not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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DaimarA Million Feet Tall of AwesomeRegistered Userregular
I've been putting off getting a real organization system set up for our spices since I don't want big jars of spices that will go bad before they're ever used, so in the meantime we have a basket that holds all the little baggies of spices we get from the Bulk Barn. We just don't use enough spices and it would just be a quarterly/annual, or more likely never cleanup project.
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
I decided that this year for thanksgiving I was to rotisserie grill a duck. In preparation I picked up the Weber Spirit rotisserie attachment. I had originally picked up a "universal" rotisserie kit on the cheap but it ended up not fitting my Weber 2 burner. I had to drive my ass a whole half hour away just to find the one for my grill. No matter, I picked it up, brought it home and got it setup. I'd been brining a chicken in the fridge most of the day. I took butter, lemon zest, salt and pepper, squished it together and smeared it under the skin. With the attachment mounted to the grill I skewered my bird and plopped it on the grill. It seems to be working well enough so far. The spit is spinning and nothing's fallen apart yet. I have high hopes for this. If I can pull it off with a chicken, I think duck will work just as well.
I decided that this year for thanksgiving I was to rotisserie grill a duck. In preparation I picked up the Weber Spirit rotisserie attachment. I had originally picked up a "universal" rotisserie kit on the cheap but it ended up not fitting my Weber 2 burner. I had to drive my ass a whole half hour away just to find the one for my grill. No matter, I picked it up, brought it home and got it setup. I'd been brining a chicken in the fridge most of the day. I took butter, lemon zest, salt and pepper, squished it together and smeared it under the skin. With the attachment mounted to the grill I skewered my bird and plopped it on the grill. It seems to be working well enough so far. The spit is spinning and nothing's fallen apart yet. I have high hopes for this. If I can pull it off with a chicken, I think duck will work just as well.
Where did you get the uncooked duck?
I know Asian grocers always sell cooked duck, but I've never seen raw available. Maybe it's a talk to the manager kinda thing?
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
I decided that this year for thanksgiving I was to rotisserie grill a duck. In preparation I picked up the Weber Spirit rotisserie attachment. I had originally picked up a "universal" rotisserie kit on the cheap but it ended up not fitting my Weber 2 burner. I had to drive my ass a whole half hour away just to find the one for my grill. No matter, I picked it up, brought it home and got it setup. I'd been brining a chicken in the fridge most of the day. I took butter, lemon zest, salt and pepper, squished it together and smeared it under the skin. With the attachment mounted to the grill I skewered my bird and plopped it on the grill. It seems to be working well enough so far. The spit is spinning and nothing's fallen apart yet. I have high hopes for this. If I can pull it off with a chicken, I think duck will work just as well.
Where did you get the uncooked duck?
I know Asian grocers always sell cooked duck, but I've never seen raw available. Maybe it's a talk to the manager kinda thing?
I havn't actually bought the duck yet. I did get one a few years go though. Found it at Whole Foods. Around the holidays they tend to stock duck and goose.
Might have asked this before, but I could use a recommendation for a new spice rack.
i actually repurposed one of those Target brand six square decorative shelves because it’s the only thing i could find that could hold my way too many spices that didn’t take up too much counter space
had one lying around and wasn't sure what to do with it but
it's actually perfect?
@Chanus I just want to clarify for everyone that despite your protestations to the contrary, WD-40 is not a spice.
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ChanusHarbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered Userregular
Might have asked this before, but I could use a recommendation for a new spice rack.
i actually repurposed one of those Target brand six square decorative shelves because it’s the only thing i could find that could hold my way too many spices that didn’t take up too much counter space
had one lying around and wasn't sure what to do with it but
it's actually perfect?
Chanus I just want to clarify for everyone that despite your protestations to the contrary, WD-40 is not a spice.
Might have asked this before, but I could use a recommendation for a new spice rack.
i actually repurposed one of those Target brand six square decorative shelves because it’s the only thing i could find that could hold my way too many spices that didn’t take up too much counter space
had one lying around and wasn't sure what to do with it but
it's actually perfect?
