If you’ve decided you need an air fryer, how do you decide which one is the right one for you? Based on various tech specs, Philips was one of the air fryers I recommended in my video on best air fryers. Many times I reach out to brands I recommend to send me a product to demo, and Philips kindly agreed to do so.
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Evening snacks are the biggest pain for me and I’m sure most of you as well. So let’s try to make it healthy and tasty. I’m going to air-fry paneer and a few veggies.
While I set it up - let’s talk about the capacity of the air fryer - if you are a family of 4 or less people, ~4L air fryer is sufficient for you. This Philips HD9252/90 Air Fryer is a 4.1L air fryer.
The basket is made of food grade non-stick material. So you need to take care of this like non-stick vessels need to be taken off - which is to ensure you don’t scratch the non-stick surface. So just gentle scrubbing with a soft brush.
So how much time do we need to cook these? For the snacks I have selected, you can check in the manual. It takes about 10-12 minutes. But that also depends on the wattage of the air fryer - typically higher the wattage, faster is the cooking (ofcourse higher power consumption too). The Philips HD9252/90 Air Fryer comes with a 1400W - comparable or better than most other air fryers of this size.
PRODUCTS USED IN THIS DEMO
Let’s get cooking now. So for cooking these snacks, there are a number of recipes and configurations online. Unlike their earlier model, this Philips HD9252/90 Air Fryer is a premium model - it comes with a digital display and offers 7 preset programs for the most commonly used dishes - frozen snacks, fresh fries, meat, fish, chicken drumsticks, cake and even grilled veggies. I’m going to make paneer tikka in the air fryer. I’ve premarinated the paneer and vegetables for about 30 minutes. You can use the grilled vegetables option, pre-heat the air fryer at 200 degree centigrade, set the timer to about 10 minutes and start ‘air-frying’. (visual - show digital display, preset programs, setting preheat, timing, ..)
One typical problem highlighted for air fryers is that the food needs to be flipped often to ensure that it cooks evenly from all sides. I highlighted pain even in my earlier video. This is because the heat circulation is primarily from the top. With this particular Philips HD9252/90 Air Fryer, there is a spacing between the basket and the star-fish shaped pan base, of about 2.5 cm, which ensures that the heat circulation is not only from the top but also the bottom and sides - so no constant flipping is required - which is great as now you the food can be cooked without constant supervision. Philips is the only Airfryer brand which has patented 360 degrees even frying rapid air technology, without the need of flipping the food.
Let’s see how this has turned out. One thing is that with air fryers which is using 90% less oil, the feeling is that the taste will be different from actual frying. One tends to reset the expectations on the taste to prioritize something else - which in this case is to make the snack healthy with less oil. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that it’s not the case, even this paneer tikka I’ve prepared - the taste is really good -indistinguishable from the regular way of cooking it!
PRODUCTS USED IN THIS DEMO
In addition to air-frying, you can also bake, grill and reheat in small portions - similar to what you can do with a microwave convection oven. So this is a great fit for somebody who is not really looking to purchase a full blown microwave convection oven or an OTG.
The build quality, product and customer service are what you would expect from a brand like Philips, the Innovators of Airfryer & experts for 10+ years. As per a Euromonitor report, Philips is a #1 airfryer. They offer a 2 years warranty on the product, high quality ABS body, food grade non-stick basket. You also get access to 200+ air fryer recipes on their NutriU app including recipes from celebrity chef Ranveer Brar.
Let’s talk about some best practices while using an air fryer.
Don’t overcrowd / stuff your air fryer - if you pile food on top of each other, they will steam instead of fry inside the air fryer and won't get crispy. So if you have too many, then do it in multiple batches.
Once they look done, keep cooking for a minute or two if you need it more crispy
Use the reheat function before serving - especially if you are making large batches in turns
Some people tend to use an aluminum foil at the bottom of your pan to avoid food particles from getting into the air fryer and to ease out cleaning. This may hamper the 360 degree frying efficiency in this case, so not recommended.
PRODUCTS USED IN THIS DEMO