Tefal ActiFry Guilty Pleasure Challenge

This week I was super excited to receive an ActiFry Family from Tefal and was challenged to cook my guilty pleasure in it. Well having wanted an ActiFry for a very long time I knew exactly what I wanted to cook in it! Chips! I have never ever cooked chips from scratch at home and with good reason. Firstly I’ve never wanted to risk a chip pan fire as this scenario was drummed into me from a young age by every team of firefighters that ever visited our school. Then there is all the fat, once you’ve cooked in it you have to store it and eventually dispose of it and I just don’t like the idea of re-using cooking oil. Finally for health reasons I just haven’t wanted to eat or feed my family deep fried food!

So having read up on the ActiFry and having seen it on TV numerous times I was just bursting at the seems to try out making chips for myself. The idea that you could fry a big bowl of chips in just one spoon of oil had always intrigued me. Would the ActiFry live up to the hype? When you watch these demonstrations on TV you never see anyone say anything except how wonderful a product is so I’ve always remained cautious! At the back of my mind I must admit I had doubts. Maybe making good chips would take a lot of practice? Together with my husband I decided to do a live review on my social media (Instagram, Twitter and Facebook). After I uploaded my first Instagram video I realised that maybe this was a bit of a risk because if my chips were a flop it could all be rather embarrassing.

I’d put my husband on chip making duty, well his first after school job was in a chip shop washing and chipping potatoes (not by hand, it was all automated). He’d even gone out to buy the Maris Piper Potatoes which he informed me were ideal for chip making! This is a man that doesn’t do supermarket shopping ordinarily but even he’d been wanting an ActiFry for ages!

After washing the removable parts of the ActiFry, and reading the safety instructions and the recipe booklet it was time to put the washed and dried chips into the Actifry. Hubby poured the spoon of oil over the chips, we set the simple-to-operate timer for 44 minutes and the paddle started to rotate with a dull whirring noise which wasn’t in the least bit unpleasant. It certainly wouldn’t stop you from having a phone call in your kitchen unlike say an extractor fan!

During the cooking process, hubby was calling the kids down to take a look at the progress and getting quite excited. I must admit I was quite amazed too – yes they really were starting to look like actual chips. I took another Instagram video and shared it with my followers relieved that we didn’t appear to have mucked up (so far)! Well, I needn’t have worried, when the timer went off there was a basket full of awesome looking chips. The family started diving in whilst I was trying to take photos. The superlatives coming from hubby were quite amusing, I’ve never seen him so complimentary about something we’ve cooked in a new gadget. “Amazing, crispy, crunchy, delicious” were just a few – there were too many to remember! What I do remember is him giving the chips a score of 10 out of 10 and I have to agree! I must admit it felt like a little miracle had happened as I just didn’t expect the chips to work as well as they did and to be low fat too is just amazing. The kids were equally impressed as bowls were hastily found and chips shared out (I say shared, there were a lot more in hubby’s bowl, but then that’s Chef’s privileges isn’t it)!

So to finish my guilty pleasure I put out the obligatory tomato ketchup but the icing on the cake so to speak was christening a new sauce from Stokes – Remoulade. Being half Danish I was virtually weaned on this sauce which is like a really pimped-up tartare sauce with a curried mayonnaise. Danes have it on chips, fried fish, roast beef open sandwiches, and hot dogs to name just a few! The Stokes Remoulade was delicious and actually more luxurious tasting than the squeezy containers I remember in my youth! So with the perfect chips and my favourite Remoulade sauce, this was my ultimate “guilty pleasure”!

It just remains for me to say a big thank you to Tefal for my ActiFry Family which will get lots of use as chips are just one of many things it can do. I’m looking forward to trying out stir-fries, risotto, granola, fruit desserts, and much more! Having just visited the Tefal ActiFry website I’ve just seen my old classmate from school, Fay Ripley (small world isn’t it) recommending keeping the skins on the chips, so will try that next time! It now just remains for me to nominate Jan from A Glug of Oil to take part in the #Actifry Guilty Pleasures Challenge:-) Can’t wait to see what Jan makes!

Do you have a Tefal Actifry? If so do tell me what you cook in yours in the comments below!

I’ve now posted how to make Actifry Roast Potatoes so do check this page out!

Disclaimer: I was sent the Tefal Actifry Family along with a small hamper of condiments and a voucher to cover the cost of my ingredients to make my guilty pleasure. I was not paid and all opinions are my own and those of my family.