Fish Face: Tefal ActiFryday Pop Up Café, Darlinghurst (3 Sept 2010)

132 Darlinghurst Road, Darlinghurst NSW 2010

http://www.tefal.com.au

Homemade low fat hot chips

Thanks to Elizabeth Coad from TMTE Group for inviting me along to this lunchtime event which pretty much took over Fish Face. Stephen Hodges did the main dish cooking in the kitchen using the Tefal ActiFry while Deb and Ben from My Kitchen Rules helped out with the tasty appetisers of Saltbush Lamb Rump pieces and Salmon pieces marinated in garlic, ginger, lemon and cooked with a tiny bit of oil. I first came across the Tefal ActiFry at this years Good Food & Wine Show but todays result of the chips were much better for some reason. Perhaps it was due to the way they were cut and type of potato used which still had the skin on and crisped up better than I was expecting. Tefal is promoting this as the revolutionary LOW Fat way of cooking Australia's favourite Friday meal of Fish and Chips. It's good to know it uses very little oil but with a retail price of $349.95 you'd definitely be wanting to cook more than chips with it — which apparently you can as promoted in their recipe book.

The main dish was a choice of either marinated flathead or steamed salmon although I didn't seem to get a choice and was given the marinated flathead — perhaps because I was dining alone? I would have loved to taste the steamed salmon to compare. The flathead was fairly moist and tasty although originally the invite said it was fried flathead but perhaps this wasn't possible. The side of garden salad had rocket, tomato and cucumber which I think would have been even better with a few shavings of parmesan on top to counteract the bitterness of the rocket and perhaps some balsamic vinegar. I tried to work out where all the cooking was happening and only later realised it must have been done within the kitchen. I missed out on seeing how the Tefal VitaCuisine Compact worked but saw the chips being cooked up as well as the appetisers.

Tefal promotes that you only use one spoonful of oil to cook 1 kg of chips but it doesn't really say how much oil that spoonful equates too and if you were eating for one at home I'm not sure if you can cook less than 1 kg of chips at one time — I'm assuming you possibly could? Also I'd be interested to know how it would work with cooking sweet potato instead of normal potato as a healthier option. Coincidently the Fried Fish & Chips (Flathead) Lemon & Tartare Sauce on the Fish Face menu will cost you $35 or $10 for just Fresh Cut Potato Chips — that's pretty expensive for fish and chips in my books so I'd be hoping they were pretty damn good for that price. The homemade tartare sauce by the way was very yummy today.

SNAPSHOT REVIEW:

PROS: Low fat oil cooking, Chips had a bit of crispy crunch factor, Fish Face make a very nice Tartare Sauce, Saltbush Lamb appetiser was very tasty and tender

CONS: Takes a while to cook, Expensive so you'd want to use for other types of cooking

MUST TRY: Seeing if you can cook sweet potato in a Tefal ActiFry

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Saltbush Lamb Rump appetisers

Salmon appetiser with garlic, ginger, lemon

Marinated flathead with chips

Marinated Flat head with chips, lemon and tartare sauce (opened up on plate)

Crispy chips

Garden salad

Santa Vittoria still water

Table setting

Deb and Ben from My Restaurant Rules cooking Saltbush Lamb Rump appetisers

Chips being cooked in ActiFry

Salmon being cooked in ActiFry

Real Crispy Chips recipe

Real Crispy Chips Nutrition

Marinated Flat Head nutrition

Salmon Fillet Nutrition by VitaCuisine Compact

Tefal goodie bag

Outside seating

Inside seating

Normal Fish Face menu

Outside/Downstairs toilet

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