Chanus I just want to clarify for everyone that despite your protestations to the contrary, WD-40 is not a spice.
it is the way i do it
It promotes good mouth feel. The food just slides right across the tongue.
hey i thought maybe someone would have good advice here. my partner just found out they're pre-diabetic and just like can't have white flour/excess sugar. I was looking into it today and seeing a lot of recommendations for Mediterranean style diet which as far as I see is just "eat more fruits and vegetables, use olive oil instead of butter, eat fatty fish, whole grains, cut red meat" which theoretically feels like not a major change since my partner is mostly vegetarian/pescetarian and I rarely care about getting meat for myself, except that we tend to fall into the not wanting to cook bad habit too much.
My shopping trip today was a whole buncha fruit, we were solid on veggies but i did grab baby carrots and raddishes as snackable options, swaped out wheat pasta and brown rice for the white ones we have at home, olive oil, and some salmon and flounder filets. I know flounder isn't a fatty fish but they were out of tuna steaks and i didn't know what else was good and figured the fish would still be better than the alternative.
I'm not sure what else i should be considering though. like, ok a lot of this is just simple swaps in what we buy, but I'm sure there's still a big part of eating habits with those things.
No pizza though... gonna have to try a cauliflower crust like they use for vegan pizzas a lot around here.
yeah i was worried about that with some of the fruits, so like i trended toward small amounts of things I'd be able to finish if it turns out not to be a good option for them.
but ironically the one thing going for us is at my last job, i cut out soda completely because the free vending machine was ruining me and then a coworker got me hooked on topo chico at the corner bodega and that kind of trickled back to my home life now.
they don’t do anything an equally large toaster oven can’t do
The main difference between these two devices is how they deal with moisture content. In order to brown the surface of food, you need to first remove the surface level moisture, and that can take a lot of time.
Ovens rely primarily on conduction, removing surface level moisture by converting it to steam, which is extremely slow and energy inefficient. Moreover, the steam itself acts as a barrier that slows things down even further. This also makes it harder to achieve temperature contrast between crisp surfaces and moist interiors. By the time the outside has properly cooked, the inside is usually dry. Broiling is an option, but it's easy to burn food accidentally if you're not keeping a careful eye.
Air fryers rely primarily on convection. This not only only causes the water to evaporate at much lower temperature, but it also prevents the water vapor from acting as a heat barrier. The outside cooks much faster than the inside, allowing for greater contrast. This is faster, more efficient, and more convenient.
Of course, early air fryers have a lot of limitations. You couldn't see inside, you can only cook a small amount of food at a time, and they tend to only heat from the top. Lots of newer models address the first two problems, and the Omni addresses the third.
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ChanusHarbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered Userregular
they don’t do anything an equally large toaster oven can’t do
The main difference between these two devices is how they deal with moisture content. In order to brown the surface of food, you need to first remove the surface level moisture, and that can take a lot of time.
Ovens rely primarily on conduction, removing surface level moisture by converting it to steam, which is extremely slow and energy inefficient. Moreover, the steam itself acts as a barrier that slows things down even further. This also makes it harder to achieve temperature contrast between crisp surfaces and moist interiors. By the time the outside has properly cooked, the inside is usually dry. Broiling is an option, but it's easy to burn food accidentally if you're not keeping a careful eye.
Air fryers rely primarily on convection. This not only only causes the water to evaporate at much lower temperature, but it also prevents the water vapor from acting as a heat barrier. The outside cooks much faster than the inside, allowing for greater contrast. This is faster, more efficient, and more convenient.
Of course, early air fryers have a lot of limitations. You couldn't see inside, you can only cook a small amount of food at a time, and they tend to only heat from the top. Lots of newer models address the first two problems, and the Omni addresses the third.
they may have gotten better, that’s fair
all the side-by-side tests i saw showed the difference in result was minimal and even where an air fryer performed better it wasn’t to an extent it was worth the loss of counter space for yet another appliance
Allegedly a voice of reason.
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
they don’t do anything an equally large toaster oven can’t do
The main difference between these two devices is how they deal with moisture content. In order to brown the surface of food, you need to first remove the surface level moisture, and that can take a lot of time.
