On the home appliance side, Panasonic is best known for its bread machines, which however experienced their golden age a long time ago. The Japanese firm has therefore finally decided to surf on a slightly more current trend and presents two oil-free fryers at IFA 2023. But these NF-CC500 NF-CC600 don’t just circulate hot air to cook fries and other preparations. They add a “light vapor” as a bonus. This is certainly not new on the market since there is a similar function on the Easy Fry Grill & Steam from Moulinex, but it is not yet very widespread.
The Air Fryer NF-CC600 (left) is less rounded than the NF-CC500 (right) on the sides.
Crispy and juicy cooking
To do this, Panasonic fryers are equipped with a water tank. This therefore creates steam and thus adds moisture to the cooking basket. According to Panasonic, this not only moisturizes the surface of the food to improve roasting while maintaining a tender and juicy texture at the core, but also helps “hot air conducts more heat and distributes it more evenly”. However, it is also possible to do without steam by cutting off the water supply using a manual control.
Top and bottom heating
To heat, the NF-CC500 and NF-CC600 fryers are of course also equipped with a resistance and even two, at the top and at the bottom, to cook more evenly and avoid having to mix the food. A fan is of course also provided to diffuse the heat and the two models display the same power of 1400 W, despite different capacities: 5 l for the first and 6 l for the second. They also offer partly different cooking programs.
We clearly distinguish the two heating elements in the cavity, while the water tank takes place on the back.
The Fish and Sausage programs of the NF-CC600 are thus replaced by Meatballs and Dried Fruit programs on the NF-CC500. The other programs are nevertheless identical and increase their number to 11, regardless of the model. They include Chicken, Seafood, Steaks, Vegetables, Potatoes, Pizza, Cake, Fries and Toast. Depending on the programs or in manual mode, the fryers can heat between 80 and 200°C for cooking from 1 to 60 minutes.
For the time being, no price has been communicated for Panasonic fryers, and we have to be satisfied with a vague “Spring 2024” for availability.