This is a page in progress. I've decided t share some of my favorite cooking tips and recipes. I plan to add things fairly regularly. If you find anything useful, please check back every few weeks to see what is new.
We have a Cosori Smart Air Fryer with a 5.8 quart basket. All recipes or tips concerning cooking in the air fryer are done with the Cosori. Make any adjustments necessary for your specific air fryer.
The Cosori Smart Air Fryer works with either Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa. We use it with Alexa. The touch pad is not accessible, though you can place dots on some of the buttons like, stop/start. The beauty of this and probably all Smart Air Fryers is that you can completely control it with your voice. We've had the Cosori since January 2021, and the basket looks as good as new and we use it at least two or three times a week. It cleans up incredibly easily. Check it out at Cosori 5.8 quart Smart Air Fryer on Amazon.
Rather than repeating the same instructions for each air fryer food, here are some basics that hold true for all air fryer cooking, unless otherwise stated in the recipe.
* Spray the bottom of the basket with your preferred cooking spray.
* Season the food to your tastes before putting it in to cook.
* Unplug the air fryer when finished cooking.
* Always leave some space between items in the basket to allow air flow around each item for proper cooking. A tiny space is enough.
* Wear long sleaved gloves, preferably silicone/oven safe.
Remove from package and separate pieces, and arrange in one layer on the bottom of the basket.
Spray with a little oil, and cook at 350° for 6 minutes, stop, turn them over and cook another 5 minutes.
Preheat at 370 ° for 4 minutes.
Spray with a little oil. Cook at 370 ° for 5 minutes, shake the basket, cook for another 4 to 6 minutes.
Cook at 360 ° for 11-12 minutes.
Cook at 330 ° for 14 minutes and flip them over after 7 minutes. Cook a little longer if not crispy enough.
Heat about 1 cup of water in a 2 cup glass measuring cup in the microwave, or in a pan. Turn off the heat/remove from microwave, and place packet in the water to thaw/warm up.
If cooking the entire package, use both sauce packets.
When chicken is done, place in a mixing bowl and open the sauce packets and pour over chicken, stirring to coat the chicken completely.
Serve over rice or noodles.
If cooking white, Jasmine, or Basmati rice, this is my wife's tip that avoids burning the rice.
Place 2 parts water and one part rice in a sauce pan.
Bring to a boil for a minute or two.
Turn the heat off and let sit for 15 or 20 minutes.
The rice will be done. If any water is left, turn the heat on low until it is absorbed. Stir with a fork to fluff it up.
Serve the chicken over the rice and enjoy.
Preheat at 400 ° for 5 minutes.
They do not need to be sprayed with oil.
Cook at 400 ° for 15 minutes. Flip halfway through.
Preheat 5 min at 400°.
Spray the tots with a little oil.
Cook at 400° for 15 minutes shaking every 5 minutes. longer if you want them more crispy.
For medium boiled eggs, from 1 to 6 eggs: Place in basket and cook at 270° for 12 to 13 minutes.
Place in cold water bath for 1 to two minutes.
Peal and eat.
Preheat the Air Fryer for 5 minutes at 390°.
Season both sides of the thighs and put some olive oil, or what you prefer, on them.
Place in the fryer basket skin sides down and cook for 12 minutes at 390°.
Turn the thighs over and cook another 8 to 10 minutes depending on size.
Season to taste.
Drizzle with a little olive oil.
Depending on thickness, Cook for 6 to 10 minutes, skin side down at 390°. No need to flip over.
Cook at 380° for 12 min.
Flip them over and cook 3 to 4 min longer.
Here is our favorite roast chicken recipe with air fryer instructions, plus regular oven instructions on page 2. It is a word document, so you can bring up the context menu and select save target as.
HerbAndBrownSugarDry-brinedChicken.docxWe do not only cook in the air fryer, though we are using it more and more; here are some recipes/methods I find work well for me as a person who is blind.
We only use regular old fashioned oatmeal, no steel cut, no quick oats, just good old fashioned oatmeal. And, if you can get it, Bob's Red Mill is our favorite.
This recipe is for two people following the heart smart recommendations.
The first requirement is having a really good roasting pan. My favorite is the roasting pans made by Granite Ware. Granite Ware is made by fusing porcelain to a Steel core at 1500°F. The Steel core provides strength and even heat distribution while the porcelain Surface is inert and naturally nonstick. Porcelain is all natural and will not alter the color, taste or nutritional value of your Food. There is no PTFE, PFOA or other unhealthy chemicals in Granite Ware.
You can find Granite Ware at most stores with a good kitchenware department, or of course online through Amazon, etc.
We have had our pans for over 25 years and they hardly look used, though they are used a lot; for turkeys, roasts, chickens, etc.
My favorite cut of roast to cook is Chuck Roast. It has great marbling, and is usually quite tender and flavorful.
I brown the roast thoroughly on all sides in a frying pan with olive oil or canola oil. Plan on about 5 to 6 minutes per side in a medium hot pan for good browning.
While the roast is browning, I make a dry rub of fresh garlic, salt, pepper, and thyme. I use a mortar and pestle to smash it into a nice paste.
When the roast is done browning I transfer it to the roasting pan.
I use one can of Campbell's Beef Consommé. I pour that into the frying pan which I have turned down to a simmer, and add a can of water and simmer to get the flavor from the bits left in the pan.
While dealing with the consommé, I rub the roast with my dry rub mixture on all sides. Then pour the mixture from the frying pan over the roast.
Put the lid on the roasting pan and bake at 350° for about one and a half to two hours for about a 3 pound roast.
Add any potatoes, carrots ... when there is about an hour left. If using large potatos like russets, you may want to cut them in half. We prefer yukon golds, medium sized, no need to cut in half.
