Home fryers (air fryer?)

[Danno]

as in "school me on"...

In this crazy keto diet, frying is now a viable method of cooking diet food. Made some wings last week via the serious eats confit first method, and they were really good. But it was very wasteful re oil (because we had no plans to fry more and had no fryer), and overall the process was annoying as far as keeping the oil temp correct. Which got me thinking about deep fryers.

What do I need to know about buying some kind of home setup? Is an air fryer an alternative? Or should we have both?

This is all new to me, edumacate me.

[Flyoverland Captive]

Keep a fire extinguisher handy.

[billyk]

I bought a fryer a few years ago and made one batch of freedom frys with it. Not one of my better purchases. It may still have the oil in it.

[old goat]

Use a large heavy pot you can use for other stuff, when done strain the oil through cheese cloth into a sealed container to reuse. Depending on how picky you are about taste and what you're deep frying this may or may not work for you. Because of the mess and the amount of oil it uses we don't deep fry much. Easier to go out for deep fried food.

[BCMtnHound]

A deep cast iron frying pan with lid, on the outdoor campchef stove is how we do all our deep frying. Don’t monitor the temp too closely other than to check the state of cooking periodically. Pour the oil through a strainer into a jar for the next round. We only deep fry outside. It’s not an often meal, but always enjoyed. Mostly spuds and the occasional meat.

[old goat]

For good fries the double frying method is key.

[DBdude]

as in "school me on"...

In this crazy keto diet, frying is now a viable method of cooking diet food. Made some wings last week via the serious eats confit first method, and they were really good. But it was very wasteful re oil (because we had no plans to fry more and had no fryer), and overall the process was annoying as far as keeping the oil temp correct. Which got me thinking about deep fryers.

What do I need to know about buying some kind of home setup? Is an air fryer an alternative? Or should we have both?

This is all new to me, edumacate me.

i store oil that I have used frying in a mason jar in the fridge - works great

[Dantheman]

as in "school me on"...

In this crazy keto diet, frying is now a viable method of cooking diet food.

Is it technically keto, sure. Is it healthy, no. Oxidized fats are definitely bad for you, and deep frying is a sure-fryer way to incorporate a whole bunch of them into your diet. As an occasional thing at home it's not the worst thing in the world, since you can use better oils and the oil gets heated up for maybe an hour and gets reused 5-10 times. Compare that to restaurants or commercial fryers using the cheapest shit oils available, the oil spends 8-12 hours a day at 350*, and they change it out once a week at best[/shudder]. Even at home though, it's not a cooking method that should be in your regular rotation.

No help on air fryers.

[MTT]

I saw an infomercial for this over the weekend. Who knows? Looked good on the TV

No Oil
https://www.hayneedle.com/product/ka...lyairfryer.cfm

[Thaleia]

I was ready to buy a deep dryer or air fryer, but after a few hours poking around online I found the general consensus is they're too smelly and hard to clean, and most people regret buying them. As suggested here, I opted for a cast iron dutch oven and a decent digital thermometer for the few times I want some falafels or wings at home.

[Skidog]

For good fries the double frying method is key.

I prefer blanching first.

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[nickwm21]

A fryer just makes getting to a maintained 350deg slightly easier. If you know your stove, you can probably dial in that oil temp with a digital thermometer just as quickly.

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[bagtagley]

Alton Brown's oven wings are as good or better than fried. There are some solid oven french fry recipes out there as well. Not quite the same as fried, but close enough.

Not what you asked, but I was going to post the same thing as Dan. Though, I don't feel bad frying stuff in some home-rendered lard, or duck fat. MMmmmm, duck fat.

[LegoSkier]

Just posting that I would never buy a deep fryer but I did get one through my last job. Hit the 5 year service anniversary and they give you this catalog of stuff you can select as a gift. I was like f the watch/pen and got a Waring single basket fryer. Maybe use it twice a year. It does take a lot of oil to even fill to where the basket has enough coverage but it does make maintaining the temp easy. I pretty much use it as a "lets have a party where we fry everything" thing and not in any daily use.

[billyk]

The best fried food that I ever had was at my Louisiana relatives house, fried chicken and corn pones. They just used a cast iron skillet. God knows what kind of oil it was (maybe lard?), but it was real tasty.

