Philips Viva Collection Airfryer

On April Fools' Day, we bought an air fryer from Philips (via Courts). We were at Westgate and there was a promotion on Philips Viva Collection Airfryer. This is the old model, with manual temperature and timer dials. It was selling at S$409 previously and now the promotion was at S$229 with free gifts. My wife wanted to buy one but the S$400+ price was not within our budget. However, since it was almost half price now, she thought why not getting one to try. I was a bit skeptical at first and thinking that a normal electrical oven can do the grill and frying. My wife insisted and anyway, she paid for it. We got a kettle too at S$59 since the normal price is S$69.

The free gifts were a ceramic knife and 4 cutting boards (with labels for different type of raw food). They will be useful when we want to separate the vegetable with raw meat.

Well, we were excited and I went to NTUC to buy a piece of marinated Cajun boneless chicken thigh. We placed the meat into the basket and set 180 deg C for 15minutes. Half way through, I opened the drawer and moved the thigh a bit and closed the drawer. At the end of the cooking cycle, I opened the drawer and took out the thigh. It was not bad but we felt that the marinate could be better. However, it was still great. We didn't put any oil on the meat and at the end of the cycle, you can see the amount of oil from the meat at the pan. I must say that we were shocked that the meat itself contained quite a lot of oil/fats.

For this type of air fryer, I would recommend that the food to be consumed while it was warmed/hot. It will be a bit dry if it is left for quite some time.

Another thing, I would recommend that you brush a bit of oil onto the net in the basket. This will make the washing and cleaning easier. After the cooking, wait till the basket and pan have cooled down, pour some soapy water into the pan with the basket still attach to it. Soak them for a while (say 1 hr), then you can get rid of the skin/flour from the net easily.