Ovens rely primarily on conduction, removing surface level moisture by converting it to steam, which is extremely slow and energy inefficient. Moreover, the steam itself acts as a barrier that slows things down even further. This also makes it harder to achieve temperature contrast between crisp surfaces and moist interiors. By the time the outside has properly cooked, the inside is usually dry. Broiling is an option, but it's easy to burn food accidentally if you're not keeping a careful eye.
Air fryers rely primarily on convection. This not only only causes the water to evaporate at much lower temperature, but it also prevents the water vapor from acting as a heat barrier. The outside cooks much faster than the inside, allowing for greater contrast. This is faster, more efficient, and more convenient.
Of course, early air fryers have a lot of limitations. You couldn't see inside, you can only cook a small amount of food at a time, and they tend to only heat from the top. Lots of newer models address the first two problems, and the Omni addresses the third.
they may have gotten better, that’s fair
all the side-by-side tests i saw showed the difference in result was minimal and even where an air fryer performed better it wasn’t to an extent it was worth the loss of counter space for yet another appliance
Are toaster ovens somehow a default appliance? I've never owned one, so either way would represent a new appliance for us.
That said, my wife wants an air fryer and so I'm starting to research options a bit. Thankfully if we do get one it will spend most of it's time living in a cabinet and only come out to be used, like most of our kitchen appliances. The only things that get to stay out on the counter permanently are the toaster because it's small and it gets used the most, and the stand mixer because it is a heavy beast. And I like having as much open counter space as possible for rolling out dough and general ease of work.
There are also toaster ovens that have convection, which do everything an air fryer does, and more, but also better. If I had the counterspace (and outlets) for one I'd probably spring for the Breville ones that gets rave reviews.
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
There are also toaster ovens that have convection, which do everything an air fryer does, and more, but also better. If I had the counterspace (and outlets) for one I'd probably spring for the Breville ones that gets rave reviews.
The Instant Pot Omni that was mentioned before does all of the same, but is less expensive than the Breville units. I like Breville appliances, but probably not enough to pay twice as much for the same functionality.
The higher end Breville models are either listed as air fryers or highlight their additional air frying functionality beyond the typical toaster oven and convection options :P
Ketar on
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
It was the highest rated toaster when I bought it and it's still on the high end. It uses IR to heat the food directly instead of heating up the air to heat up the food. As such it produces much more even and consistent heating. Like all toasters there is still a slight bias to the rear as the air does still end up getting heated. I have a convection toaster before the IR. The IR toaster is more specialized but it gives better results for the tasks it's designed for. I like to think of it more as an IR re-heater than something to cook raw food. It doesn't do well with really thick or odd shaped foods. I can't cook a scratch made pizza in the IR toaster. It's too small for most frozen pizzas too. The convection toaster I had seemed to heat evenly enough thanks to the fans. It was better able to handle raw and odd shaped foods. To it's fault, it was slower than the IR toaster and wasn't as good at making toast. A toaster that sucks at making toast is kind of missing the point, IMO.
I want to get an air fryer, but dont really want another big expensive single use appliance. I have so many already.
It's not exactly a single use appliance when you cut through the marketing speak and know that it's really a small convection oven. That doesn't mean it's necessarily worth it for many people though.
KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
Yesterday I made this pear and cardamom caramel upside-down cake, from the first cookbook by Chetna Makan who was a semi-finalist on the Great British Bake Off 5 years ago.
It turned out really nicely. Some orange zest and almond flour in the cake batter gave it a nice mix of flavors, and the pears and cake offset each other really well.
I think I am going to attempt to make chana masala on monday for the first time.
This will be... a whole other level for me past "put chili powder on thing, sear chili powder into thing"
But it's one of my favorite dishes and I really have no excuse to not know how to do it.
And since we just did a big shopping trip for a lot of things that my partner can eat under the new medical guidelines I have most of what I need and can just hit up the market nearby for the last few veggies and spices
and it only took like 3 links before i found a recipe that wasn't by an odd white lady wanting to calm me down that it wasn't "too exotic" of a dish. While I'm open to the idea that that's not immediately disqualifying for the actual food, I still hate it.
We did Mississippi Pot Roast tonight and added root vegetables to the crock pot when we turned it on. Worked out great! I'm debating using the drippings to make a gravy
I think I am going to attempt to make chana masala on monday for the first time.
