Hot answers tagged deep-frying
34
The lower (first) temperature actually cooks the potato so that it is tender, the hotter temperature (second) is what gives the crispy golden coating.
If you just did the lower temperature, your fries might be too soft. If you just did the hotter temperature they would be too too tough.
23
It is absolutely OK to filter and reuse deep-fry oil.
It's not uncommon at some short-order restaurants for them to filter the oil daily and only change it once a week. Of course, it does start to taste a little "off" when you reuse it that many times.
There's also the matter of impurities lowering the smoke point; even when you filter, the result is ...
19
Well, that is part of what is going on. Frying at the lower temperature does get it cooked through without over-browning. However, if you kept cooking, you could get it brown without crisping. So, actually it has a lot to do with the changes to the starch molecules in the potatoes. The lower temperature frying brings the starch and water to the exterior of ...
16
Your cooking oil breaks down because of particulate that suspends in the oil as you cook in it. The ways that you can tell if the oil is bad is by visibility (at my restaurant we change at two inches but you could pull it sooner than that) and excessive smoking (because as noted above, particulate lowers smoke point and combustion point, and nobody wants to ...
14
The trick is to chill the Mars bar in a fridge for a few hours before cooking.
Prepare a batter mix (the kind you deep fry fish in) and get your oil heated to temperature. Here's a batter recipe I've used before:
Basic Fish Batter (Delia Smith Online)
(You can't fault Delia!)
You can use sparkling water to introduce more bubbles into the batter ...
13
It definitely sounds like you had some water on whatever you stirred the oil with. When water droplets get in the oil, they sink since oil is lighter than water. Then the water droplets turn to steam because the boiling point of water is much below the boiling point of oil. At this point, the steam rapidly rises out of the oil and escapes with a noise and a ...
12
It is not "food color" in the conventional sense. McDonald's techniques are based on something the 'home cook' can rarely achieve, consistency. Their friers are designed to maintain exactly the same temperature (375F, if I recall correctly). The typical home frier drops 20-30F as soon as food is added, the McMachines have the kind of heating elements that ...
11
The potato is probably not as important as the method. Simply frying them will not get you the fry you want. Basically you boil them, then double fry them. Here are the steps for The Perfect French Fry:
Ingredients
2 pounds russet potatoes (about 4 large), peeled and cut into
1/4-inch by 1/4-inch fries (keep
potatoes stored in a bowl of water)
...
11
There's too many factors to have a set percentage of oil that will stay, but lets cover a few common things that determine the oil in your final product.
Heat of the oil:
Your oil needs to be plenty hot enough to actually fry in. For fries, you'll typically want to shoot for between 350-375 F. If you don't have a thermometer, then get one! If you ...
11
The other answers touch on the fact that its the release of water from the turkey that interacts with the oil, causes the oil to overflow, and then ignite the burner.
Generally, this happens pretty shortly after you put the turkey in (due do any moisture on the outside of the bird).
To do it safely don't bank on the fact that you've removed all the water - ...
10
Unless you are prepared to build some industrial strength equipment of your own design and then move everyone in the neighborhood away while you experiment with this, I fear you are taking your life in your hands.
Normal pressure cookers add a maximum 15 PSI to achieve a water boiling point of 121 C or 250 F. Autoclaves, used for surgical sterilization, go ...
10
Indeed, Mr. Zable actually applied for a patent -- US application no. 0014320, filed Sept 13, 2010. (Of course, just because he applied doesn't mean the US Patent Office will issue a patent on it.)
His process is, in essence:
(1) gelling a liquid beverage; and
(2) wraping an aliquot of the gel in a raw "farinaceous dough", selected from the group of ...
9
I can think of two approaches. In either case, you are going to want to use dehydrated tomato powder (or ketchup powder), as you certainly don't want to add the water content of the tomato to your fry. Option one would be to mix the tomato powder into a mashed potato, structure that with some hydrocolloid, and fry. The other, much simpler and probably better ...
8
Not much is out there.
Food-grade silicone oil (dimethylpolysiloxane, for the chemists out there) is routinely used in medical and food-prep devices, and it has been approved by the US FDA Office of Food Additive Safety for use as a direct additive in diverse foods, like milk, dry gelatin dessert mix, canned pineapple juice, and even salt. Of course, ...
7
Reusing your frying oil can actually add to the flavor, to a point. You can get a few reuses out of the oil, you'll be able to notice when it starts going bad.
What I do with my frying oil when I'm done using is is filter it through some coffee filters I put over a funnel, putting it all right back in the container I bought it in.
