Deep Frying: Techniques and Tips

[fooey]

Ditto on peanut oil. It's my favorite as well, but it's so expensive, at least in the western US. (I guess we don't have peanut farms nearby?)

To fill that chicken fryer half full would cost $20.

[CtznCane]

I too use a wok for stovetop frying. Wok's are cheap, especially if you live near a chinatown. You can get a Joyce Chen flat bottomed peking pan (basically a wok with a different handle) cheap at BB&B (under 15 dollars I think) and I got my largest wok in chinatown for about 20. With the wok, whether round or flat bottomed, you also get arguably the most useful pan you can have as well. Most importantly though, they are great for frying.

[Chris Amirault]

In a perfect world I'd use peanut oil too, but lack the budget and thus suggested canola to start. Doesn't that fishy smell develop only after multiple uses?

[HungryC]

In a perfect world I'd use peanut oil too, but lack the budget and thus suggested canola to start. Doesn't that fishy smell develop only after multiple uses?

I think canola oil stinks from the very moment the container is opened! I always detect "off" flavors in canola; it's awful for roux-making, starts smelling funny almost from the start.

RE: prices of peanut oil...1 gallon of Lou-Ana peanut oil (made in lovely Opelousas, LA) at my local Sam's Club is $13.47, whereas a gallon of canola is $7.98. It's well worth the measly difference of $5.49. At Academy Sporting Goods, a gallon of peanut oil is less than $10. After Thanksgiving, the big 5-gallon containers go on sale for pretty cheap in my neck of the woods. If peanut oil breaks the bank, my fallback is soybean. You can keep the canola, at any price.

[Shalmanese]

ive probably deep fried things in my own kitchen 2, maybe 3 times in my life. if i have a craving for tempura or other snacks, ill just go out. deep frying seems messy, dangerous. and the last time i tried not only was it a total failure but i ended up with this yellow and black film on my pot that was a total bitch to scrub off. i probably wouldnt have been so discouraged by the failure if it wasnt for the scrubbing.

Are you on a gas stove? If so, the problem might be you're using too big a burner for your pot. The flames are licking up the side and heating up the oil splattered on the sides of the pot, causing it to discolor. Try moving to a smaller flame or using a flame tamer to prevent the problem.

[onrushpam]

I don't deep fry often, but when I do, I use my 50+ year old Griswold castiron chicken fryer (the antique version of the Lodge one that's been linked to in this thread). Peanut oil. Only peanut oil. I do use canola for some things, but for deep frying, it has to be peanut oil.

We don't have good exhaust in the kitchen, so I try to do it on the sideburner of our gas grill.

[Pam Brunning]

Sunflower oil is good and an induction hob is best for deep frying. Ultimate temperature control and no danger from naked flame etc.

[melonpan]

i do use a gas stove. and i will be using peanut oil from tomorrow on.

i just made some fried green tomatoes in my dutch oven. turned out well!

thank you all so much for the suggestions and tips!

[melonpan]

(while fried green tomatoes isnt deep frying, i did use a lot of oil. and it turned out well. i never had them before. they were delicious)

[Marlene]

I have both a dedicated deep fryer and an enameled cast iron dutch oven. I have gravitated lately to using the dutch oven for deep frying, especially for chicken. It is a snap to clean up and I don't worry about breading sticking to the fry basket. I just fish the fried foods out with a spider.

[melonpan]

besides fried chicken (another thing ive never made) ive always wanted to make fried donuts. i will probably try some out this coming weekend. cinnamon donuts....

oh. i wanted to ask, what the general consensus amongst the thread readers here about crisco? esp with respect to peanut oil. for anything, sweet or savoury. thanks again for your help!

[Pierogi]

In a perfect world I'd use peanut oil too, but lack the budget and thus suggested canola to start. Doesn't that fishy smell develop only after multiple uses?

I think canola oil stinks from the very moment the container is opened! I always detect "off" flavors in canola; it's awful for roux-making, starts smelling funny almost from the start.

I find that the cheaper grades of canola are the worst offenders, and I would certainly never use them for deep frying. I'm to the point I won't even use them for sauteeing any longer. The nasty fish smell is immediate, and permeates the food to a point that it's inedible. Much as I adore Trader Joe's, and think their private labeled products are awesome, their brand of canola is probably the stinkiest of all. I have about 1.5C of it left in my pantry, and I won't replace it. There is a "premium" brand of canola, I believe its called "Canola Harvest" maybe.....anyway, that's not too bad, but it costs almost as much as peanut oil.

