,
roast setting 205 degrees eight minutes in drawer one. And then if you push sync function, it'll just copy paste it across. While it's preheating, you can halve and de-seed your peppers. We've done some of them for you. - You said some of them; you
mean all of them but one. - All of them but one. - All right. See if you can get it
done before it preheats. - [Jamie] Not falling for
your little game, Ebbers. - [Ben] So once it's preheated and asks you to add in your food, we're basically gonna add half
the peppers into each drawer, a spritz of oil on both
and then cook them. So in those eight minutes, we should get some nice roasted peppers, and halfway through, it's
obviously gonna remind you, in case you want to turn it. You might wanna take it out and shake it. You can rip up the bread, because essentially once
those peppers have roasted you are going to add in
the bread, the almonds, the garlic for another
two minutes of roasting, and then you can tip it
all out into your bowl and blitz in the stick blender, along with olive oil and sherry vinegar. Once we've done our sauce, we are gonna use the drawers
to do two different things. Chicken thighs in one and roasted rosemary
potatoes in the other. - Yes! - [Ben] So different times
and temperatures for each. You can oil, salt, and pepper your spuds. - [Barry] Oh yes! - [Ben] The machine's gonna
do some maths for you. - It's your dream, isn't it. - [Ben] So drawer one, set to
roast at 180, for 25 minutes. That's gonna be for your potatoes. And drawer two, set to air
fry at 205 for 20 minutes. So different functions, different temperatures
and different times. If you now push sync
finished and then push start. - Okay. So one is
starting before the other. So they're both finished
the exact same time. - [Ben] Yeah. - Nice! - [Ben] And it knows how long
it's gonna take to preheat, so when drawer one is preheated enough, it'll tell you to add your potatoes. It'll also remind you to
shake them halfway through. It'll also start drawer two at the right time to get
to the right temperature to tell you to put your second thing in. And again, to turn it halfway. Now in your second drawer, when it is ready, you're just
gonna put four chicken thighs. So many people said you've got to do chicken
wings in an air fryer. And we did do them. They're absolutely brilliant, but not ideal for this
dish to serve this way, but the same logic. - We're not adding any other
seasonings, any flavors? - You can season the skin if you wish, but essentially no added oil. Cause you're using the natural
fat from the chicken skin. So something like a chicken wing, anything that's already got that fat. All we need to do is keep
an eye on the machine. Cause it'll tell you when to add stuff, when to turn over or toss stuff. But in the meantime, six
tablespoons oil and two tablespoons of sherry vinegar into your roasted stuff and blitz to a sauce. Machines beeping at you. - [Barry] Hello? Add food, add food - [Ben] Get your chicken in. Last minute, cooking, toss your rosemary in with your potatoes. - Personally, the thing that appeals to me is the size of that. Like, especially if I was
just cooking a small meal for Austin, like just one of those I cook a whole meal with that for him. - [Jamie] Yeah. - [Barry] And it's done. And he eats separately
to us sometimes as well. - [Jamie] Yeah. - Number four, a midweek roast, done. - It's pretty easy. - That was, that was the easier so far. - Wow. (Upbeat electronic music) - I remember we used to share out the food so that people on the
side got to eat some too. I missed that. - You haven't done any cooking. Yeah. You haven't done any cooking. - [Ben] Dig in - [Barry] Bang. - [Jamie] Mm. - I mean, it's simple food but it's simple food done well, right? - [Barry] There's not
much better in the world than a roast potato. - [Jamie] Op see there
you go, juices everywhere - Woah! Yeah, the is juicy - That was so simple. - That was, this is all chicken flavor. Nothing else. - The most complicated
thing we did on that plate isn't on the plate. It was the sauce. And I'd be happy just
to serve that chicken and potatoes - Some mayonnaise. - Mayonnaise. I wouldn't even make it Ebbers It was coming straight from the squeezy bottle
and that would be perfect. - And that's why we have
normals and why we have chefs. - How sweet are we going Ebbers? - So many comments suggested donuts have to be tried in air fryer. Cause if you're doing fried food, donuts is a classic dessert. But rather than bobbing around in oil we're gonna do them here. So you've got a dough
it's already been kneaded and proved once you can
cut out little disks. So this is an enrich
dough, close to brioche. In this instance, we're
gonna cut out little discs. And the second proof
happens in the machine. - This is the first recipe
so far where I'd say I would never even attempt to
make this in a traditional oven. It had to be fried. - [Ben] The machine has a
dehydrate function, which is great for like sliced fruit
or half cherry tomatoes. You can basically dry
your own bits and pieces but we are gonna use
it as a proving drawer. - So hang on a second. This isn't like a proving function. - [Ben] It's that proving
temperature at 54. You'll kill the yeast. You wanna take it down to
as low as it go about 35. So what you've got there are ones that we have
pre-proved in the draw already. You can see the difference between the unproved and the
very pillowy proved ones. Now, two things are gonna happen in draw one, preheat to
air fry for your donut. So 205 degree Celsius, four minutes. And in draw two, you're
going to do a reheat function 120 degrees Celsius for eight minutes. You're gonna mix white chocolate, marshmallow and whipping cream. This is gonna be an
excellent dipping sauce. - [Barry] This feels naughty - [Jamie] It does feel really naughty - [Ben] But because it's going
in a gentle reheat function it's slowly gonna melt the