This will be... a whole other level for me past "put chili powder on thing, sear chili powder into thing"
But it's one of my favorite dishes and I really have no excuse to not know how to do it.
And since we just did a big shopping trip for a lot of things that my partner can eat under the new medical guidelines I have most of what I need and can just hit up the market nearby for the last few veggies and spices
and it only took like 3 links before i found a recipe that wasn't by an odd white lady wanting to calm me down that it wasn't "too exotic" of a dish. While I'm open to the idea that that's not immediately disqualifying for the actual food, I still hate it.
If you possibly can, acquire some powdered anchoor (dried powdered unripe mango). That's the key to the particular flavour of channa masala
A workable substitute is chat masala which is a spice mix used as a condiment and heavily features anchoor.
Both should be available from any halfway decent Indian food store.
Edit: a quick glance shows its available on Amazon, albeit at a significant markup.
I think I am going to attempt to make chana masala on monday for the first time.
This will be... a whole other level for me past "put chili powder on thing, sear chili powder into thing"
But it's one of my favorite dishes and I really have no excuse to not know how to do it.
And since we just did a big shopping trip for a lot of things that my partner can eat under the new medical guidelines I have most of what I need and can just hit up the market nearby for the last few veggies and spices
and it only took like 3 links before i found a recipe that wasn't by an odd white lady wanting to calm me down that it wasn't "too exotic" of a dish. While I'm open to the idea that that's not immediately disqualifying for the actual food, I still hate it.
If you possibly can, acquire some powdered anchoor (dried powdered unripe mango). That's the key to the particular flavour of channa masala
A workable substitute is chat masala which is a spice mix used as a condiment and heavily features anchoor.
Both should be available from any halfway decent Indian food store.
Edit: a quick glance shows its available on Amazon, albeit at a significant markup.
awesome i added it to my list.
I had already picked up garam masala last time which i knew was part of it and my local market did have that, so hopefully this won't be too bad, but also i'm a 10 minute walk from one of the bigger indian neighborhoods in the city and can get to a grocer over there easily enough if not.
I think I am going to attempt to make chana masala on monday for the first time.
This will be... a whole other level for me past "put chili powder on thing, sear chili powder into thing"
But it's one of my favorite dishes and I really have no excuse to not know how to do it.
And since we just did a big shopping trip for a lot of things that my partner can eat under the new medical guidelines I have most of what I need and can just hit up the market nearby for the last few veggies and spices
and it only took like 3 links before i found a recipe that wasn't by an odd white lady wanting to calm me down that it wasn't "too exotic" of a dish. While I'm open to the idea that that's not immediately disqualifying for the actual food, I still hate it.
If you possibly can, acquire some powdered anchoor (dried powdered unripe mango). That's the key to the particular flavour of channa masala
A workable substitute is chat masala which is a spice mix used as a condiment and heavily features anchoor.
Both should be available from any halfway decent Indian food store.
Edit: a quick glance shows its available on Amazon, albeit at a significant markup.
awesome i added it to my list.
I had already picked up garam masala last time which i knew was part of it and my local market did have that, so hopefully this won't be too bad, but also i'm a 10 minute walk from one of the bigger indian neighborhoods in the city and can get to a grocer over there easily enough if not.
Ok, with black friday coming up, I have some questions about new hardware.
I'm thinking of getting a pizza stone. Note, stone not steel. Yes, doesn't do specific kinds of pizza as well, but it's cheaper and does other kinds of baking better from anything I've read and this is just a starting place and it's not all about pizza anyway.
I'm looking at the Old Stone Oven baking stone cause it seems to get recommends from most of the places I trust, but that's not really the main thing I'm wondering about, although if someone has comments there I'm open to ideas.
On top of just normal baking uses, I'm specifically also wondering about using things ON the baking stone. Aluminum sheet pans, cast iron skillets, glass pie dishes, etc, etc. Can you put these things on a baking stone safely? Google is not being very helpful on this front.
Some of the big issues I've been having in my baking are with, for example:
- Pie bottom crusts just not cooking properly on the bottom. I'm needing to massively increase the cook time to get the bottom to cook properly.
