Frying foods...

[seawasp]

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...)?

Comments

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

Don't use the basket to lower the food into the cooker. Carefully drop the food into the cooker by hand. Use the basket to remove and drain the food once cooked. Get your fingers nicely coated with batter. That will protect them from being cooked along with your food.

[melchar.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much the sum of the trick. Also - depending on the size of the cooker, you can cook more than one piece of food at a time - but don't let them touch each other when they are first introduced into the oil.

[You can get a real assembly line going.]

Also, I prefer to use a wire-slotted scoop to pull things out of the oil. It's shaped like a slightly bell-shaped spoon, so it provides a way to herd the cooking stuff around, as well as pulling out cooked bits. [and then put whatever on a few paper towels to drain.]

[k-kinnison.livejournal.com]

I use the wire spoon also, it is designed for frying

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Eh?

Using deep fat fryers is dead simple: you lower the basket into the fat, empty, then you drop the [battered] food in. The basket is merely for lifting the fried food out of the oil.

NB: the trick is to make sure that the outer surface of the food is completely dry (or as near to it as possible -- covered in batter or breadcrumbs will do) when it goes into the fat; moist food tends to sizzle and spit like crazy.

[k-kinnison.livejournal.com]

I often just use a wok with 3 cups of oil for frying. The trick is to make sure the food with batter doesn't stick to anything else.

as suggest above, you might want to try and lower the basket in first, THEN use chopsticks or even a spoon to drop the battered food in.