Tips for Getting the Perfect Fry

Frying foods is often considered an unhealthy option, since we add more oil to the food than when using other cooking methods. Today we’re going to see that it’s not all drawbacks and how can we make and enjoy a good fried dish.

Frying foods is a very traditional option, with a culinary value we should not dismiss. Fried foods not only gain in flavor but we can also achieve a very appealing texture and try to limit oil absorption as much as possible.

The art of frying (because frying well is quite an art!) presents a great paradox: it is often thought that it’s better to fry with little oil, in order to somehow limit the oil the food will absorb. But our recommendation is fry using a generous amount of oil, enough so that we can submerge completely the food inside the oil.

The intention is form the scab as quickly as possible to sear the food. This way, we achieve a good texture and will limit the amount of oil the food absorbs.

De Buyer Mineral B iron frying pan

Moreover, the crust manages to retain the nutrients in foods, so fried foods end up preserving nutrients better than those cooked using other techniques (boiling, for example).

To get the crust to form quickly, The key is to fry in very hot oil. If we use little oil, it cools upon contact with the food, so the crust formation process takes much longer, and the food absorbs oil and loses nutrients.

For this reason it is important to completely submerge the food and do not fry many pieces at once. The more food we add to the oil, the more we reduce the cooking temperature. It’s best to find a balance between the amount of oil we use and the food we can add at once.

It is also important use a good virgin olive oil (withstands temperature better than the sunflower one) and never let it exceed 190 ºC, since we don't want to burn it.

We can reuse the oil, but it’s advisable to separate the one we use for fish from the one we use for meat. Oil picks up a lot of aroma, and it will permeate the food. This in itself isn’t entirely bad, as it can enhance flavors if we know how to use it to our advantage. It’s always very important to leave the food scraps in the pan when we recycle the oil (some … might be useful to you oil recovery units).

For frying it is highly recommended to use iron frying pans, and not with nonstick. The reason is that the high temperatures we require for frying can damage both the pan and the nonstick coating (bad for the pan and for our health). A iron frying pan it has no coating and is thick and robust, so it will easily withstand the high temperatures required for frying.

The pan I find ideal for frying and the one I always recommend is the De Buyer deep frying pan or the deep fryer with basket De Buyer, which are high enough to submerge food. They’ll also be useful for searing meat, sautéing vegetables, or using them as you would any cast-iron pan.

De Buyer deep frying pan and WMF Skimmer

Another alternative that I really like is to use a cast iron saucepan like Le Creuset's, and submerge the ingredients one by one.

By following these few guidelines, you'll get great results when frying. Remember that the most important thing is to seal the food, so it's vital that the food fries quickly in plenty of hot oil. You can also pat it dry at the end with a paper towel.

One more thing before we finish is to tell you that to take your food out of the oil, if you're not using a basket, it's highly recommended to use a slotted spoon instead of tongs: with tongs, it's easy to squeeze the croquettes, turnovers, vegetables.... and break or deform them. With a slotted spoon you can pick them out of the oil carefully without breaking them, while also draining them of oil before transferring them to the plate or tray where you will serve them.

To wrap up, here’s a tip for reusing food scraps from oil or the oil itself when we want to dispose of it: we can gradually put food scraps and used oil into a container (a glass jar) along with grease-soaked paper towels and other papers or cardboard that we’re recycling in the kitchen (the cardboard core from the finished paper towel roll). This jar will come in very handy for pulling out bits and soaked papers and using them to light the fireplace or wood-burning stove in winter. You already know I love to recycle!