- Sicilian-style pizza baked in an aluminum pan not browning properly on the bottom. I'm trying everything I can and the bottom still isn't cooking fast enough.
You can see the commonality here I'm sure. I'm hoping a baking stone can help solve this issue and I just kinda want to confirm that it's ok to put like pans and such on the stone like that.
As a sort of extra bit to that the stone I'm looking at is 16x14 and my half-sheet pans are the standard 18x13. So there would be an inch of overhang on either side but I figure aluminum is a really good conductor so hopefully it would work out ok.
So anyone got any experience with this kind of thing?
Ok, with black friday coming up, I have some questions about new hardware.
I'm thinking of getting a pizza stone. Note, stone not steel. Yes, doesn't do specific kinds of pizza as well, but it's cheaper and does other kinds of baking better from anything I've read and this is just a starting place and it's not all about pizza anyway.
I'm looking at the Old Stone Oven baking stone cause it seems to get recommends from most of the places I trust, but that's not really the main thing I'm wondering about, although if someone has comments there I'm open to ideas.
On top of just normal baking uses, I'm specifically also wondering about using things ON the baking stone. Aluminum sheet pans, cast iron skillets, glass pie dishes, etc, etc. Can you put these things on a baking stone safely? Google is not being very helpful on this front.
Some of the big issues I've been having in my baking are with, for example:
- Pie bottom crusts just not cooking properly on the bottom. I'm needing to massively increase the cook time to get the bottom to cook properly.
- Sicilian-style pizza baked in an aluminum pan not browning properly on the bottom. I'm trying everything I can and the bottom still isn't cooking fast enough.
You can see the commonality here I'm sure. I'm hoping a baking stone can help solve this issue and I just kinda want to confirm that it's ok to put like pans and such on the stone like that.
As a sort of extra bit to that the stone I'm looking at is 16x14 and my half-sheet pans are the standard 18x13. So there would be an inch of overhang on either side but I figure aluminum is a really good conductor so hopefully it would work out ok.
So anyone got any experience with this kind of thing?
Had a stone, wasn't the nice cordierite or anything. You can use stuff on top of it, but it makes the oven take a while longer to preheat so I'd just take it out. Also spilling things on it would smoke quite a bit. No matter what you use, finding the proper position in your oven for the stone/steel/cast iron pan is really important. I'd get a cheap oven thermometer or similar real-time probe you can put in the oven in various spots to sort that out. Ovens tend to kick off when the sensor hits the right temperature without actually waiting for the center rack to heat appropriately.
Eventually I bought a steel. I like it. I also use it for bread, it works well. I think for general use a multi-panel set of cordierite tiles would be my second choice. They'd be way easier to insert/remove and store in a smaller space than the steel is. I'm still up in the air as to whether I made the best choice, but it works.
The first thing I'd do is still get a thermometer, though. I have a ChefAlarm from ThermoWorks and just clipping it in and moving around my oven rack was really enlightening. It turns out my 550 degree oven only gets to like 476 in the center before shutting down.
Edit: I wouldn't use anything directly on the stone/steel unless you want to cook the shit out of the bottom of it. The transfer of heat is way too fast. It would still work to even out the temperature and stuff if you left it in but put a rack above it. I do that with a pizza pan when I bake my sourdough in a cast iron dutch oven to reduce the browning on the bottom of the loaf.
Pizza gets cooked on high-broil so it's sort of it's own beast, comparing pizza cook times and techniques is like it's own sub-cult of cooking.
Edit2: I used a 20$ pizza stone for a while too, it worked okay and made me want something higher quality. I gave the stone away after a year but consider it a good starting point.
I want to get an air fryer, but dont really want another big expensive single use appliance. I have so many already.
It's not exactly a single use appliance when you cut through the marketing speak and know that it's really a small convection oven. That doesn't mean it's necessarily worth it for many people though.
I don't know if I've ever seen a toaster oven that didn't have a convection oven button.
Ok, with black friday coming up, I have some questions about new hardware.
