So I'm wondering if an air fryer would be a good purchase. I love my chips but wonder if I'd be better of sticking to lard or at the very least - vegetable oil.

Have you not read the air fryer thread? Yes, you can make excellent chips with just a little olive oil. Just ignore the instructions from the manufacturer. Can't remember exactly how UK1 does it but I boil rinsed and chipped potatoes for 10 minutes, drain and allow to cool and dry (doesn't have to be as dry as when using lard, as UK1 explains, water on the surface is what draws the oil in and there's not that much oil to draw in). Brush olive oil on the chips, let them cook at 160C for ten minutes, take them out, let them cool while I do another batch, then crank up to 200C, might brush some more olive oil on then cook for at least another 10 minutes.

Or I might toss chipped sweet potatoes (the white flesh purple skinned kind) in some olive oil and bung them in directly. 10 minutes at 200C and they are done to a tee. Or chop squash, dress in a little olive oil with crushed/grated garlic, salt and pepper and throw those in for 10 minutes at 200C. You can roast/fry daikon in the same way.

http://www.coalshed-restaurant.co.uk...oct-2014-6.pdf

I ate here recently.
Their beef dripping chips were superb.
I'm sure air-fryers are fine but I can't believe they make chips as good as the way God intended.

I have a professional Lincat double fryer in the garage that we use to use for our weekly fish and chips. I have reasonably high standards

To be absolutely honest the McCain chips are so good, i no longer bother. preparing them myself. I do however do roast potatos in them by parboiling and covering them in olive oil, and airfrying.

The McCains French Fries are identical to MacDonalds Fries and taste like they have just been fried and put under the lamp in the strainer for a few moments. You cannot tell they are not fried.

The art when using the air fryer is to pretty much finish the rest of the meal and hold and do the fries. Time the meal around the fries as a minute each way is either soft or too crisp.

Before you go through any palaver I suggest you try an Airfryer. I have two Phillips in our main home and one in our beach home and they are used every day.

Good luck.

EDITED: If you look back through "eating today" thread - all my pictures showing chips are McCains via the Philips Airfryer. They are of course also very much more healthy .... We also use some fatter McCains Home chips when we fancy a change and keep a couple of bags of each in the freezer.

I've tried the McCain chips (and a couple of other brands) as uk1 had recommended them but do not bother anymore, McDonalds Fries are not what I am seeking to replicate. My husband was not impressed by the shortcut either.
If I want to make chips in a hurry we'd rather have those white fleshed purple skinned sweet potatoes.

Baby new potatoes are easy to do also, or you can approximate a tapas classic (papas arruga's) by par boiling small potatoes in water with an excessive amount of salt in it and then air frying until the skins wrinkle (name in Spanish is wrinkled potatoes). Aim is to cook the potatoes with a crust of salt on the skins.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canar...inkly_potatoes
No oil used at all for this method.

^^^^^

Add In-N-Out fries to that as well.

As important as your chip preperation for your husband is to me I was offering my view on the OP's specific question about airfryers and chips.

I think i'm gonna skip the air fryer - I think I need a rice cooker first.

You certainly need a Zoji first!

On the airfryer plus side, I under-estimated how much I'd use one. They take a load off my main cooker and find myself using them for anything from sausages, to pasties, to chips, to roast potatoes, to small joints of lamb .....it goes on. They are wonderful small convection ovens.

Buy both!

I use a rice cooker and an Air fryer daily. Rice cooker is more important.
Good call.

I saw you banging on about the Zoji and thought I'd look into it. There's no chuffing way I'm spending that much money on a rice cooker.

I understand that. It is rational. If however you have the cash, it seems incapable of making anything other than perfect rice.

If you can get to SeeWoo on Lisle Street (Chinatown), they have a Sanyo ECJ-FS50 there for about �75. It's in the basement.

We've been cooking with ours for over 5 years. Makes Japanese rice beautifully, slow cooks and steams.
I've used higher end rice cookers (you should see the one my father-in-law in Japan owns) and, yes, they are a little better. But not enough for me to fork out on one.

On the basis that I do boil in the bag, I am sure even a cheapie will be a step up!

The Sanyo definitely punches above its weight. It's not like getting a rice cooker from Argos (awful, waste of time and money)