Tips to Caring For Your Air Fryer
Here are ways to care for every millenial parent’s crisis impulse-buy appliance — the air fryer
For many millennials and parents, the air fryer can be godsend. Unlike ovens and toasters that still need a bit of preheating, air fryers are easy to use; just toss food inside the tray and let it cook for a good thirty to forty-five minutes at 180 to 200 degrees celsius and we get an instant meal. As these serve as every millennial’s secret to a delicious, hot, home cooked meal, like any appliance or machine — they need some TLC (tender loving care) too!
Here’s how to maintain our faithful air-fryers:
1. To remove bits stuck to the grill, boil water for five minutes to soften it.
While some would recommend diluting vinegar and water, boiling water inside the airfryer for five minutes softens the remains of the food, making it easier to wash. It may need a little extra electricity use but it’ll make scrubbing a lot easier and less time consuming. What some even do is they heat the water with a drop of dish soap inside to also get rid of the oil.
2. Use foil or a silicone tray
It may beat the purpose of the airfryer but cooking the food on top of a foil or silicon tray at least lessens the washing for the grill and the tray. What some other parents do is they line the grill with foil and then poke holes in it so that it’ll act like a filter, keeping the bits in but the liquid out. Foil may be easier to get but silicone trays for air fryers are more sustainable and are easy to buy online via Lazada or Shoppee.
3. Once the heating coil cools down, wipe it down with a damp towel.
Not all foods fry neatly with pork belly being the number one culprit for oil splatters. Considering how almost every Filipino loves Lechong Kawali or Crispy Pork Belly every so often, it’s not surprising when the air fryer starts smelling like pork. The scent comes from the oil splattering and sticking to the heating coil. So to get rid of the scent, air out the air fryer by removing the tray and once the coil cools down, wipe it down with a damp cloth with a bit of dish soap to break down the oils.
4. Use an old toothbrush to clean the grill
The air fryer’s grills are like teeth which makes an old toothbrush the perfect cleaning tool. With the bristles designed to be soft enough to not damage the gums, it should be soft enough to remove the bits and dirt without damaging the non-stick coating if the air fryer’s tray comes with one. The best part is — it’s also a cheaper and more sustainable option as a cleaning implement.
5. Apply the basic chemical rule: “Similar liquids mixes with similar liquids.”
Chemistry has the fundamental rule of “like mixes with like” when mixing substances which is quite useful for cleaning. While we often use the now popular cleaning mix of water, vinegar, and baking soda to be our all-purpose cleaner, sometimes — it’s just the order of how we mix things. Like if the tray or grill is oily, it’s better to clean purely with dish soap. Since some dish soaps are oil-based, they easily mix with the fats and oils left in the air fryer.
Air Fryers: The All-Purpose Cooker
While rice cookers can also become an all-purpose cookers, air fryers do it faster and are not adverse to oil unlike the former. But to make sure our appliances last, we also have to take care of them. We don’t have to treat it like its fragile but at least be mindful of the basic rule of physics and thermodynamics: no machine is perfect. It will break if we keep using it willy nilly without being careful, making it harder for us to whip up instant homecooked meals for the family.
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