I'm thinking of getting a pizza stone. Note, stone not steel. Yes, doesn't do specific kinds of pizza as well, but it's cheaper and does other kinds of baking better from anything I've read and this is just a starting place and it's not all about pizza anyway.
I'm looking at the Old Stone Oven baking stone cause it seems to get recommends from most of the places I trust, but that's not really the main thing I'm wondering about, although if someone has comments there I'm open to ideas.
On top of just normal baking uses, I'm specifically also wondering about using things ON the baking stone. Aluminum sheet pans, cast iron skillets, glass pie dishes, etc, etc. Can you put these things on a baking stone safely? Google is not being very helpful on this front.
Some of the big issues I've been having in my baking are with, for example:
- Pie bottom crusts just not cooking properly on the bottom. I'm needing to massively increase the cook time to get the bottom to cook properly.
- Sicilian-style pizza baked in an aluminum pan not browning properly on the bottom. I'm trying everything I can and the bottom still isn't cooking fast enough.
You can see the commonality here I'm sure. I'm hoping a baking stone can help solve this issue and I just kinda want to confirm that it's ok to put like pans and such on the stone like that.
As a sort of extra bit to that the stone I'm looking at is 16x14 and my half-sheet pans are the standard 18x13. So there would be an inch of overhang on either side but I figure aluminum is a really good conductor so hopefully it would work out ok.
So anyone got any experience with this kind of thing?
I don't have a lot of space in my kitchen and I'm lazy, so I mostly leave my pizza stone in the oven. I put pans and shit on it.
But, just in case it isn't obvious, don't put fridge-cold things on a heated pizza stone!
and it only took like 3 links before i found a recipe that wasn't by an odd white lady wanting to calm me down that it wasn't "too exotic" of a dish. While I'm open to the idea that that's not immediately disqualifying for the actual food, I still hate it.
I learned long ago to focus on links from sites with a staff of professional contributors and editors. It avoids the personal blogs started when everyone thought they could start a meaningful food blog. In addition to avoiding idiotic attempts to seem homey and folksy, it also tends to avoid recipes where all measurements are in volume units with no weight units and avoids recipes that assume some region specific equipment. I've come across a few Indian food recipes from moms and grandmothers that grew up in India that eschew time estimates for listening for whistles from pressure cookers, a mechanism you only find on pressure cooker designs from decades ago. Still a usable design but not commonplace outside of some parts of the world or as safe as modern designs.
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He's blind so the renovation was actually pretty annoying for him.
SteamID: edgruberman GOG Galaxy: EdGruberman
Ah, so that's betrayal we see there.
The kitchen dog was also upgraded during the renovation. That's the new dog who is all "Wait, wtf happened to me? I used to be a chihuahua."
Where did you get the uncooked duck?
I know Asian grocers always sell cooked duck, but I've never seen raw available. Maybe it's a talk to the manager kinda thing?
I havn't actually bought the duck yet. I did get one a few years go though. Found it at Whole Foods. Around the holidays they tend to stock duck and goose.
@Chanus I just want to clarify for everyone that despite your protestations to the contrary, WD-40 is not a spice.
it is the way i do it
It promotes good mouth feel. The food just slides right across the tongue.
My shopping trip today was a whole buncha fruit, we were solid on veggies but i did grab baby carrots and raddishes as snackable options, swaped out wheat pasta and brown rice for the white ones we have at home, olive oil, and some salmon and flounder filets. I know flounder isn't a fatty fish but they were out of tuna steaks and i didn't know what else was good and figured the fish would still be better than the alternative.
I'm not sure what else i should be considering though. like, ok a lot of this is just simple swaps in what we buy, but I'm sure there's still a big part of eating habits with those things.
No pizza though... gonna have to try a cauliflower crust like they use for vegan pizzas a lot around here.
Also even fresh fruit can spike blood sugar so keep portions in check
but ironically the one thing going for us is at my last job, i cut out soda completely because the free vending machine was ruining me and then a coworker got me hooked on topo chico at the corner bodega and that kind of trickled back to my home life now.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
I just got an instant pot omni, I'll let you know how it goes. It can replace a toaster oven, and actually replace a real oven in a lot of scenarios.
they don’t do anything an equally large toaster oven can’t do
The main difference between these two devices is how they deal with moisture content. In order to brown the surface of food, you need to first remove the surface level moisture, and that can take a lot of time.
