11
HINTS AND TIPS
• Adding food to the oil reduces the temperature of the oil.
• If you add a little food, the temperature will recover quickly, and the food will be cooked
properly.
• When you put food into the oil, you should see bubbles given off. This is steam, formed when
the moisture inside the food heats up.
• The steam coming out of the food prevents oil from soaking into the food and the food cooks
uniformly - firm and crisp.
• If you add too much food, the temperature will not recover and your food will absorb oil.
• If the oil foams and threatens to overflow, there's too much food in the basket (take some
out), the food is too moist (dry the food with paper towel and try again), or the oil is old or
contaminated (replace it).
• Every time oil is heated, it deteriorates.
• Every time food is put into it, moisture, particles of food and fat, flour and spices from
coatings, water from frozen foods, cause further deterioration.
• Particles blacken, burn, and stick to the next batch of food, altering its look and taste.
Filtering the oil can alleviate this a little.
• Pre-cooked and oven chips have a coating of oil from the pre-cooking process. This will
thicken and discolour the oil in your fryer.
• If you fry coated foods often, it's worth keeping two lots of oil, one for coated foods and one
for "oil-friendly" foods. Keep them in separate, labelled containers.
• Even filtered oil will be past its best after 10 to 12 uses. It may look OK, but it'll already have
affected the quality and taste of your food.
• As a rough guide, if you notice a marked improvement in flavour after changing the oil, you
should have changed it earlier.
• Do not top up oil that's past its best. You're just wasting new oil.
