Poppy O’Toole will be using her air fryer to cook up a storm this festive season, and she’s told people to avoid making one crucial error when using the popular kitchen device
A Michelin-starred chef has sounded the alarm for Brits on the common blunders they make while whipping up Christmas dinner in an air fryer.
TikTok sensation and culinary whizz Poppy O’Toole, who’s also a cookbook author, has expressed her fondness for the trendy cooking gadget, offering a slew of swift and scrumptious recipes that come with a simple step-by-step guide for air fryer use.
Like many, Poppy plans to employ her trusty appliance for crafting festive favourites this Yuletide season. Yet, she cautions against one major mistake when operating the device.
The festive feast prep is notoriously chaotic and pressure-packed – trying to juggle a turkey and all its accompaniments into the oven is no small feat. Feeding a crowd this Christmas, Poppy is banking on her air fryer to alleviate some of the culinary chaos and save her from being tethered to the kitchen for too long.
Poppy advocates for the air fryer’s ability to multitask and speed things up. “There’s not enough space to do everything, but what it’s really good at is giving you the capability to do more stuff at the same time,” she explained.
She added: “So you’re not just relying on the oven and the hob – you’ve also got this other piece of equipment, which is amazing at cooking things and it can be done quicker and more energy efficiently.”
However, she warned against overfilling air fryers: “It can be very easy to throw it all in, ‘it’ll be fine’. But it doesn’t work that way – the whole point is that the air circulation gets around everything, so it needs a gap where that can happen.
The chef also urged people to thoroughly clean their air fryers before cooking anything in them. “I don’t wash it enough, I don’t clean it enough,” Poppy admitted.
“I end up getting these little dark bits on the rest of my food, which is fine when you’re cooking for yourself – that doesn’t matter. But when you’re cooking for other people, if you’ve got family coming over, you want to make sure it’s the best. So make sure in between each thing you cook, you give it a little wipe down.”