this post was submitted on 10 May 2025
49 points (94.5% liked)

No Stupid Questions

2756 readers
1 users here now

There is no such thing as a Stupid Question!

Don't be embarrassed of your curiosity; everyone has questions that they may feel uncomfortable asking certain people, so this place gives you a nice area not to be judged about asking it. Everyone here is willing to help.

Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca still apply!

Thanks for reading all of this, even if you didn't read all of this, and your eye started somewhere else, have a watermelon slice 🍉.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
otter@lemmy.ca
Kokomheart@lemmy.ca
49
Why are air fryers called air fryers? (mander.xyz)
submitted 3 days ago by Mothra@mander.xyz to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.ca
36 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Since they don't technically fry... Or do they? They're basically mini electric ovens. What's the difference between an air fryer and an electric oven, other than size and energy consumption?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

They fry with hot air, the alternative being to fry with hot oil.

Functionally, they are the same as a fan force (convection) oven, but smaller.

[–] skisnow@lemmy.ca 13 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I’m struggling to find a source that defines “frying” as anything other than cooking in hot oil.

[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

After writing the comment, I remembered pan frying exists, so that adds a third mode :/

Wikipedia has some conflicting info:

Frying is the cooking of food in oil or another fat

Frying techniques vary in the amount of fat required, the cooking time, the type of cooking vessel required, and the manipulation of the food. Sautéing, stir-frying, pan frying, shallow frying, deep frying, and air frying are all standard frying techniques.

So I guess 0 is an amount of oil that satisfies the frying definition :D

[–] MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago

It's to achieve the desired outcome of frying. There's no reason to use oil, it just happens to be the only way that works normally.