chocolate, melt the marshmallows the cream, and then we
can stir it all together, once it's done. And in draw one, once you've preheated you're going to very carefully lift up and pop your donuts
onto the rack, spray them. And then they'll need four minutes. And this will be the big
difference really between donut and brioche because it's a sweet and rich dough and you're gonna
cook it in the air fryer. You need to add some oil to the top so that you get some sizzle
and even golden brown. We've also given you some
caster sugar and some cinnamon which you can combine, cause the moment those donuts are done you're gonna wanna toss
them in the cinnamon sugar. - Hey, Ooh. Well okay. - [Ben] Straight into the sugar while it's nice and hot zhoosh, zhoosh, zhoosh and get your next four in Baz - [Barry] They look more like dough balls. (Upbeat electronic music) - Oh s**t, sorry. - (laughter) Sorry Ebbers. - [Ben] Donuts and dippy sauce. - [Barry] Tell you what
cause he is been so lovely. This whole video. Should we give him a donut? - I'm gonna say no (upbeat electronic music) - [Ben] Have a dunk. Can I have one? I've been, I've been
so patient all this... Yes. - [Jamie] So the outside of
the donut is not as crisp as it would be if it had been fried in the traditional manner it's a slightly different texture but the inside is just as
fluffy as you'd want it to be. - And I'm not even gonna
start to presume that these or anything we've done today is healthy inverted comments but it is using like
95% less oil, which also means you haven't got that vat of oil. You have to get rid of once it's been used - Before doing this, I assumed
air fryer was a replacement for a deep fat fryer. Actually today, the ones that
have jumped out to me are the the chicken and the asparagus in terms of I can relate that
can intense direct heat from a fan and get in that char and keeping that tender
juices inside as well, smart - The peppers from the romesco sauce, how quickly they cooked and started to char in the air fryer. That to me was a favorite bit. And I think these, although
slightly different texture on the outside to normal
donuts, they're spectacular. I know this machine is more of
a fancier air fryer with lots of other functionality as well,
but I'm really interested to try more air frying just as
a general cooking method. Yeah. It's opened a whole new world to me. - Question for you guys, which of those five courses did you prefer or what do you cook at
home in your air fryer? Comment down below. - And a massive thank
you to instant brands for teaming up with us on this video. If you wanna find out more information about them and a cheeky little discount all the information is down below. - We locked eyes. - I know we all the right time. Yeah. Yeah. Ben, would that be the - I jumped (laughter) - (laughter)
I understand that an air fryer can be convenient in terms of size or energy use. But it's basically a convection oven in a different size. Nothing in there gets "fried", much less "deep-fried". And of course it uses less oil because that's exactly what you would do if you cooked something in the oven instead of a pan or a deep fryer.
I mean, this was an ad in which they showed recipes that were altered for a different kitchen appliance: an oven (which happens to have a different size than a regular one and some digital fancy knobs).
I somehow don't get what was supposed to be unique about yet another kitchen appliance, I guess.
"You guys have been asking for us to test air fryers for ages, so today we've
teamed up with Instant Brands[been paid to do commercial for one]."Looks like a very good air fryer, but I was kinda hoping for a legitimate review.
The chicken dish and the doughnuts really stood out for me in terms of things I would make at home in an air fryer.
I don't have a big oven so for me I use the air fryer for chips for example while I have something else in the oven and the stove. As Ben said it's also a bonus not having a load of oil stashed away which you need to dispose of properly.
For me it didn't answer the key question... Is it just a small convection oven? The doughnuts didn't look that great, not sure why if you're going to go to the effort of making a dough to cook them half as good.
Ive limited space on my worktop so would probably store it in my oven when not in use. Obviously don't have the space for the monster they tested. For me it would only be beneficial if it cost less to run than my oven. I cook 1-2 portions so I can see the appeal of a smaller, more intense heat but do wonder what the fuss is about.
Hard to tell when they're doing an Ad but I remember when they announced this weeks ago that it would be an Ad and I could tell it wouldn't be informative enough.
The best gadget reviews they did was the pizza oven (the small red one with James) and the pressure cooker. These were both doing genuine things people would use them for and I would've bought them after it.
I'm now waiting for the Air Fryer Ultimate Battle to come!
I had one of those but gave it away as no room in my kitchen. I hardly ever fry anyway.
My biggest issue with the video that I got extremely hungry watching it. 😃
Jamie garnished Baz because he thinks he's a snacc, right? :V
Haven't seen it yet but very curious to see what they can do with this.
This airfryer looks like it’s a rather high-end model and probably really pricey. Maybe I missed it, but did they ever mention how much it costs? I feel like most people will own a smaller, less expensive one, especially one that doesn’t have two compartments. Personally, I would have liked for the normals to do more exploring themselves. I unfortunately don’t have a Ben/Chef standing next to, telling me exactly what to do. Of course every dish ends up being delicious in that situation. I liked that they tried different reciped, but overall this was too much an ad than an actual, honest review for me.