deep fry report.... I picked up a gallon of peanut oil and pulled out one of

R

randi

Well-known member
my larger pots. it took about 45 min to get up to a 375 temp. I had zucchinni, floured, dipped in egg and then bread crumbs all ready to go. I dropped about half of the zucs in the hot oil and had them out in 5 seconds. they, almost instantly, turned dark brown bordering on burned. OK, put them on paper and placed in a warm oven and brought the oil down 325. put the rest in and they too quickly browned. they were in so briefly that I wasn't sure they cooked.

the calamari were next so let the oil temp go down even further. (thank goodness I had the sense to put my kitchen work shirt on.) I dropped a handfull into the oil and it errupted. one friend is trying to find a fire extinguisher and get my shirt off cause she thought I would catch fire. sat her down with a glass of wine and that batch was done. the rest browned nicely without a lot of splatter.

the zucchinni were OK inspite of the brief fry time, not great, but OK. evidently, there are things I need to learn about frying with peanut oil. I used a fry thermomitor when I would normally just rely on instict as to when to add food. I noticed that the food absorbed more oil than it does with canola oil. although the oil reached the recommend temp, it was way too hot for the food.

Dawn, the Presto is fine, it took almost the same amount of time to heat the oil on the stovetop as it does with the Presto. really glad I experimented as the Presto is just perfect for smaller quantities.

 
Sounds like your thermometer may be off. . .

Does it read correctly at whatever the boiling point is at your house/altitude?

I hope you didn't literally mean "dropped" when you put your calimari in the hot oil! That would be very dangerous--you need to lower things into hot oil.

And a helpful tidbit of first aid information: should you burn yourself (hot oil or what ever)-- try to flush it and soak with cold water/ice water withing the first MINUTE... I just learned in a pathophysiology class that if you can cool a burn immediately within the first minute, you can actually cut down on the inflammatory process started by the burn, and thus cut down on tissue damage, but it has to be in the first minute. After this, the cold water/ice will make it feel better, but you won't help out with the inflammation response.

 
Randi, If I may, I would like to suggest that you check out the Cooks Essentials, at QVC

deep fryers. There are two that you may find very helpful. One is 1.25 qt. snack fryer for $24.95 and a programmable ss 3 qt. deep fryer for $54.75. This one could solve your temerature problem and still give you enough room to cook larger amounts. The cleanup is so easy and they work very well. If you decide to give a look see, click on the cooking and dining area or in the search, write in Cooks Esentials Deep Fryers.

www.qvc.com

 
the thermometer is new and I'll check with boiling water later to see if it's accurate.

and yes Mistral, I did the stupid thing and dropped the first batch of calamari instead of lowering it on the wire strainer. I had a heavey, denim work shirt on and was really lucky. just scared the beegeezus out of one of my friends who went into "momma cat" rescue mode immediately!

ice and iced gel packs will stop the burn if you put them on immediately. they've saved me many times from getting a serious burn. it's a great thing to know, thanks for posting it smileys/smile.gif

 
of course you may, thanks, I'll check them out. I just bought a 1 1/2 lb of smelts

for the next fish fry. smileys/smile.gif

 
Oh Randi you just tickled my accckkkkk bone...

When I was a kid my grandmother used to have smelt and corn dog frys with fresh sweet corn from her garden. I loved the corn dogs, with homemade batter. My mother decided that she wanted to have a smelt fry for dinner one time. I had to gut about a zillion smelt, and when it came time for dinner, I could not touch one. I ended up being sent to bed early for refusing to even eat one. I would have sat at the table all night before I would have eaten one. Accckkk.
Now if you would tell me, how do you prepare them? That and worms I found in my beautiful home-grown broccoli, in the pot, after we had already eaten a first helping. I think it was a decade before I could eat broccoli again.
Also, what kind of batter did you use for the calamari? One of my favorite all-time meals, I ate at George's At The Cove. They served fried calamai, on a bed of refried black beans with really garlicky aoli. That and salt and pepper calimari. I think I must be very hungry. lol.
I am glad the Presto is working, I felt awful that it wasn't.

 
I can so relate to that one. I also took out some of my oven roasted tomatoes saturday for sauce.

too much liquid and had lots of problems getting it to the point I felt was good enough to serve. (and thank you Joe for holding my hand through that one!) 3 hrs of fussing with and by the time it was served I didn't want anything to do with it.

after I clean and slice the calamari into rings, I spread it out on brown paper and let it dry a bit. before frying I just toss it with flour or a mix of flour and cornstarch. the same with the smelts. it just gives them a light coating and they fry up beautifully.

I put a little ramkin of Ragu marinara sauce that I heat and add cayenne to on each plate along with a half a lemon. for me, I like just lemon and salt on mine.

now, the zucchinni should have been batter dipped and not breaded. (thanks again Joe) that's why I had so many problems with them.

 
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