Proscenic T31 Digital Air Fryer Oven

The Proscenic T31 Digital Air Fryer Oven is more of an additional oven than an air fryer, but there’s no doubt that it could be handy for midweek meals as well as providing extra capacity when entertaining. However, it takes up a large amount of space on your worktop – more so than most air fryers – and works better for baking and roasting rather than crisping. It’s a useful appliance for being able to do a lot without turning on your main oven, but for the foods that need the higher heat and frequent tossing, a standalone air fryer, such as Proscenic T21, may be best.

Introduction

Turning on your main oven to whip up a pan of brownies can feel wasteful, heating the whole cavity for just one item. This is why many of us have turned to air fryers for small-scale baking and roasting.

However, the flat space inside can be limiting. This is where Proscenic’s T31 Digital Air Fryer Oven offers a better solution, combining a pair of perforated trays with hot fanned air to cook quickly, evenly and more efficiently.

It’s ideal for everything from baking pizza to grilling steaks, with enough capacity for family dinners (and an app you can use to control it while you’re supervising homework). Plus, its air frying and drying functions give it extra versatility.

Design and features

• 12 preset programmes
• Rotating rotisserie
• Keep warm and air frying functions

There’s no escaping from the fact that the T31 is pretty big – around the size of a small microwave – and heavy at 10kg.

As well as recesses at the bottom for carrying it, there’s what appears to be a handle at the back, which also prevents it being stuck against a wall and blocking the rear air vent. The drop-down door at the front opens to reveal a compact cavity with rails supporting the trays and shelves, and recesses for holding the rotisserie fork, cage or skewers.

Above this, the controls are straightforward, with a dial for adjusting time (1-60 minutes) and temperature (165-205°C), plus touchscreen icons for preheating, keep warm, and 12 programmes. Some of the icons are easy to understand, while others, such as the one for chicken wings, could be confused for something else, such as prawns/seafood. 

There’s a good amount of guidance in the instructions as to what to use to cook different foods and how long for, as well as a recipe book (annoyingly, all the temperatures here are listed only in Fahrenheit, and measurements in inches, so you’ll need to convert).

There’s no idea of the maximum amounts for each preset though, which would be useful when cooking fresh chips, for example. On the plus side, all the removable parts can be cleaned in the dishwasher, and are simple to clean by hand. More difficult was cleaning the cavity once it had cooled down: cooking a chicken with the rotisserie left splashes of fat that worked their way around the tray supports and element. 

Performance

• Can turn on light without opening
• Awkward to toss/shake fresh chips
• Setting not clear for frozen food

While it may not seem like much, one of my favourite features of the Proscenic T31 is the option to turn on the light without opening the door. I found this invaluable for keeping an eye on cooking progress, and it’s something that most air fryers don’t have. Another feature that was useful was the option to choose a programme and its corresponding preheat option that will then start the programme you’ve selected afterwards – or not, if you’re in a hurry to get going. I used the preheat for all the test foods below. 

I started by using the steak programme to cook an average thickness steak, which was six minutes at 205°C. There was no guidance as to how high up the tray should be (there’s a choice of three positions, the top one being closer to the element), so I chose the middle of the oven. After the time elapsed, it was brown on the outside but rare in the middle. Another three minutes brought it to a medium level of doneness. The meat when cut into was very juicy, and not dry.

Next, I cooked frozen hash browns on the air fry setting, which was 190°C for 15 minutes. They emerged brown and crisp on top but pale underneath, suggesting that they could have benefited from being turned over halfway, and that maybe the heat hadn’t penetrated as evenly through the tray. An air fryer with a higher maximum temperature, such as the Ninja Foodi MAX OL750UK, tends to cook hash browns better.

The Proscenic T31 has a fries setting for making chips from scratch, which I used to ‘fry’ fresh chipped potato that had been rinsed and dried before being coated with a small amount of oil. This programme has a shake alert that sounds halfway through its 20-minute, 180°C setting. However, it’s not that clear how you shake food on a tray. Doing so, while wearing oven gloves, meant that several chips flew off the tray and onto the worktop. I found it was more practical to turn the chips with a utensil – but also quite time-consuming, and not anywhere near as easy as shaking an air fryer basket. 

At the end of the time, some pieces of potato were cooked but still pale. They required a few more minutes to brown but weren’t especially crispy. They were, however, soft and fluffy in the middle. A smaller batch could probably have produced better results. There’s also the option of making chips in the rotisserie cage, though no capacity guidance. 

I finished by using the rotisserie fork to roast a whole chicken on the chicken programme. This automatically engages the turning mechanism inside the oven, although there’s also a button for setting it off manually for other foods.

The bird was slightly too large for the cavity – a medium or small chicken would have been more suitable – and I had to use string to tie its legs as they grazed the element and singed as it turned. Its tongs were useless for getting the fork into place unless you’re dexterous – I had to do that part while wearing gloves – but they were better for removing the bird once it had roasted.

As it was a large chicken, I added an extra five minutes to the cooking time of 45 minutes at 205°C. There was a tiny bit of pink inside the bird when carved open, so slightly more time would be advisable, but it was otherwise juicy with beautifully browned, crisp skin. 

Interestingly, the T31 is compatible with Proscenic’s app: this contains the same recipes as the booklet it comes with, and allows you to save your own recipes, as well as schedule preheats and activate the keep warm option.

However, I found it to be unreliable and slow: my app claimed the appliance, while connected, was offline when I had my phone next to it and the appliance was on. That means it’s not quite as handy as hoped: you probably can’t rely on it to preheat while you’re on your way home, but you might be able to keep dinner warm while you’re in another room. 

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