French Fry Diary 738: Power Air Fryer

I got my QVC addiction from my late and much-missed mother-in-law, but really we each watch for very different reasons.  Mom was a shopaholic, so the entire channel was a vice, but as a foodie, I find myself drawn more to programs like "In the Kitchen with David" with the delightful David Venable.  Recently from that show, and pitch man Eric Theiss, we purchased a Power Air Fryer, and we love it. 

I had always been wary of some of the air fryers I had seen on TV, shopping oriented or not.  They never seemed to cook the food all the way through, fries Looking soggy, etc.  The first time I saw Eric on David's show with the Power Air Fryer, there was a sound the fries made when they hit the plate out of the inner fryer pot - the same sound fries make when shaken to disperse salt in a metal bowl - the sound of crispy fries.  They had my attention. 

After seeing them and the fryer on QVC a few more times, we made the purchase of, for an excellent price, the Power Air Fryer XL Pro.  We passed on the cookbook by Eric, but we did also get the barrel pan and the grill rack with the package.  In a few days the Fryer arrived, and we have been thrilled ever since.

Of course the first thing I made was French fries, Nathan's, which have been an air frying favorite ever since.  Following the simple picture touch screen directions - 400 degrees for 18 minutes - for fries, they came out perfectly golden brown.  I thought at first maybe a bit too brown, and that I had actually made charcoal, but no, they were perfect, crispy outside and soft and hot inside.  Near perfection. 

Over the next few days, hell, the next couple weeks, we had a whirlwind of experimentation, seeing what we could and could not cook in the Air Fryer, and there's really not much that you can't.  I learned that with those wonderful Nathan's fries, if you shake them halfway, and use more uniform sizes (I cut the longer fries in half) so they cook more evenly.  You can also adjust time and temperature as you wish as opposed to using the touch screen options.  These techniques are good tips for almost anything you cook.

I tried many different frozen fries options - shoestrings, steak fries, potato wedges, curly fries, waffle fries, tater tots, crinkle cuts, regular cuts - and also tried onion rings, as well as other stuff not usually covered in this blog like hot dogs, biscuits, hot pockets, motz sticks, scallops, shrimp, chicken, steak, burgers, hush puppies, cakes, and corn on the cob, that last one a particular favorite. 

There is of course a learning curve. As opposed to food being underdone as I assumed would be a problem, it's very easy to overcook, so keep an eye on what you're cooking.  Onion rings especially are easy to overdo.  You can even do handcut fries, which come out amazing.  So far the handcuts are the only item to which I've added oil, and then only a quick spray if at all.

The Power Air Fryer has been one of the best things we've purchased since we've been down here in Florida, besides of course the grill, which is my baby.  That said, I love my Air Fryer.  I don't miss our deep fryer, which we left in South Jersey, at all.  Thank you, QVC! 

French Fry Diary 678: KC Steak Fries

When I write I usually have to have something on in the background. I used to have one of the 24/7 news channels going. My rage at them (all of them) being more opinion than actual news stopped that. Then I tried CourtTV, but once the Jodi Arias trial started, that too proved a distraction.

And then there was QVC, which worked for a while with its innocuous programming. While the recent Isaac Mizrahi moon-is-a-planet kerfuffle is typical of the channel, the foodie in me was soon seduced by their cooking shows. The Kansas City Steak Company sells their wares on QVC often, including their juicy Steakburgers and huge hot dogs, both tempting, but I never broke down and ordered anything until they sweetened the deal with... wait for it... French fries.

The package arrived just a few days later, a big styrofoam box with dry ice in it, along with three smaller black boxes marked Kansas City Steak Company. One box had the burgers, another had unusually large hot dogs, and the third - two big white label-less one pound bags of French fries. I couldn't wait to try them, and by them, I meant the fries.

From what I saw on television, KC Steak Fries (TM) are seasoned steak fries, long planks of natural cut potato, with a golden brown sprinkling of spices. They could be deep fried, but everyone knows that frozen fries are best baked. The reality of the situation was a bit different.

But first, a word about the other stuff in the package. The hot dogs are made from 100% beef, and are huge, approximately an inch longer and twice as thick. They will make most rolls seem puny. These dogs take a little longer to cook, but wow. The burgers, excuse me, Steakburgers, are also huge, and pretty good too, a five ounce patty of corn fed ground beef from western Kansas. Thumbs up.

At first sight, out of the blank white bag, they were natural cut steak fries, some coated in Kansas City's special 'old bay' seasoning, and some not, very uneven. I have to be honest, as excited as I was when I first saw them on QVC, I was a little disappointed when I opened the bag. We'll see how they cook. After all, the dogs and burgers were great, why wouldn't the fries be as well?

The directions were not quite right, so keep an eye on your fries, and cook appropriately. I had to keep cooking them for an additional five minutes. The crispier and crunchier these fries were, the better they were. The fries are certainly seasoned, but I have to say I wasn't getting an Old Bay vibe. They were good, but not that good. I would definitely get the dogs or burgers again, but maybe not the fries.