Frying foods...

For Christmas a while back, one of the gifts we got was an electric deep fryer -- one of those that you fill with oil and has a built-in frying basket that drops down with a simple handle flex. I've tried using it a couple of times, and encountered a really Annoying Problem. Namely, when I try to do things like tempura, the #$%(@ stuff sticks to the fry basket and requires a hammer or something else to get it off the basket. Yet I **KNOW** that places like Chinese restaurants routinely manage to deep fry this kiind of stuff without having it stick. Is there a trick to it? Is this fryer really only useful for just non-battered stuff (in which case, what a pain for making fish and chips -- you can make the chips in this thing, but not the battered fish...)?