[skaredshtles]

<snip> God knows what kind of oil it was (maybe lard?), but it was real tasty.

Undoubtedly.

The lord of the oils...

[skifishbum]

For a life coach
You sure ask a lot of questions
Pm smokey mc pole
From the colorado cartel culinary institute of deep frying

[toast2266]

We have a 2 basket Presto Profry. We don't use it very often, but it seems to work well. It's a lot easier to get good results than frying with oil in a pot on a stove - the fryer seems to maintain the oil temp better, and clean up is way easier. Since it's a dedicated fryer, we just leave the oil in it between uses. It lives in the garage with a cover on it, mostly because we don't want the inside of the house to smell like a fryer. We'll strain / filter the oil occasionally to get junk out of it, but for the most part, we do very little maintenance on the thing. In the winter the oil gels up in the cold and looks gross, but as soon as it heats up it's back to normal.

[concretejungle]

Hey guys my new fad diet says mainlining heroin is ok so who has the best method for it? I can't smoke it because my new fad diet says smoke is bad. Thanks.

[adrenalated]

Nobody mentioned PMing Rontele for fryer beta? Aren't he and Blurred both fryer specialists at KFC?

[Danno]

Hey guys my new fad diet says mainlining heroin is ok so who has the best method for it? I can't smoke it because my new fad diet says smoke is bad. Thanks.

heroin sounds cool

[Cruiser]

I use my grandmother's older sister's chicken frier and a fancy ($12 shipped on Amazon) non contact infrared thermometer. Nice mix of low tech and high tech tools...

[Pegleg]

I have a Presto ProFry deep fryer. You can have it if you want it - it just sits in the garage. I prefer using a Dutch oven or cast iron pan on the stove; it seems to do a better job of maintaining temp (you do have to watch it and adjust the heat, but the Presto takes forever to recover temp after you put the food in) and it's easier to clean.

The key to deep frying is the right temp. If it's too cool, your food will take forever to cook and will get very greasy. Frying at 350-375 is generally what you want; food will be crisp and won't absorb too much oil. That means not only waiting until it gets to temp initially, but also waiting until it recovers between each batch of food. If you get impatient, your fried food will suck. This means that frying more than a little bit at a time will take a while. (This isn't true of professional friers that have really powerful heat sources and can continually fry batches, but home fryers and stovetops aren't that powerful.)

As far as reusing oil, you can filter it and reuse it a few times but it does start to break down after a few uses so you don't want to use it more than a few times. The exception is if you fry fish - anything else you fry in that oil will taste like fish, so that's a one-and-done for that batch of oil.

No experience with air fryers. I think they're basically just standalone convection ovens (i.e. heating elements and fans). If there is no hot oil making contact with the food to conduct heat into it, then by definition it's not being "fried." I'm sure it tastes good, but it's the same thing as roasting in a convection oven so I'm not sure why you'd need a separate appliance for that.

[Benny Profane]

I have a Breville deep fryer I found on a closeout table at Williams Sonoma super cheap.
Two advantages over stove top methods. Temp control and much less mess. One of my favorite things to make is deep fried Brussel sprouts, which would boil over like mad in a pot immediately. Downside is clean up, and, by that, getting rid of a few quarts of oil. The fryer Itself cleans easily. I usually "schedule" it's use for two or three days, before I clean it up.
I use canola oil. I make some pretty awesome stuff in it when it's on. Recently I wowed them with rizzoto balls. Fantastic.

[willywhit]

Hot Air Fryer FTW. I've been using one a lot for about a year now. I use a metal tray covered with tin foil in the basket, otherwise the drippings would be a nasty mess all the time. Burgers in 7 minutes. Chicken breast in 12 minutes. Just toss the foil and rinse the tray. so easy.
I've also grown fond of the crock pot and finish it off in the air fryer to crisp it up. Anything fried in oil and batter messes me up big time. waking up hours later wanting to puke like it's heartburn sucks.
I'd like to hear more about the KETO diet. I ordered the trial size pills but can't bring myself to start it. Just seems really sketchy and I just had a friend die of a heart attack, it made me super paranoid.
this bad boy https://www.kohls.com/product/prd-25...FRUIDAodLikGZw