Forget the airfryer — I’ve found the cooking gadget I really love

I seem to have become known on these pages for my old-fashioned, some would say curmudgeonly, views about the latest kitchen gadgets. Where younger cooks rave, I scratch my head in bemusement. Air fryers? Nothing special, they’re just small ovens. Our Place’s “miraculous” Always Pan? Just a non-stick with a lid. Is there no end to the way people can be persuaded to part with good money to replicate equipment they already own?

So let me start by telling you that it comes as no greater shock to anyone than me that I find myself a convert to this summer’s entirely unnecessary must-have bit of outdoor cooking kit. Especially because, yes, it’s just a small oven, and no, it doesn’t do anything I can’t already do.

Like a lot of people, I’ve been wedded to my wood-fired pizza oven these past few years, a lockdown habit that has endured. I’ve used it not so much for pizzas (although it’s brilliant at that) but all those other things that benefit from searing heat and a wisp of smoke such as whole fish, butterflied legs of lamb and côtes de boeuf. My Ooni has been a mainstay of outdoor cooking, helped by the fact that we recently lost an oak tree, so have a free and plentiful supply of quality fuel lying in the garden.

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At first I loved firing it up, adapting to its eccentricities, wrestling to master its fearsome heat, but I can’t deny it’s a commitment, cutting the wood down so it fits in the annoyingly small fire slot, nursing it up to temperature and guessing at how long the heat will last. I don’t mind admitting that I’ve approached it with less enthusiasm with each use.

There’s none of that trouble with the new Ninja Woodfire Electric Outdoor Oven, which, as the clunky name amply illustrates, squeezes all the romance out of outdoor cooking but replaces it with a good dollop of practicality. You can’t base yourself too far from the nearest power socket, and the wood pellets do look disconcertingly like a cross between maggots and dried dog food, but it sure does make wood-fired cooking a doddle. I produced the spread you see here, including homemade baba ghanoush, flatbreads, a giant roasted bream, pizza and brownies in a little over two hours. No wonder I’m standing next to it looking like a proud new dad.

The Ninja’s selling point is that it combines the immediacy and precision of electric heat with the smokiness of the barbecue, courtesy of those wooden pellets, which smoulder in a small fire box before the smoke is fanned into the oven. I first came across that winning combo in a Traeger barbecue at a luxury villa rental in France five years ago and was instantly won over — right up to the moment I discovered it cost £2,000 (although Traeger has introduced smaller, cheaper models since).

The Ninja, which looks less barbecuey and more oven-like, comes in at £350. You plug it in, load up the pellets — it comes with two options: a lighter smoke of cherry maple and oak, or a robust one with hickory, cherry, maple and oak — choose from various options including smoker, dehydrate, bake, roast and pizza, set the temperature, and within ten minutes or so it is up to heat, and off you go.

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To be honest, the different settings seem designed for the kind of people who bother to use the presets on a microwave rather than just pressing go. Smoker lets you go up to 180C, while the roast function can’t go below 240C, and the pizza mode has a whole subset of options for artisan, thin, New York, deep pan, calzone and custom (the very definition of pointless complication). Why you can’t just switch it on and set the temperature you want, I don’t know. But after a bit of fiddling around I managed to set the time and temperature I wanted in each case, with the option always to add smoke.

It was fantastic for cooking the aubergines for my baba ghanoush, the vegetables soft and collapsed within 30 minutes and ready to surrender their sweetly smoked flesh. I left them to drain in a colander for an hour, then whizzed them with garlic, tahini, lemon juice, cumin and a little olive oil.

Next I set the Ninja to bake and added a tray of brownies, made to a recipe in the instruction booklet. I should have known 40 minutes at 180C was too long for the promised fudginess, and despite being a big fan of smoked flavour in many things, brownies are not one of them. I won’t be repeating that little experiment, but I am looking forward to making my own hot smoked salmon another time — I’d never be able to keep my Ooni at a consistently low enough temperature for that.

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Homemade flatbreads worked a treat on the pizza stone. The pizza would have too if I hadn’t left it in a bit long and burnt the edges (my guilty secret is that I don’t bother making my own dough but use those brilliant sourdough pizza bases from Crosta & Mollica and add my own toppings — perhaps that’s why they didn’t need so long).

