Gizmo Guy: Frying through the air with newest air fryers

Be prepared. Today's column on air fryers may remind you of an infomercial you've seen on late night TV.

Health-minded and easy to use, an air fryer roasts, fries, bakes, and broils! Also feeds the cat and takes out the trash! (Just kidding on the latter two.)

After putting three air fryer models through their paces, I'm not ready to pronounce that this modern-day marvel will totally transform your life.

But using this fun, friendly cooking machine does let you cook smarter and faster, without making major sacrifices in flavor.

First introduced and popularized in Europe about six years ago by Philips, an air fryer looks a bit like a deep fryer, functions more like a convection oven.

Food goes into a basket in an air fryer. Then, hot air quickly gets cranked up as high as 400 or 450 degrees Fahrenheit and swirled about by a fan or two, so the air evenly heats your food from all sides. When cycling at full blast, an air fryer claims about 1,250 watts; in coast mode just 25 watts are consumed.

To enhance flavor and crisping, air fryer recipes suggest tossing your 'taters (and other stuff) in a tablespoon of oil and shaking on some salt. Total calorie count for an 8-ounce serving then "soars" to 70, compared with the 340 calories you'll be ingesting with a similar-sized serving of store-bought french fries.

Marinating and brushing on sauce is also OK, if you pat dry the liquids. Also go light on flour/bread crumb coatings.

Akin to fast pan searing, the outside of air-fried chicken, chops, salmon, breaded fish sticks, and muffins will crisp and crust well, while insides stay juicy.

Be forewarned - differences in size and construction of these machines make working with posted or cookbook recipes a mite iffy. Whatever air fryer you do embrace, be prepared for a little trial and error.

Black and Decker HF 100D Purifry: Least expensive ($89.95 and up at Amazon.com) and smallest of our bunch (10 inches wide and deep, 131/2 inches high) the Purifry offers a nice introduction to the species, seems best suited for a single person or couple who aren't "big eats." While capacity is billed "two liters," only one Trader Joe's Panko-coated Tilapia filet (cook time 10 minutes) fit into its perforated metal basket.

Also, Black and Decker recommends you limit french fry potato loads to 8 ounces, a single serving that takes 18 minutes to crisp. The larger Philips and Gourmia can cook up a full pound, finished in about 22 minutes.

Philips Viva Avance XL HD9240: While higher priced than most ($299.95 at Williams Sonoma or Bed, Bath & Beyond) this air fryer is top-rated in most comparison reviews. The square-shaped, larger (2.65 gallon) capacity food basket accommodates dinner portions for four - like a quartet of 6-ounce salmon strips, a quadrant of turkey burgers or a 4.5 pound (max!) roasting chicken. In my tests, its patented air circulation system helped finish dishes as much as 30 percent faster than rival machines.

HD9240's digital control pad/timer is logical and precise to use. And checking/flipping/extracting food is a pleasure, as the combo basket and drip pan collectively slide forward (and then just the handle-laden basket lifts out) on a patented rail system which none of the knock-offs dare mimic.

This suspension rig also helps the Philips claim the least amount of counter-top space, needing no more than its "closed" 16.65 inch deep, 12.4 inch wide, 12 inch high footprint.

Accessory pieces are costly ($40-$50) - including a small cake baking pan, a two-level rack and a perforated griddle insert.

Gourmia Free Fry 360 Turbo XP (GTA2500): Here's an air fryer on steroids, with a significantly different persona. While our others are front loaders, this boy's a top loader, with a plastic-domed lid that lets you peer in and see how the food's cooking. Warmed by halogen lights (the other test units use a more traditional-looking coil heater) this machine also has a motorized rotisserie mechanism which encourages you to suspend and spin a small beef roast or a 3.5 pound (max) chicken - with legs dangling and a few small potatoes roasting round the perimeter of the drip pan. Cooked a mere 50 minutes at 350 degrees, our test bird came out "golden brown" perfection - skin crispy, moist, and tender inside.

Very much a value pitch, Gourmia shames the competition by packing 11 accessories with this air fryer, all at "an amazing low-low price" of $179.99 at Kohls.com.

The downsides? With extra specialty functions, the Free Fry 360's digital panel is more complicated. Lifting out hot stuff hooked onto the rotisserie gearing gets a little tricky. And the really big issue is the unit's sheer size. This thing sits 17 inches deep, 13 inches wide, and 14 inches high, when closed. But flipping up the lid demands overhead clearance of 26 inches - making this Gourmia impossible to use on a standard depth kitchen counter with overhead cabinets, unless you turn the thing sideways.

takiffj@phillynews.com

215-854-5960@JTakiff