If I were doing a lot of deep frying, and was doing things where I could filter the oil, and reuse it, I'd use peanut for sure. Otherwise, probably corn oil.

But NOT canola.

[fooey]

If you're looking for peanut oil in volume (and make this face when you see $10 for 1L of peanut oil), try your local Asian market.

That's where I find the best price, often 50-75% less than elsewhere.

Edited September 14, 2009 by fooey (log)

[CtznCane]

Peanut oil has many pluses, but like many perhaps, I find the price difference to make it prohibitive for using too often. The other drawback is if I'm having guests over I don't want to risk someone having a peanut allergy and always having to remember to ask people about food allergies.

I too am one who has never cared for canola oil I am however quite pleased with just using Wesson Vegetable (soybean) oil. I've always had real good results and its price is usually about that of canola.

[Starkman]

I think one thing to keep in mind is that the flash point of oil is lowered after just one fry. Now if you're only frying at, say, 350-375, you'll probably be safe. But for super-high temps, I'd be leery of doing so more than a few times..

Starkman

[Chris Amirault]

I made a full-on fish and chips fry last night using the Saveur Milwaukee fish fry recipe I've always used and the standard two-fry method for french fries (following Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles cookbook), with the only real change being that I used 3/8" and not 1/2" potato sticks. It raised some questions about fry technique and timing that I wanted to ask here.

Because I didn't want the fries to taste like the fish, I used the following rough schedule:

1. Blanch the fries at 280F for 8m or so.

2. Let them rest while you bring the oil up to 375F.

3. Fry the fries at 375F in two batches.

4. Batter and fry the cod in three batches.

You can probably guess the problem here: the fries are done at step 3, and it takes an additional 20 minutes or so for the cod to cook. Thinking of the delicious fries cooling at the table, I rushed the second batch of cod into the fryer before it was up to temp, a stupid move that lead to a bunch of beer batter stuck to the bottom of the fry basket.

Perhaps the march of time is simply impossible to navigate here, but does anyone have solutions to how they pull this off? Or do you only ever fry one thing at a time?

[Blether]

Maybe the most practical suggestion is 'hold in a low oven' - but 20 minutes is never going to be good. Timing wise, fish & chips at home has problems - for family eating, we always served a maximum of two people at once.

Nor have I ever paid any heed to keeping the chips out of the fish fat. If you cared about it you'd need to be keeping two batches of oil - one for seafood and one for chips / neutral tastes (then another for chicken, say, if it was part of your regular menu). Who can afford to throw out oil after one meal ?

I agree that two cookings for the chips are a good idea - though speaking for myself, I usually par-boil or par-steam before frying, and fry as soon as the first cooking is done so there's no heat loss. If it's frozen chips, they get fried twice.

In general, I'll hold the finished chips (in the oven as above, on the serving plates) then fry the fish. Fish fries quicker than chips, in typical cuts.

[jk1002]

I would think the problem you run into, especially with the 2 step fry is that your fries get soggy.

I personally blanch in boiling water and then double fry (following cookingissues blog approach).

For the fish, I would just fry them in a normal pot. I have a Miu fryer that I used mostly for french fries, other things I just use my All clads and a wok skimmer.

I can see why he does the fries first and then the fish but would just use separated pots. Fries are somewhat tricky with a slotted spoon but larger fish pieces should be easy to handle. The oil is hard to be re-used after the fish fry for other things anyhow, in fact when my recycled oil from french fries gets to a point that I am afraid it introduces an off taste it often is still fine for a last frying of battered olives or fish. So I actually have 2 oil recycling vessels

For buying oil, I found that between supermarket and chinese market there was no difference, in fact I could get the gallon of peanut oil for 15$ at shop n stop last time I picked some up while chinese supermarket was 20$.

Edited February 15, 2010 by heidih
remove copyrighted photos (log)

[lesliec]

20 minutes to cook a piece of fish? How BIG's them suckers??

My most common method is simply to put the battered (I like tempura) fish fillets in on top of the chips as they're on their final fry. They come out when they're brown, which (I confess haven't timed it) feels like it should be no more than five minutes. This, of course, presupposes one has a deep fryer (or other pot) large enough.

If one is employing the Heston Blumenthal In Search of Perfection approach, one cooks fish and chips at different temperatures, which logically requires two vessels. Heston specifies a scarily high temperature for the fish; I have done it his way a couple of times but really can't see much advantage.

