With Christmas fast approaching, many cooks will be slaving away over a hot stove to prepare the perfect festive feast. But for self-proclaimed “air fryer bore” Beverley Jarvis from Ashford in Kent, the oven has been left idle in favour of five air fryers. Jarvis, a cookery writer, will be preparing her entire Christmas dinner using the appliances which she believes offer advantages over traditional ovens. She has already claimed that swapping to air fryers has saved her time and money.
The popularity of air fryers has surged in recent years as many people look for alternatives to traditional cooking methods. The appliances are said to be cheaper to run than ovens and take less time to heat up, often taking only a few minutes to reach high temperatures. The mechanism of blowing hot air at high speeds around the food is another aspect that seems to appeal to many. Beverley Jarvis is clearly a fan, saying she has five in total – four in the kitchen and one in the utility room.
But just how easy is it to cook Christmas dinner in an air fryer? According to Jarvis, it’s a straightforward process. She suggests trying a turkey breast roll which can take around 55 minutes at 180C in an air fryer. Pigs in blankets will take only 10 minutes and sausage rolls just 15 minutes. Roast potatoes can also be cooked easily, she says, by adding them during the last 35 minutes of cooking.
While many may be sceptical about their ability to cook a large festive meal using air fryers alone, Jarvis insists she has experimented with a range of different meats with great success, including a large gammon joint. She even added a festive twist to the gammon by glazing it with maple syrup, marmalade and a dash of whiskey.
For those in search of other festive treats, Jarvis recommends grating some parmesan, adding chopped chillies and pumpkin seeds, and putting spoonfuls of the cheese mixture in blobs on the base of the air fryer. After four minutes at 190C, the result is crispy yet lacey parmesan bites that go perfectly with a glass of bubbly.
Clearly, air fryers offer a new and novel way to approach the traditional Christmas dinner. Whether they offer improved results over the traditional oven or not, there’s certainly something appealing about the speed and efficiency that air fryers are said to deliver
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