Put all the ingrediants in the mortar and thoroughly smash, grind, pound, with the pestle until it is a nice paste. Be sure to keep working it to get all the juice out of the garlic.
You can also put the rub on the roast several hours before browning, up to a full day, and leave in the refrigerator, uncovered, to allow the flavors to really sink into the meat.
Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before browning. Then, follow the rest of the instructions above.
Q: I have a cast-iron skillet that I have been using for a few years. It has brown, rust-colored stains that don't come off, no matter what I do. I've tried kosher salt and a small chain, soap, a power washer. Nothing works. Or is there a way to fix this?
A: Yes, you should be able to remove even stubborn rust from your cast-iron skillet.
Most nonstick pans have a coating that gradually wears or chips away. Once that happens, which might be in just a few years, there is no way to restore the coating. You need a new pan.
But a cast-iron skillet is the same material all the way through, other than a surface coating of what's called "seasoning" - multiple layers of baked-on oil, which you apply yourself and can reapply later as needed. So you can remove surface crud, whether it's rust or a bumpy layer of food left from inadequate cleaning after multiple meals, and get down to bare metal. Then you can start over to build up a few layers of oil, which will make the pan close to nonstick. Because a mistreated cast-iron pot can be made good as new, one you get today will last the rest of your life - and be worth passing on to the next generation.
* Start by scrubbing aggressively to remove the rust. Use warm, soapy water and a metal scouring pad, or augment the pad by using the Lodge rust eraser ($9.99 at Ace Hardware). Made of silicon carbide (an abrasive often used in sandpaper) embedded in rubber, it takes off thick rust fairly quickly.
* You could even use sandpaper, as long as you sand by hand, said a Lodge customer service representative who identified herself as Kelly. She recommended against using anything in a machine - such as a wire brush in a grinder, featured in at least one YouTube video. Power sanding or grinding might get the metal too smooth. "If you get the pan too smooth, the seasoning won't stick to it," she said. "It will ruin the pan."
* Don't use heat. You may find advice online about using a propane torch or tossing a pan in a campfire to burn off rust or carbon deposits. Lodge doesn't recommend using heat, Kelly said, because it could warp or crack the metal if the heat is uneven or too hot.
* Instead try pouring some water into the pan and warming it on low to medium heat, which won't hurt the skillet and could make cleaning baked-on food easier. Use a spatula to scrape off the deposits as they heat and soften. Just don't walk away and let the water evaporate while the burner is on.
* Many websites suggest removing rust by soaking a skillet in white vinegar for 30 minutes to two hours. "We don't have written recommendations about that," Kelly said, "but people certainly do that." She didn't offer any warnings against it.
Whichever of these strategies you use, you might still see remnants of orange rust after you've scrubbed, rinsed and dried the pan. That sometimes happens when a pan is left hanging for years in a damp place where rust works deep into the metal, Kelly said. But that's not really a problem. You can just move on to the seasoning steps. The remnants of rust will become embedded in the first layer of oil, but they will be topped by additional layers of oil that are rust-free. "The molecules melt together and form a sea of baked-on oil over the raw pan," Kelly said.
* Start by applying a thin layer of oil with a paper towel. The website of America's Test Kitchen recommends flaxseed oil, which it says oxidizes and polymerizes into a durable coating faster than other vegetable oils. But it says cheaper oils, such as sunflower, soybean, corn or canola, also work. Don't use olive oil or bacon fat.
* Bake on the oil in an oven set to 450 to 500 degrees. Lodge recommends placing the pan upside down on the top rack and lining the bottom rack with aluminum foil to catch drips. Bake for an hour, then let the pan cool.
* Repeat a few times to build up the oil layer. Even five or six coats would be good. When you're done, the seasoning should look black, without a trace of rust. Lodge says oven seasoning is the best method when you're restoring a pan that was heavily rusted.
* Or try doing it on the stovetop. America's Test Kitchen recommends the same time and temperature for baking the oil in an oven but also suggests a stovetop method. Heat the skillet over medium-high heat, then, using tongs and keeping the pan on the heat, rub with a paper towel moistened with 2 tablespoons of oil until the oil smokes and you don't see any oil in the pan. Let the pan cool. Repeat multiple times, making sure the oil smokes each time. The smoking stage is when the oil polymerizes, or turns into a film that resembles a plastic coating.
* Preheat the pan on a medium setting as you prepare to cook. Add a little oil and then butter, if you want to use butter, before you add food. Cook as you would with any nonstick pan.
* Let the pan cool before you wash it. But it's fine to wipe out oil and food with a paper towel while the pan is still warm.
* When the pan is cool, rinse it with water and use a plastic pan scraper to remove cooked-on deposits. Many people just use water, without using soap. But using a little hand dishwashing soap, such as Dawn, is also fine, Kelly said. "Back in the day, people didn't use soap because soap contained lye, which will strip the seasoning," she said. "But soap like Dawn is mild and gentle." If it did strip seasoning, people who run businesses devoted to restoring cast iron would just use soap to strip, she noted.
* Dry the skillet after you wash it, then warm it over medium-low heat. You will see the color change slightly as remnants of moisture evaporate.
* When the moisture is completely gone rub about a half teaspoon of oil over the pan with a paper towel. Rub until no oil residue remains. Rubbing on the oil is especially useful after cooking acidic food, which can eat into the seasoning, or using the skillet on especially high heat.
Have a problem in your home? Send questions to Local Living at the Washington Post, Put "How To" in the subject line, tell us where you live and try to include a photo. Source Article: Tips for removing rust from cast-iron skillets
Updated on August 2, 2024