7
Generally any non-oily fish is fine for deep frying. A relatively meaty fish (though not too meaty like monkfish) with a good thick fillet is best, because this allows the batter to cook without overcooking the fish. As Yellow Croaker is not an oily fish, you should be fine to batter and deep fry it provided you have a nice thick fillet.
Traditional fish ...
7
Not to take anything away from the answers already existing for this question, but I want to add one more reference: Kenji Alt's in depth opus on creating the McDonald's style fry at home.
In summary, his method is to:
Blanche the cut potatoes in water lightly acidified with vinegar, to allow them to cook through while the acid keeps the pectin from ...
6
I don't know how exactly you fried them, but normally, the second time you deep-fry them is to get them crisp. Make sure you deep-fry them at a hot temperature (180-190°C or 355-375°F). If they aren't crisp enough for you after two minutes, leave them in for another minute and check again.
Another thing I've heard a lot (but without actual proof) is that ...
6
If you are saying you cannot get the oil hot enough during pre-heating:
You may need a bigger burner than the one you are using. Most resources I've seen suggest over 100k BTU
There may be something physically wrong with your setup (i.e., the vessel should be closer to the flame)
The ambient temperature at the time of cooking was simply too cold for the ...
5
The enamel coating is put on by a high temperature process, much higher temp than the 300-400 F that you would deep fry in, so it will be safe to fry in.
The concern that this raises for me is the difficulty in cleaning if you fry repeatedly. After a few batches, there will be a film of oil that will form just above the level of the oil in the pot you are ...
5
I thought that all electric fryers came with a mesh basket for the fries. If yours didn't, or if the mesh is coarse enough for the fries to fall through it, you could try to find another basket (I don't know if they are sold separately, but it is worth a try) or make some DIY solution by either suspending a big sieve in the fryer or lining the big-holed ...
5
The foaming is the moisture in your fries boiling off, with the starch in the fries making it foamier. You can solve this problem by blanching them briefly in boiling water to remove some excess starch, then pre-frying them at a much lower temperature to remove some moisture (draining off excess oil).
The pre-frying keeps the fries from getting soggy as ...
5
You are right that the moisture in the potatoes are what's causing the oil to 'foam'. If you don't dry your potatoes sufficiently they can quite easily cause the oil to 'boil' explosively out of the frier; this is why you never pour water on a deep-fat pan fire.
There are various ways to dry out your chips/straws, but one of the most effective ways to is to ...
5
If you don't have a fry thermometer -- the important part of frying is the bubbles coming off the food in the oil. If you don't have bubbles, the oil's too cold. The trick I use for measuring the temperature (as I don't have a fry thermometer) is to dip the end of a wooden spoon into the oil -- the wood holds enough moisture that if the oil's hot enough, ...
5
The calorie intake is the same; a gram of fat has 9 calories.
As far as "health" goes, some people consider saturated fats to be worse for you (increases cholesterol). However, we've recently discovered that the trans fats we used to replace saturated fats in a lot of foods are even WORSE. Personally, I wouldn't worry about the other health effects, as long ...
5
I want a car that can fly. :P
I say you have two options:
A quality dutch oven
. This can do it all, although steaming might be difficult unless you can find a steamer insert for your dutch oven. It's certainly the closest you're gonna get to a slow cooker.
A quality stock pot with a steamer insert (or two). I have a great 12 qt stock pot
with 2 steamer ...
5
For the very best tasting fries, onion rings and battered fish are fried in fat made from rendered beef fat. When I was a cook we rendered down a thousand pounds of beef fat a week, it took days to do. But it made the very best tasting savory deep fried foods. The burning temperature is lowish, so food needs to be cooked at 325 and changed more often. It's ...
5
Timing and precision are key. First off, you need to boil your eggs for exactly 5 minutes, assuming they're large. They should be at room temperature before you start, and you should let them cool afterwards. This should result in a cooked white and a very runny yolk before you fry.
The oil you use to fry the Scotch eggs needs to be just the right ...
5
Make sure the turkey is completely thawed.
Make sure the outside of the skin is dry.
Make sure there is room for the turkey and all of the oil in the kettle.
The explosion is caused by steam causing the oil to boil over, which then ignites when it reaches the burner.
Alton Brown has a show on it:
Fry Turkey Fry (1/3), Fry Turkey Fry (2/3), Fry Turkey ...
5
Deep frying is certainly an easier way to get things crispy, but there are things you can do to get crispy batter without it.
First off is the bread crumbs. Ideally the bread should be relatively stale and therefore dry. If you blitz your own breadcrumbs, leave them out for a few hours to thoroughly dry out before you pane. You can also try using panko, ...
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