Ovens rely primarily on conduction, removing surface level moisture by converting it to steam, which is extremely slow and energy inefficient. Moreover, the steam itself acts as a barrier that slows things down even further. This also makes it harder to achieve temperature contrast between crisp surfaces and moist interiors. By the time the outside has properly cooked, the inside is usually dry. Broiling is an option, but it's easy to burn food accidentally if you're not keeping a careful eye.
Air fryers rely primarily on convection. This not only only causes the water to evaporate at much lower temperature, but it also prevents the water vapor from acting as a heat barrier. The outside cooks much faster than the inside, allowing for greater contrast. This is faster, more efficient, and more convenient.
Of course, early air fryers have a lot of limitations. You couldn't see inside, you can only cook a small amount of food at a time, and they tend to only heat from the top. Lots of newer models address the first two problems, and the Omni addresses the third.
they may have gotten better, that’s fair
all the side-by-side tests i saw showed the difference in result was minimal and even where an air fryer performed better it wasn’t to an extent it was worth the loss of counter space for yet another appliance
Are toaster ovens somehow a default appliance? I've never owned one, so either way would represent a new appliance for us.
That said, my wife wants an air fryer and so I'm starting to research options a bit. Thankfully if we do get one it will spend most of it's time living in a cabinet and only come out to be used, like most of our kitchen appliances. The only things that get to stay out on the counter permanently are the toaster because it's small and it gets used the most, and the stand mixer because it is a heavy beast. And I like having as much open counter space as possible for rolling out dough and general ease of work.
The Instant Pot Omni that was mentioned before does all of the same, but is less expensive than the Breville units. I like Breville appliances, but probably not enough to pay twice as much for the same functionality.
The higher end Breville models are either listed as air fryers or highlight their additional air frying functionality beyond the typical toaster oven and convection options :P
https://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-NB-G110P-FlashXpress-Infrared-Removable/dp/B008C9UFDI
It was the highest rated toaster when I bought it and it's still on the high end. It uses IR to heat the food directly instead of heating up the air to heat up the food. As such it produces much more even and consistent heating. Like all toasters there is still a slight bias to the rear as the air does still end up getting heated. I have a convection toaster before the IR. The IR toaster is more specialized but it gives better results for the tasks it's designed for. I like to think of it more as an IR re-heater than something to cook raw food. It doesn't do well with really thick or odd shaped foods. I can't cook a scratch made pizza in the IR toaster. It's too small for most frozen pizzas too. The convection toaster I had seemed to heat evenly enough thanks to the fans. It was better able to handle raw and odd shaped foods. To it's fault, it was slower than the IR toaster and wasn't as good at making toast. A toaster that sucks at making toast is kind of missing the point, IMO.
It's not exactly a single use appliance when you cut through the marketing speak and know that it's really a small convection oven. That doesn't mean it's necessarily worth it for many people though.
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Yesterday I made this pear and cardamom caramel upside-down cake, from the first cookbook by Chetna Makan who was a semi-finalist on the Great British Bake Off 5 years ago.
It turned out really nicely. Some orange zest and almond flour in the cake batter gave it a nice mix of flavors, and the pears and cake offset each other really well.
This will be... a whole other level for me past "put chili powder on thing, sear chili powder into thing"
But it's one of my favorite dishes and I really have no excuse to not know how to do it.
And since we just did a big shopping trip for a lot of things that my partner can eat under the new medical guidelines I have most of what I need and can just hit up the market nearby for the last few veggies and spices
and it only took like 3 links before i found a recipe that wasn't by an odd white lady wanting to calm me down that it wasn't "too exotic" of a dish. While I'm open to the idea that that's not immediately disqualifying for the actual food, I still hate it.
If you possibly can, acquire some powdered anchoor (dried powdered unripe mango). That's the key to the particular flavour of channa masala
A workable substitute is chat masala which is a spice mix used as a condiment and heavily features anchoor.
Both should be available from any halfway decent Indian food store.
Edit: a quick glance shows its available on Amazon, albeit at a significant markup.
awesome i added it to my list.
