Jump to content
  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

Vacuum Fried Vegetables?


Richard Kilgore

Recommended Posts

I recently bought "vacuum fried" vegetables at Central Market in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. I sampled several and left with okra and garlic. These things are addictive, and are a great addition to a salad, as well as nibbles.

These vegetables are dehydrated, but retain their shape and are airy, light, crispy crunchy and dissolve in your mouth.

But how do they do this? Could you do it at home or in a restaurant, or does this require commercial equipment. Adria would admire this I think.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I recently bought "vacuum fried" vegetables at Central Market in the Dallas-Ft. Worth  area. I sampled several and left with okra and garlic. These things are addictive, and are a great addition to a salad, as well as nibbles.

These vegetables are dehydrated, but retain their shape and are airy, light, crispy crunchy and dissolve in your mouth.

But how do they do this? Could you do it at home or in a restaurant, or does this require commercial equipment. Adria would admire this I think.

I've never had or seen what you are describing but it definitely sounds interesting.

I found this

Exotic Vacuum Fried Thai Fruit and Vegetables - made from only the freshest, sweetest Thai Fruit and Vegetables, a delecious, crispy, alternative to Potato Crisps, with a naturally sweet and crunchy taste straight from the bag, or as a topping on any cereal or salad.

Vacuum frying is a fruit and vegetable drying process using oil in a vacuum at a low temperatures, most of the oil can be removed from the processed fruits and the quality of the oil used is retained because of the low temperature cooking process, this reduces carcinogens, and maintains the products original flavour, colour, and nutrition.

at simply-thai.com
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are a few scientific papers on the subject.

this is from the abstract of a paper on ScienceDirect (the full text is paid-content) where vaccum-fried are judged against traditionally-fried foods by a sensory panel. It sheds a little light on the process.

Sweet potato, green beans, Tommy Atkins mango, and blue potato were fried in a vacuum frying process at a temperature of 120-130 ± 1°C. Before frying, green beans and mango slices were soaked in a 50% maltodextrine 0.15% citric acid solution

from Science Direct

Edited by Smitty (log)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm addicted to the vacuum fried JackFruit chips from Vietnam.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_fryer

The process is healthier due to the significantly lower amount of carcinogens created. There are some other threads with discussion on the topic if you are interested.

My soup looked like an above ground pool in a bad neighborhood.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's kind of similar to vacuum distillation- water will boil at a lower temperature under a vacuum, so you don't need as much heat as you would for regular old frying to get that crispy texture.

There's probably just as much oil used, but the oil probably doesn't break down nearly so much at low temps like 130 C.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Most deep-fried convenience products are vacuum-fried. It uses less energy and less oil, (most importantly in that the oil can be re-used much more) as others have noted.

The lower temperature means vegetables with higher sugar content turn out much better than a traditional method. Wikipedia.

And no, you can't do it at home, it requires some serious industrial equipment: well, at the very least a deep fryer with a vacuum seal and a vacuum pump.

Edited by Nicholas Ellan (log)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...