Then on to the main event, a beautiful bream, which I squeezed into the heavy metal tray supplied and surrounded with tomatoes, olives, capers, parsley and then gave a generous drizzle of olive oil. For that I used the gourmet roast function, which you can programme to start at a high heat and then drop automatically to lower temperature, which is useful for getting colour on a large piece of meat (or fish) and then gently cooking it through. My 1.5kg fish was ready in 20 minutes. Delicious.

So there we have it — an unexpected hit. But please don’t now tell me I have to reconsider my opinion on air fryers.

Four alfresco recipes by Tony Turnbull

Flatbreads, baba ghanoush, baked bream and brownies

Flatbreads

Serves 4

These use baking powder instead of yeast to leaven them. To be honest, if I didn’t already have the oven on, I’d fry them in a tiny amount of oil in a pan but they work almost as well baked.

Ingredients

• 300g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 300g Greek yoghurt
• 50ml olive oil

Method

1. Mix the flour, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl. Add the yoghurt and oil and use a spoon or knife to bring together to form a rough dough.
2. Flour the worktop and knead the dough briefly until smooth and pliable. Divide into four and roughly roll out.
3. Cook at 180C fan/gas 6 for about 10 min until puffed and charred in places.

Baba ghanoush

You want a chunky, rustic texture here, so if you choose to blitz it in a mixer, give it a couple of short pulses. If you blend it too much, it will become runny.

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 3 aubergines
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 3 tbsp tahini
• Juice 1 lemon
• Large pinch ground cumin
• Salt and pepper
• Freshly chopped parsley and olive oil, to garnish

Method

1. Grill or roast the aubergines until charred and softened. Either place on a barbecue or over a gas flame and use tongs to turn the aubergine every five minutes, or rub with oil and place in the oven at 220C fan/gas 9 for 40 min.
2. Once completely collapsed, leave the aubergines to cool slightly, then slice in half lengthways and use a spoon to scrape out the flesh. Place this in a colander or sieve and leave to drain for 30 min.
3. Transfer to a bowl, add the garlic, tahini, lemon and cumin and mix well with a fork to create a chunky texture. Season to taste and garnish with olive oil and parsley.

Baked bream with tomatoes and olives

If you want to make this an all-in-one dish, cut baby potatoes in half and given them a 20-minute head start before adding the fish and remaining ingredients.

Serves 4

• 1 large (1.5kg) or 2 smaller bream, scaled and gutted
• Salt and pepper
• 250g plum tomatoes, halved
• 1 lemon, sliced
• 2 handfuls pitted olives
• 2 tbsp capers, drained
• 1 bunch fresh parsley, chopped
• 50ml olive oil
• 1 glass white wine, optional

Method

1. Heat the oven to 170C fan/gas 5. Dry the fish with kitchen paper, slash the skin 3-4 times on both sides and place in an oven tray. Season well with salt and pepper.
2. Scatter over the tomatoes, lemon, olives, capers and most of the parsley, and drizzle everything with olive oil. Add the wine if you want.
3. Place in the oven and cook for 20-30 min, depending on the size of the fish. Serve with salad and Jersey royals.

Brownies

This is the recipe I followed from the Ninja booklet. I think they’d have been great if I’d shortened the cooking time (and lost the smoke). Take them out when they are still slightly wobbly in the middle and the sides are starting to come away from the tin.

Ingredients

75ml coffee

• 225g butter
• 275g dark-chocolate chips
• 300g golden caster sugar
• 3 medium eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 150g plain flour
• 100g cocoa powder
• ½ tsp salt

Method

1. Grease and line a 20x30cm brownie tray with baking parchment and set aside.
2. Place a medium saucepan over medium-low heat with the coffee, butter and 200g chocolate. Stir until evenly combined and melted, then remove from the heat. In a large bowl combine the sugar, eggs and vanilla. Then, slowly add the melted chocolate mixture and beat until smooth.
3. In a small bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder and salt then fold the dry mixture into the wet until evenly combined and smooth. Transfer the batter to the prepared brownie tray and top with the remaining chocolate chips, pressing them slightly into the top.
4. Bake at 160C fan/gas 4 for 25-30 min. Leave to cool in the tin before removing and cutting into squares.