Tefal Actifry Fryer Review
Expensive but worth every penny and no lingering smells!, 21st OctWe only took delivery of our Tefal Actifry from Amazon last Friday but have used it everyday since. Our main reason for buying was to try and better a stream of deep fat friers we have had over the years - all of which were very dissapointing in that, even though we ending up paying top end prices for supposedly good filtration, the house always ending up smelling of fat for a couple of days afterwards. One of the best things about the Actifry is that all you can smell when the food is cooking is the food itself and, so far, we have had no lingering fatty smells.
So far we have cooked 3 batches of chips (two for us and the other for friends to try!) and can confirm that 1 tablespoon of olive oil is all that is required to cook around a kilo of chips and the results, we feel, have been as good as any done in our old deep fat fryers. The time to cook chips in the Actifry, at 30-40 minutes, does seem a long while but when you consider you don't need to par boil first, or cook in 2 stages, or wait for the Actifry to heat up, etc. etc.. there is probably not that much in it.
Aside from the lack of smell, the most impressive thing we have found with the Actifry is the ability to cook recipes. So far I have made fresh meatballs in a rich tomato sauce (the continual moving of the meatballs in the Actifry actually seemed to give a firmer meatball than when I do the same in a frying pan), chicken with pineapple (from the Actifry recipe book) and pork with peppers and pineapple (an adaptation of the above - I can't remember the last time we bought tinned pineapple but I can see it becoming a staple!!) and a breakfast of sausages, onion and mushrooms. All of these were cooked with considerably less fat and less cleaning up than when I've done similar on the hob and/or in the oven and the result in all cases where as good, if not better. I'm looking forward to experimenting and/or adapting other favourite recipes to see how they turn out in the Actifry.
I suspect we wont continue to use at the current pace but am pretty confident that the bet my dad placed with me that the Actifry would be consigned to the back of the cupboard within 6 months along with many of the other gadgets I've bought over the years will be won by me!!
Well worth the investment and I'd advise anyone looking at buying to go ahead and get yourself one.
By Josh's Mum & Dad
Tefal Fryer Review 2
Tefal Actifry, 10th OctThe plastic tabs that hold the lid down are very flimsy and are cracking and wont last very long,I have tried to glue it, this could be a major design fault.... Reported it to Amazon and the lovely people have sent me a new machine, I'll return the broken one to them in the packaging the new one comes in. The food cooked in them was superb though, chips, vegatables, meat, chps, sausages.
By Ken (Scotland)
Tefal Actifry Fryer Review 3
a chip fiend writes, 6th OctA deep fat fryer that takes only one spoon of oil to cook chips? You must be joking. And yet this cunning machine produces very respectable chips without the stench associated with deep fat frying. Furthermore it assuages my anxiety about the unhealthiness of serial chip eating. It really is very good for the chipaholic. Yes it is rather expensive, yes it takes longer than the 'real thing' and yes it makes me feel like a bit of a food fraud. But when chips are both so tasty and healthy at the same time, who really cares?
By R. Mann "Rachel Mann" (Manchester)
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