Turbo-licious!

Let me introduce to you my absolute favorite cooking machine - the electric turbo oven! My family and I use this a lot (for chicken, beef, pork, fish) - present in our kitchen in the Philippines, 

Iran & Nigeria, because it's the fastest, easiest & healthiest way to cook up some meat!

You put the food inside the glass body (don't know how else to call it haha!) usually on top of a grilling rack so that the fat from the meat can fall to the bottom. Place the cover on top, set the temperature and timer, and then hot air starts to blow. We've used the turbo to cook for our family of 4 and even for guests up to 12 - it usually comes with two grill racks so you can place the shorter one under the taller one and cook more! The grill racks allow the hot air to go all around the glass body/ over and under the meat, so everything gets cooked well...and very fast because of the pressure. 

This is how I typically prepare chicken at home: First I marinate it (basic - garlic, salt, black/red pepper). Place it on the grill rack...While cooking, you can see the fat from the chicken melting to the bottom. This is why the turbo oven is very healthy! It melts all the natural fat from the meat away, and in exactly 30 minutes, the chicken is ready - very soft and very very juicy in the inside, with crackling crispy skin! Beats fried chicken a million times!

 Here I am lifting the chicken with the grill rack - notice the oil left at the bottom. 

There are times I like a little bit of oil. Here's a meal I made in Iran early this year - I marinated quails in lemon, black pepper and salt and placed them on the short grill rack. Under the grill rack, I put some fresh sliced mushrooms. So the mushrooms at the bottom absorbed the fat from the chicken (which contained some of the marinate)...thus making the mushrooms juicy and delicious without having to season them separately! Divine!

 For instagram's #Farzinthekitchen, I prepared this platter - the quail
and mushrooms on top of a bed of potato taddigh!

We bought a commercial griddle in Nigeria a few months ago and started making burgers on a few occasions, but when we just wanted to make for ourselves - we used the turbo oven. It turned out to taste even better than with the griddle! When you use the griddle, you need oil...lots of oil, but with the turbo no oil at all! The beef patty sits on the grill stack and cooks away - the edges become firm and a little bit crispy (depending on the intensity of the heat) while the middle remains juicy and soft. We added some mushrooms to this too. 

I usually use our turbo for meat, but my mom has baked brownies,
Filipino sticky coconut rice (sweet) and even pizza in the turbo! 

Another thing I love about the turbo is the way it warms frozen bread. When I bring bread straight out of the freezer and put it in the microwave, the bread becomes hard very quickly. But when I put it in the turbo, it does not have that effect - the bread remains soft for a very long time. The best is when I put a frozen baguette in the turbo - after only 5 minutes, the skin becomes a bit crispy but the inside extremely soft and hot (as if freshly baked!) 

So there...the turbo - better than a microwave, 

better than a typical oven.

Cooks faster and healthier!

An essential tool when Farz-is-in-the-kitchen ;)