(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
- 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.
Ben, would that be the
- I jumped (laughter)
- (laughter)