How To Heat Oil For Frying – If I had a dime for every time I heard a plaintive question, “Oh, should you bake this recipe? I don’t have an air fryer!” I’d be floating in my pile of Scrooge McDuck coins right now.
Trust me when I say that working with boiling oil is not medieval torture as many home cooks think.
How To Heat Oil For Frying
Like rolling out pie dough and shucking oysters, this method becomes less confusing with practice and the right tools.
Cooking Oil Deep Fry Stock Photos
Like a multi-cooker or slow cooker, an electric fryer is designed to take all the guesswork out of the frying process.
Its digital temperature panel keeps the oil at a constant temperature, the frying basket lets you grind and remove ingredients without splatter, and the automatic oil filter helps clean and preserve the oil when you’re done.
But you don’t need an electric fryer to successfully cook soft shell chips, serve up homemade fried pickles, or quickly fry up a batch of potato chips. You also don’t have to resort to air-frying, which can be delicious on its own, but isn’t a complete substitute.
You can definitely fry on the stove without fear or worry! Here’s Deep Frying 101 for when you’re ready to take the plunge. Watch the video and read all the details.
Can You Reuse Frying Oil?
For frying, you need a stock pot that will evenly distribute and retain heat, as well as clean up sticky oil residue.
Enameled cast iron braziers, such as the famous Le Creuset models, are ideal for this task, as are regular cast iron braziers (the oil will season them if used frequently).
If you use a stainless steel pan, long frying can leave a ring of fried oil that I found harder to remove than cast iron. (Can I recommend a bartender friend?)
Unlike a meat thermometer, a butter/candy thermometer is designed to register higher temperatures and can be attached to the side of a pot to remain submerged in boiling oil or sugar for long periods of time.
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And nothing replaces the safety and control features that a butter/candy thermometer provides. There is so much guesswork involved when roasting or working with hot sugar, and it pays off with peace of mind.
By the way, why are you monitoring the oil temperature? When the oil is kept at the right temperature, it prevents the fat or what you are frying from burning too quickly.
Think of the thermometer as Goldilocks insurance. If the oil is too cold, the food will absorb it; too high and your bread will burn before the food is cooked inside.
Done right, the food stays moist on the inside and crispy on the outside, and the oil doesn’t go to waste.
How To Deep Fry Food At Home • Just One Cookbook
The simplest of the three essentials, this kitchen tool can lift fried foods and drain excess oil back into the pot at the same time.
Metal tongs also work in a pinch (get it?), but a metal spider, also known as a skimmer or strainer, is wide enough to catch more than one piece of food at a time.
And when you’re making multiple batches of steak, you want to get to the food as quickly as possible!
I recommend organic canola oil or vegetable oil for everyday frying. Both oils have a high smoke point, meaning they won’t begin to smoke and burn until they reach close to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Canola oil and vegetable oil also have a neutral flavor that won’t affect the taste of your snacks. While I love peanut butter, it has a distinctive flavor that can work against some fried foods.
For stovetop roasting, make sure not to overcrowd the pot. As soon as the food touches the hot oil, it will bubble and sizzle, and you’ll be in big trouble if the oil starts pouring over the sides of the pan like a volcano.
In all of my frying recipes, I specify an oil depth of at least 2 inches, as this is usually enough to fully submerge the food and also shallow enough to prevent boiling.
You’ll need at least 1 quart of pan oil per 3 1/4 quarts, but always make sure the oil doesn’t fill the pot more than halfway.
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After filling the pan with oil, attach a butter/candy thermometer to the side of the pan and make sure the tip is submerged in the water.
You’ll know it’s in the right position when the probe is deep enough to clear the “dimple” above the tip of the thermometer, but not deep enough to touch the bottom of the bowl.
Heat the oil over medium heat to the temperature indicated in the recipe: depending on the size, shape and heat retention of the pan, this can take anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes.
Whether you’re heating oil in an electric fryer or on the stovetop, install a drain station near the fryer. I take a cue from Elton Brown and line a baking sheet with paper towels and then cover
Pompeian 100% Grapeseed Oil, 68 Oz
With a wire cooling rack inverted so that the metal is in direct contact with the paper towels.
This helps remove excess oil so the fried food stays crispy, not soggy, so it doesn’t end up in puddles of oil.
When the oil is hot, carefully add the food to the pan using the metal spider. Roasting is a hands-on process, so don’t leave catching up on Instagram or checking out Red Zone.
Keep an eye on what’s going on in the pot and when your food is brown and crispy to your liking, remove the food with a spider, shaking gently to drain excess oil, and transfer it to the draining station.
How To Deep Fry
After your hot adventures are over, don’t give up the butter! If properly filtered and stored, you can reuse this oil for your next crunchy expedition.
First let the oil cool to room temperature in the container you used for frying. Don’t try to pour it into anything yet – take the pot off the hot burner and leave it uncovered until it cools.
When the oil has cooled, place the funnel in the neck of a clean, airtight container. The plastic jug you bought the oil in is ideal if it’s empty, and if not, a Mason jar will do. Make sure the container is large enough to hold all the oil.
Place a fine-mesh sieve or paper towel in the neck of the funnel to catch any bits that accidentally get stuck, as they will speed up the evaporation of the oil. Pour oil through a funnel into a container. Seal and reuse, filtering each time, until you notice that the oil has darkened significantly.
How To Tell If Your Oil Is Hot Enough To Cook With
You can usually use the oil eight to ten times before it runs out, but remember that frying strong-smelling foods like seafood or salami from now on will add flavor to your oil.
When the oil is no longer usable, throw it away instead of pouring it down the drain – vegetable oil clogs the drain. In New Jersey, I can recycle my old cooking oil at our county’s semi-annual hazardous waste collection days.
Not sure what’s allowed in your area? Call your city’s recycling or public works department, check Earth 911 for local oil refiners, or talk to your favorite neighborhood restaurant about adding your oil to their recycling collection.
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Can You Fry With Olive Oil?
Casey Barber is the owner and founder of Good Food Stories LLC and a visual storyteller whose work often focuses on the intersection of food and culture. She is also a cookbook author.
And she couldn’t do anything without the help of her active helper cats Bixby and Lenny. Orange is obviously his favorite color. John D Lee is a chef and restaurateur based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. He always likes to cook.
If you don’t have an oil thermometer, be sure to use one of these simple methods to check the oil temperature before frying.
Have you ever used a recipe that calls for oil to be heated to 350°F or 370°F and wondered how, if you don’t use a deep-frying thermometer, how do you know when the oil is hot enough to fry?
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Frying is usually done between 360°F and 375°F. Here are three ways to check the temperature of your frying oil for doneness without using an oil-safe thermometer. These methods are designed to determine when the oil reaches this temperature range.
When the oil is hot, dip the handle of a wooden spoon or chopstick into the oil. If the oil begins to bubble gradually, the oil is hot enough for frying. If the oil bubbles very strongly, then the oil is too hot and needs to be cooled.
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