The Tefal Oleoclean Pro is a Fryer with its only special Oil filtration system that allows you to reuse the Oil several times and potentially extend the life of your fryer, the makers Tefal have produced many Kitchen based appliances, we have bought a few over the years but we haven’t owned one of these before so we purchased and reviewed this Fryer.
Over the years we haven’t owned many fryers, in our household, we have either had ovens or in the last few years Air fryers that have done the job of cooking chips and a variety of other Foods. I have owned the odd small fryer as I’ve food foods like Onion Rings, Scampi, Calamari are not the same in an air fryer or in particular the over
We try to be as healthy as we can with cooking like out Grills or air fryers to reduce the potentially fat etc as possible, but we sometimes you need a treat every so often and I find Fryers can be that treat, perhaps not every day for health reason but certainly at least once or twice weekly is fine in my opinion.
The kids generally have the food cooked in the air fryers and Grills, but like many of us, they really enjoy Fish and Chip shop style food, especially Tigger who is a fussy eater, Chips are one of his things and chip shop chips are his favourites! so with all this said we opted for this fryer after doing a little research on the price and initial feedback.
Table of Contents
The Fryer
Straight out of the box its relatively simple to follow, it is essentially already together with just the lid and the frying basket separate, it’s obvious where they go but like most electrical appliances it’s vital you read all the instructions, these are fine and makes a lot of sense when you have it in front of you, once you remove all the packaging and replace it as you go.
It can be carried anywhere with two plastic handles, which is an excellent idea, being a metallic silver finish it picks up everything so using this keeps it nicer long term, once you are ready to place it in your kitchen, where you want it to be, then get your oil ready, fryers produce a lot of steam and grease etc, even with this lid that has vents, it focuses the steam/moisture/grease, so please ensure you have nothing to close above it, having under an oven/hob extractor fan is really useful and ideal, to be honest, it causes less mess in your kitchen.
With the unit complete, and the fry basket to the side, the oil and the special oil filtration of this Tefal fryer kicks in, the main thing you notice is a blue container in the bottom, the lever with 3 choices, and the temperature setting on top, we will talk about filtration later, but to fry the switch/lever needs to be set to fry, place the oil in between min and max (around 3.5 litres), there are some oil recommendations in the book,
I personally use rapeseed oil (crisp and dry), for me the oil can be as important as the fryer, at this point choose the temperature and turn it on, they recommend never turning on without oil in, which I can understand, they also have some guides of temperatures and oils, but many products will also give you suggestions, as will recipes with twice or triple cooked chips, personally I will cut and prep the chips hours before and leave them in a bowl of water, then dry them off just before loading the basket.
We tried two types of chips one pre-done in a fresh pack from a supermarket, and once done with just potatoes, that we peeled and prepped ourselves, the first looked more like fries and the second looked more like Fish and chip shop chips, once the light of the fryer turns off it means you can, place the basket in gently and cover with the lid.
The window allows you to see what’s going on but as I said earlier, be careful of the steam etc coming out, as this will be hot, so as you might be hovering over it and there could be danger of it hitting you in the face, the same when you remove the lid, I found this is still aburst of heat etc as you would expect,
The lid is flat so angle it as you lift appropriately, essentially apply common sense, depending on the time this could be done at this point, or you are lifting it, catching it on the basket hook and changing the temperature ready for your second dip, at a much higher temperature, as many of the guides tell you, this is a higher but quicker cook, and it much more of a flash cook for crisp and flavour.
Hopefully like out the chips come out good, to be honest, it is a bit of trial and error in taste and feels to a chip, my own chips were lovely, soft inside but perhaps I would prefer one of two minutes less on the twice cook part, the other supermarket prepared fresh chips were fine, they took less time and felt more like french fries, the kids prefered the homemade potatoes.
Once you are all finished ensure its turned off, I like to also remove it from the wall, and then let the oil cool down, they recommend 3 hours which is good enough in my opinion, however, once this has been cooled you can now look at the filtration process! back to the front of the machine, it has a lever that can be set to filtration, this slowly trickles out the oil into the lower blue container, however, it is filtering oil as it passes through it.
Once it’s all done you can remove the oil box if you like by switching the lever to box, you will need to do this when you need to use the fryer next time! as the top has a screw cap that allows you to pour the oil back in the fryer for use, but again make sure on that part the lever is set to either box or fry, if you had at filtration it would leak out with no box lol.
However for cleaning purposes once you have drained the oil you can remove the lid, basket and removable bowl, all three parts are dishwashable, the main power and element that can lift up to allow the removal of the bowl, do obviously not dish washable, but the rest can be cleaned normally or via dishwasher at ease without the worry of the oil.
Overall
For me its the best fryer we have owned, don’t get me wrong I know haven’t had lots but the things that annoyed me or made me dislike them before are mostly solved here, it is easy to use, even to a novice, the quality of the end product looks great and I’m keen to try a variety of foods, we will only limited how much we use for health reasons but in moderation fryers are fine, and this one is great.
The biggest frustration with Fryers before was cleaning it and the oil, but this works so easy and simple its fantastic, it really does do what it says and keep the oil looking good and makes it easy to clean.
There aren’t many drawbacks, and to be honest, these are a little overview of fryers, the health part of the oil, but then that’s a fryer compared to Tefals Air fryer, then there’s the heat and the weight, it does get hot and it is heavy for some to move, but again what would you expect?
its what your buying, so with those niggling things aside from its a great purchase, it can be a little pricey, but you could shop around and you are paying for a more premium of fryers, this is good for a larger family, a one or two-person my find this a little big but again I wouldn’t hold that against it, but as I said the kids like it and between us all we enjoy the flavour, cook, and finish of the things we have tried.
