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You can certainly deep-fry foods in clarified butter (also known as ghee) and in lard. In fact, there are many foods that are traditionally fried in these fats. They both have very high smoke points and are excellent for making crisp fried foods.
For example, Puri, Indian fried breads, are deep-fried in ghee (clarified butter). And many Southern USA and ...
37
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.
21
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 ...
20
The part that handles the food is comparable, as you noted: A container for the hot oil plus a basket to lift the food out again.
But the difference is in the periphery:
A chip pan is just a pan (or what you may also call a pot), but the heating is done on the stove, like for all other pots.
A deep fryer has its own heating system, either via a heated ...
19
No, you cannot deep-fry in butter. It simply can't handle the heat; it will brown and burn before you reach deep-frying temperatures.
In a comment you say that vegetable oils are unstable when heated, but it is in fact the opposite: butter is much more unstable when heated. Butter has a smoke point of 200-250F, around 120-150C. Many vegetable oils have ...
18
B is your best bet. In fact, that's the original (And IMO, best) way to do it! Find a nice heavy cast iron skillet, fill it around halfway with oil, and then fry your chicken and rotate it in the pan as needed
Here are some links:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/deep-south-fried-chicken/
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/fried-chicken-recipe....
17
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 ...
16
There are three major properties an edible fat (I am assuming you are not asking about inedible oils like petroleum based products) has that affect how it is best used:
Flavor
Saturation
Smoke point
Properties
Flavor
The flavor of the fat is very important. So called neutral oils (like canola oil or refined grapeseed oil, or refined peanut oil, among ...
14
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 ...
14
The desired texture of 'crispness' is the result of many factors, and oil choice is generally not the biggest factor. Consider a french fry. The generally accepted best practice for fries is a blanch and finish method. This allows the fry to be cooked throughout and have a crisp surface, without being overdone and leathery. To accomplish this, the finish ...
13
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 - ...
13
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 ...
13
160C sounds about right for cooking oil temp. I typically shallow fry on the stovetop for about 10-12 minutes for the thighs and then transfer them to a 175C oven to finish cooking (if needed) and then repeat with the breasts. I would stay away from "battering" if you are looking to replicate something like popeye's.
A few things I do to ensure a nice thick ...
12
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 really ...
12
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 ...
12
You can buy really large filters for this purpose. It's how some restaurants filter their fry oil on the cheap. We had two conical strainers and put the huge coffee-like filter between the two so it wouldn't slip down as much, also so we could skim out the large bits easier. If you have a laddle you can sorta force it through faster by agitating in a ...
11
All of the sources I read say the same thing... what makes them different is that they're fried twice.
From Saveur:
Frites are the supercharged cousin to paltry American-style fries: made from soft Belgian potatoes called bintjes, they're thick-cut and—this is key—double-fried (in the olden days, in molten horse or ox fat, though modern options range ...
11
This is a staple of Balkan cuisine. You will see it named Lángos (and derivatives) in Hungary and Mekitza (and derivatives) in Slavic languages. Either of these words is used in Western Europe, depending on which group popularized it there.
I am not sure this wording has spread outside of Europe, and cannot say if it was imported in the USA or developed ...
10
Fried Dough As mentioned in comment, it's something I'm mostly used to seeing at fairs - the dough does not do well in a communal fryer where it could pick up other flavors (hmm, fishy fried dough - yuck) and deep frying at home is kind of a chore (but you are up to it!)
Scones are one of the many alternate names given in the linked wikipedia article.
10
The way I have achieved this is by gently simmering the potato cubes until they soften. (You want them pretty much cooked, but not so done that they won't hold together well.)
I also lightly salt the water so they take on a little seasoning while they cook. This, of course, is optional.
Next, I drain the potatoes very well. I want them to essentially be ...
9
The method I used in the past (which might not be the best way) is to lightly fry the food initially, drain it of all oils, and put it in the refridgerator until it is almost time to serve the large amount of food. Then you can finish deep frying the batches. The initial frying will dramatically reduce the time it takes to refry each batch. I found this was ...
9
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 ...
9
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 ...
9
The nature of deep frying, contrary to expectation, is that it is a dry cooking method.
The heat from the oil vaporizes water at the surface of the food. The steam coming of the food pushes the oil away from the food, and keeps oil from soaking in during the main frying process. This is also what causes the bubbling.
The consequence of this is that by ...
9
There's so much heat around a turkey deep-fryer I wouldn't see how light or medium snow would affect your cooking. Any snow is going to melt and probably evaporate before it comes into contact with any hot oil, and any that makes contact will be gone in a flash. I've barbequed in 20 below and in snow, all that it really means is that you need more heat.
My ...
9
Reusing deep frying oil is fine (up to a point - you can't refry indefinitely), and in fact the flavour often improves with use. You should be absolutely fine frying two turkeys one after the other for Thanksgiving. Have a good one!
9
Firstly I think you're having trouble making a distinguishment between water and oil absorption. Even though placing food in (room temp) oil may at first seem as if it had gotten it 'wet' it's a very different kind of soaked compared to doing the same thing with water, as the two liquids have profoundly different properties.
Oil when heated, however, ...
9
Isn't the oil (and bad oil temperature), the main reason for calories in fried food, not the vegetables themselves?
Just coating in corn starch will not help at all, the moisture in the vegetable will still make them limp and oily.
If you do a tempura or batter type frying, then the batter itself becomes the calories sponge.
If you want to make "lower" ...
9
As @ElectricToothpick said, the milk solids in butter will brown and burn, so that's not a good option. Since ghee has had the milk solids removed, that's not an issue.
Traditionally, rendered animal fats like lard were used for deep frying, and french fries were originally fried in beef tallow. McDonald's followed that tradition until health-conscious ...
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, we'...
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