I had seen a couple of people talking about air fryers on TikTok, but not really paid it too much attention. It sounded like just another cooking fad that would pass me by, like slow cookers (I did actually try a slow cooker with disastrous results) and pressure cooking. But then a couple of friends were discussing their own joys of frying in only air and my ears perked up.

The point of these nifty gadgets is to fry in air only, hence the name, and there are two main selling points. Firstly, you’re not drowning your food in oil and secondly, saving time and energy from cooking more efficiently. I didn’t believe it could make that much difference but when Prime Day rolled around, I snapped up a medium level air fryer in the sale and awaited the results.

People, people, people… why did I not pay attention to this revolutionary device before? It heats up in super quick time rather than the yawnsome number of minutes my aging oven takes to get up to temperature. It cooks with barely any oil. I would never trust myself with a deep fat fryer but getting crispy chips without the danger of a pot of molten oil in my kitchen is incredible. It cooks everything (and such a variety of things!) quicker and is much easier to control.

I’m a complete convert and now, really quite annoyed about the particular air fryer I bought. It’s very good and works fine but it’s small and there are better ones out there. I want to cook as much as I can in this new format and that is going to mean an upgrade. The only question is how long is it reasonable to wait to replace a kitchen gadget you literally just purchased?