Middle Eastern Style Beef - Can I cook a steak in an Air Fryer?

Family time in the kitchen is so important to me. It's the heart of every home. It's a place where we can all talk about the worlds problems and forget all about them as well. As you'll see, they enjoyed experimenting with their dad who just got a new gadget to play with!

G'Day my fellow Steemers :) Firstly, my apologies for the lack of posts the past few days - the dreaded winter flu hit our household, I still haven't found my voice and when you talk for a living it's very irritating.

So firstly a disclosure - The Philips company sent me a new air fryer to road test (And no they haven't paid me for this post but they did pay me for a Facebook video). I've always been intrigued with air fryers, but being an old school cook I prefer to do things the old fashioned way. However, many of my viewers love shortcuts in the kitchen and if I can help them decide on a product thats worth your hard earned money, I will. I only ever showcase products I've road tested personally. Trust me, you don't want to see the amount of stuff I get thats just utter rubbish.

Meet the Philips Air Fryer Digital with Turbo Star Advance (still trying to work out what that means...) I think it may have something to do with the fact you don't need to preheat before cooking.

I wanted to really challenge this machine, sure it can do a basket of fries or chicken wings. But can it cook a steak like I would in the pan without oil? Surely not I thought. So I thought up of some different flavours to go with my scotch fillet - balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, cumin, fennel seeds, salt/pepper and fresh thyme. With it I chopped up some chunky veg - potato, tomato, cucumber and eggplant.

With me were my kitchen helpers, my daughter Imogen -

And my son Jack :)

To check out the recipe video where we made the steak in the fryer you can view it here -> https://www.facebook.com/NickosKitchen/videos/10155874484518706/

Long story short, I was really surprised how well it turned out. That's no reflection on air fryers but generally people won't cook a piece of steak in there. Now of course you'll always get a better finish cooking it in a pan - but for those aren't confident or time poor it will deliver a really good product. The meat was tender, juicy and what I loved is the preset meat option. Just load the programmed time, set and it turns itself off when its finished - so no need to worry about it overcooking.

I was very surprised with the result! The tomatoes collapsed really nicely, the vegetables cooked perfect. All with very little oil involved. So it gets a pass from me. Have you got one? Let me know what you think.

Have a great everyone!

~ Rob