My name is Irina. For those who do not know me yet, I am Chris’ wife. Chris has been asking me to write a post for his blog for many, many months. All this time I was either not ready, too busy, worried about my writing skills or simply too lazy. Last week, after we bought and tested the new deep fat fryer, Chris asked me AGAIN if I would like to write a post, and maybe review it on his blog. FINALLY, I decide to give it a go, so please try to contain your excitement, dear readers!!!
Let me start by explaining that both of us are not particularly healthy eaters. Being aware of potential health risks we still allow ourselves to enjoy some naughty food, like chips (or “kartoffel free”, as they are known in this part of the world). Our old deep fat fryer has already had it’s fair share of use and we decided to send it into retirement (as it happens, my Mum decided that it can retire at their house with an occasional use), and buy a new one.
When we finally managed to get to the shop (“Sulpack” in Kenesary St.), despite the hit and miss poor customer service, we were faced, to my surprise, with quite a wide selection of deep fat fryers. As usual, Chris and I had completely different selection criteria in mind and again, as usual, we did not agree on them before we were presented with a choice. I was interested in a compact, easy to clean, good-make fryer. As far as I could tell, Chris was purely interested in the capacity – the bigger, the better! After some typical arguments (I guess all couples go though that, when buying household appliances) about which one to choose, Chris spotted a Tefal Family Oleoclean
It turned out that this particular deep fat fryer comes in two separate major parts: the base (which includes all the electric parts) and a “saucepan” part for the oil and chips. The principle is very close to a cordless kettle. The beauty of this configuration, as we already discovered, is that the “saucepan” part can be thoroughly cleaned without the worry that the electric elements will get wet. It can even be cleaned in a dishwasher if you are lucky enough to have one (we do not have enough space in our kitchen for it 🙁 ). This deep fat fryer also comes with a separate lidded bowl for storing the oil in between uses. I know that many fryers come with some sort of container, but this particular one, although quite big and bulky, has the advantage that the “saucepan” part of the fryer is placed directly on top of it (without the need to turn the fryer upside down, to pour the oil out and subsequently make lots of mess on the kitchen surfaces). The filtered oil slowly drains though a cleverly designed valve, leaving all the impurities in the pan, so they can be easily removed later and the pan can be cleaned thoroughly and frequently without the fear that it will take half of your life to scrub off (especially without the ability to use a metal scrubber or any chemicals) all the dried up oil inside and out. That made me very HAPPY! Now I do not have to be embarrassed and annoyed by the oily and smelly monster that used to sit in the corner of our kitchen. I have to say that, apart from being very easy to clean and operate, the deep fat fryer that we purchased does actually make nice and tasty chips (especially when Chris cooks them!)
So, if you were planning to buy a deep fat fryer and indulge yourself in unhealthy, but tasty food with out the hassle of having to intensively look after your fryer, I can highly recommend the Tefal Family Oleoclean
Pros: EASY to clean , easy to operate, filters and drains the oil without creating a mess, hopefully not very smelly (though this one still needs to be confirmed), good capacity.
Cons: a little bit bulky, looks a bit cheap and plastic.
I hope you (the reader) will find this post a little bit useful, if not out right interesting and you (Chris) will be a bit happier that I have written something on your blog 🙂
June 22nd, 2010 3:02 am
Grats on your first post Irina 🙂 Sounds like you and me have very similar requirements form a kitchen impement, i.e. minimal mess easy to clean! If you do the washing up all the time it’s definitely important so sound good to me (Correct me if I’m wrong but I think Chris does his fair share of cleaning whereas I traded the washing up for not having to cook as much so sometimes it’s hard to explain to Mat how the cleaning side is just as important as the actual functionality of the thing).
Anyway, Yay for your post and yay for your new purchase. I look forward to some more maybe, posts that is. You will be doing better than me at this rate!
June 22nd, 2010 3:34 am
Ok, convinced. Must go and buy one. (Irina’s post is much more interesting than all this techy shit!)
June 22nd, 2010 1:57 pm
:-p
June 24th, 2010 4:48 pm
Roflmao 🙂
June 22nd, 2010 9:39 am
Alex, thank you for the congratulations. You are right Chris does help with washing up, so I cannot complain. However, we use the washing up for trading as well. For example, a few weeks ago Chris washed a HUUUUGE pile of dishes in exchange for The Death by Chocolate cake.
June 24th, 2010 4:50 pm
Hmmm, I wonder if I could try bribes with Mat. Trouble is, he hasn’t had to do washing up for a very long time as before he lived with me his housemate used to do it all the time. He reckons it’s cos his hands are sensitive to the washing up liquid, even though we only use nice eco friendly stuff.
June 24th, 2010 5:59 pm
“He reckons it’s cos his hands are sensitive to the washing up liquid”
lmao. Can’t believe you let him use that line. Even if it is true, there are such things as gloves, even down under, I’m sure.
June 25th, 2010 2:43 am
True, but spose I haven’t worried about it too much cos I prefer to trade the task for others that I hate more – like cooking 🙂
June 22nd, 2010 9:41 am
John, I am glad to know that my marketing skills have not been completely lost and wasted 🙂
June 22nd, 2010 11:26 am
Very nice. I can’t allow myself to have a deep fat fryer in the house or I would also eat too mus unhealthy food, but the oil saving thing is particularly brilliant. I always hate pouring the oil out the top then pouring it back in.
June 22nd, 2010 1:58 pm
You know you’re always welcome over, and if we have spuds to spare, chips are always available 🙂
June 25th, 2010 12:07 am
He is supposed to be a fluuly flexed Aussie now – tell him to stop being such a wingeing pommie !
June 25th, 2010 12:08 am
“fully fledged” – and I have not even had a drink yet!
June 27th, 2010 8:54 am
Good post! The next time I feel like slowing my heart down a few beats I will take your recommendation on the fryers.
June 27th, 2010 2:51 pm
Just ignore him Ira, he is cruising around looking for someone to start something so he can dole out a knuckle sandwich apparently 🙂 Hmmm, next on the list is persuading Irina to make battered burgers 🙂