I had already picked up garam masala last time which i knew was part of it and my local market did have that, so hopefully this won't be too bad, but also i'm a 10 minute walk from one of the bigger indian neighborhoods in the city and can get to a grocer over there easily enough if not.
Pillage the hell out of the foodstore.
I'm thinking of getting a pizza stone. Note, stone not steel. Yes, doesn't do specific kinds of pizza as well, but it's cheaper and does other kinds of baking better from anything I've read and this is just a starting place and it's not all about pizza anyway.
I'm looking at the Old Stone Oven baking stone cause it seems to get recommends from most of the places I trust, but that's not really the main thing I'm wondering about, although if someone has comments there I'm open to ideas.
On top of just normal baking uses, I'm specifically also wondering about using things ON the baking stone. Aluminum sheet pans, cast iron skillets, glass pie dishes, etc, etc. Can you put these things on a baking stone safely? Google is not being very helpful on this front.
Some of the big issues I've been having in my baking are with, for example:
- Pie bottom crusts just not cooking properly on the bottom. I'm needing to massively increase the cook time to get the bottom to cook properly.
- Sicilian-style pizza baked in an aluminum pan not browning properly on the bottom. I'm trying everything I can and the bottom still isn't cooking fast enough.
You can see the commonality here I'm sure. I'm hoping a baking stone can help solve this issue and I just kinda want to confirm that it's ok to put like pans and such on the stone like that.
As a sort of extra bit to that the stone I'm looking at is 16x14 and my half-sheet pans are the standard 18x13. So there would be an inch of overhang on either side but I figure aluminum is a really good conductor so hopefully it would work out ok.
So anyone got any experience with this kind of thing?
Had a stone, wasn't the nice cordierite or anything. You can use stuff on top of it, but it makes the oven take a while longer to preheat so I'd just take it out. Also spilling things on it would smoke quite a bit. No matter what you use, finding the proper position in your oven for the stone/steel/cast iron pan is really important. I'd get a cheap oven thermometer or similar real-time probe you can put in the oven in various spots to sort that out. Ovens tend to kick off when the sensor hits the right temperature without actually waiting for the center rack to heat appropriately.
Eventually I bought a steel. I like it. I also use it for bread, it works well. I think for general use a multi-panel set of cordierite tiles would be my second choice. They'd be way easier to insert/remove and store in a smaller space than the steel is. I'm still up in the air as to whether I made the best choice, but it works.
The first thing I'd do is still get a thermometer, though. I have a ChefAlarm from ThermoWorks and just clipping it in and moving around my oven rack was really enlightening. It turns out my 550 degree oven only gets to like 476 in the center before shutting down.
Edit: I wouldn't use anything directly on the stone/steel unless you want to cook the shit out of the bottom of it. The transfer of heat is way too fast. It would still work to even out the temperature and stuff if you left it in but put a rack above it. I do that with a pizza pan when I bake my sourdough in a cast iron dutch oven to reduce the browning on the bottom of the loaf.
Pizza gets cooked on high-broil so it's sort of it's own beast, comparing pizza cook times and techniques is like it's own sub-cult of cooking.
Edit2: I used a 20$ pizza stone for a while too, it worked okay and made me want something higher quality. I gave the stone away after a year but consider it a good starting point.
I don't know if I've ever seen a toaster oven that didn't have a convection oven button.
I don't have a lot of space in my kitchen and I'm lazy, so I mostly leave my pizza stone in the oven. I put pans and shit on it.
But, just in case it isn't obvious, don't put fridge-cold things on a heated pizza stone!
I learned long ago to focus on links from sites with a staff of professional contributors and editors. It avoids the personal blogs started when everyone thought they could start a meaningful food blog. In addition to avoiding idiotic attempts to seem homey and folksy, it also tends to avoid recipes where all measurements are in volume units with no weight units and avoids recipes that assume some region specific equipment. I've come across a few Indian food recipes from moms and grandmothers that grew up in India that eschew time estimates for listening for whistles from pressure cookers, a mechanism you only find on pressure cooker designs from decades ago. Still a usable design but not commonplace outside of some parts of the world or as safe as modern designs.
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