For the chips themselves, however, I am an unabashed Hestonian devotee. His triple-cooked method (cut the chips, boil them until soft, keep in the fridge all day, fry at 140 C, keep a bit longer then fry at 190 C) produces entirely stunning, super-crisp-but-fluffy-inside, chips which I've never matched with just two fryings. (Had triple-cooked chips at a restaurant in Auckland last weekend. Mine are better ...)

[Blether]

The memory got clearer - family meals also involved shallow frying. You got battered fish from the chippy; at home it was breaded and shallow-fried.

[Chris Amirault]

20 minutes to cook a piece of fish? How BIG's them suckers??

Nope, not 20 for one batch; 20 for three batches, as noted above.

My most common method is simply to put the battered (I like tempura) fish fillets in on top of the chips as they're on their final fry. They come out when they're brown, which (I confess haven't timed it) feels like it should be no more than five minutes. This, of course, presupposes one has a deep fryer (or other pot) large enough.

Oh, I think you've got it here: prepare fish and chips in the fryer together, so that they come out for service at the same time. Parallel processing seems obvious now, but I was focused on having the two fried in sequence. Thanks!

[lesliec]

Nope, not 20 for one batch; 20 for three batches, as noted above.

Ah - yes, that's exactly what you said. I suspect your quantities are greater than mine.

... prepare fish and chips in the fryer together, so that they come out for service at the same time. Parallel processing seems obvious now, but I was focused on having the two fried in sequence. Thanks!

De nada. But, as noted, ya gotta have a big enough pot.

[Aloha Steve]

I am an unabashed Hestonian devotee. His triple-cooked method (cut the chips, boil them until soft, keep in the fridge all day, fry at 140 C, keep a bit longer then fry at 190 C) produces entirely stunning, super-crisp-but-fluffy-inside, chips which I've never matched with just two fryings. (Had triple-cooked chips at a restaurant in Auckland last weekend. Mine are better ...)

Do you skip the rest of his instructions ? What I mean is the soaking, freezing etc. I like your method if you do, its a whole lot easier.

Edited February 16, 2010 by Aloha Steve (log)

[John Rosevear]

If you really want to feel virtuous, get beef suet from your local grass-finished beef operation and render that into tallow for deep-frying (chop into little bits, put into a shallow pan in a 200F oven until it's liquid... can take several hours). It tastes great and it's full (relatively speaking) of omega-3s.

Tallow -- from whatever source -- is the stuff to have, as far as I'm concerned. As others have said, if I don't have tallow I use the good peanut oil from Chinatown -- Lion & Globe is the brand I look for. Corn oil works fine in a pinch. And with any oil, I almost always add a splort of bacon grease, which just seems to make everything work better -- probably that soap thing.

Tip: I have a small, very fine strainer that I sweep through the oil between batches. Crumbs and bits of coating get loose in the oil -- sometimes a lot of them -- and if left in there while reheating for the next batch, they can burn and give everything an off flavor. I never get it totally clear, but removing 90% of the junk eliminates 90% of the problem.

[lesliec]

Do you skip the rest of his instructions ? What I mean is the soaking, freezing etc.

Hi Steve.

You've reminded me that Heston does indeed mention something about (blast?) freezing. If I recall, he notes it's something the home cook might have trouble with!

My full method, very heavily based on Heston's, is as follows:

1. Peel spuds and cut into chips (big is good, but this still works if you prefer smaller chips)
   
2. Place in cold, unsalted water and bring to the boil. Cook until chips are soft (any longer and you'd have mush)
   
3. Drain and place on a cake cooling rack. When cool, put in the fridge and leave as long as possible (for my recent versions I've done the boiling bit before I've left for work, so the chips have maybe 10-11 hours in the fridge. I see no problem leaving them longer - starting your chips on Wednesday for Thursday's dinner would be a pretty good plan)
   
4. Cook in oil (I'm using peanut, as others in this thread have suggested) at 140°C until lightly browned. Drain and, if you have time, put them back in the fridge for as long as possible (I generally don't, and I don't think the quality suffers)
   
5. Crank the oil up to 190-200°C and cook the chips again until golden (maybe another 5 minutes or so)
   
6. Serve and salt
   

I have a batch in the fridge for tonight as we speak. Enjoy yours; I know I'll enjoy mine.