cooking oil

[zahc]

My wife bought a small countertop-size fryer for making french fries and cheese sticks and whatnot. What kind of oil are you supposed to use for frying food? Also, what are you supposed to do with the oil when it's used? I'm pretty sure pouring it down the drain is a bad idea, but I don't know what else to do with it.

[K Frame]

Canola oil, peanut oil, or safflower oil. They take high heat.

After using it, filter it through cheese cloth and/or coffee filters to remove the solids and refrigerate. You can reuse it several times.

When its time to dispose of it, take it outside and dump it on the ground for the animals. They love the stuff.

[AJ Dual]

You use whatever you can lay your hands on that has the highest smoke point.

Extra refined fryer-grade soy has a smoke point of 495F and that's decent. IIRC only safflower oil would be higher. Maybe some weird expensive thing might be even higher than that, but it probably won't taste right. Safflower oil tastes/smells funny to me as-is.

The main problem is that most home fryers don't go very far above 400F, if at all, to try and make them lawyer-proof. And that makes producing crispy fries tough, because the smaller home fryers don't have enough thermal mass when the food is dropped in like a big-vat commercial unit does, and it cools down too much, and you have soggy food sometimes.

You can strain the oil, and keep it in an airtight container to keep it from oxidizing and get a few uses out of it.

ETA (Mike's suggestion of Peanut oil is a good one. It's a bit lower than Soy, but fries in peanut oil taste awesome.)

[Boomhauer]

Definitley don't pour it down the drain.

After the oil is done for, pouring it in a container such as a soda bottle, the empty oil bottle, Crisco can, whatever, works fairly well. I think some areas have cooking oil disposal while others you put the oil container in a trash bag and throw it out with your normal trash.

I've never used a fry daddy or anything like that, so I couldn't give you specific usage tips. We do our frying in a cast iron pot heated on the stove, or in a big pot on an outdoor burner.

[MillCreek]

For the rare times that I do deep fat frying, I use peanut oil.  I use either a stock pot on the stove, or a Presto kitchen kettle multi-cooker in order to get the proper temperature.  I had a couple counter-top deep fryers over the years, and none of them got hot enough to do a proper job.

[zxcvbob]

Coconut oil (refined) or peanut oil.  Cheap vegetable oil (soy or canola) works just fine if you only use it once or twice and then throw it out, otherwise it starts to polymerize.

[Scout26]

And if you have a diesel engine, you can burn the waste oil in that.

[Jim147]

And if you have a diesel engine, you can burn the waste oil in that.

Just make sure you get all the crunchy bits out.

jim

[charby]

I save my left over cooking oil for starting camp fires.

[French G.]

Peanut oil. If I want to kitchen fry lately I am using a big saucepan and a gas burner cranked to 11, get it as hot as I want. Normal cooking duties I am in love with grapeseed oil, but I'm thinking that it would taste funny for deep fried stuff and it isn't cheap. Crispy fries? 50lbs of potatoes, trash can full of salt water to soak them and a turkey fryer. Why screw around? 

[lupinus]

Depends what I am deep frying. For most things (french fries, fish, etc.) I use peanut oil as my basic frying oil.

To be realistic though, in your average deep fryer as described, any basic vegetable/canola/corn/etc oil will serve as well as the other. They all have smoke points that are reasonable and are fairly flavor neutral. Experiment and see what you personally like best.

Really the only oil you want to stay away from is olive oil. It has a lower smoking point and is defiantly not flavor neutral so will impart flavor to food. That said, once you get the hang of it, foods fried in olive oil (at the appropriate temps) can be delightful. When making certain dishes, this is what I fry in.

Course.....there's always lard 

[zxcvbob]

Depends what I am deep frying. For most things (french fries, fish, etc.) I use peanut oil as my basic frying oil.

To be realistic though, in your average deep fryer as described, any basic vegetable/canola/corn/etc oil will serve as well as the other. They all have smoke points that are reasonable and are fairly flavor neutral. Experiment and see what you personally like best.

Really the only oil you want to stay away from is olive oil. It has a lower smoking point and is defiantly not flavor neutral so will impart flavor to food. That said, once you get the hang of it, foods fried in olive oil (at the appropriate temps) can be delightful. When making certain dishes, this is what I fry in.

Course.....there's always lard 

Cheap ("pure") olive oil is OK.  "Extra Virgin" oil is what you don't want to use for frying.

[sanglant]

i couldn't see this in the thread so i'll add it.

for frys, you have two choices. one, you can cut the fries small enough so the cook through as they are crispy. two, you cut them like you want them, then you fry them at a low temp to cook through*, then let them drain/cool, then when you're ready to eat refry them at a high temp to crisp/brown them.

*takes some practice, bigger fries longer, smaller fries less time.

or you could just buy prefried, frozen fries. faster, and cheaper. unless you don't eat many and they get all iced up in the freezer. they do throw a lot of crap into your oil though.

oh, and try some mozzarella sticks.

as for oil, i use peanut. can't stand the smell and after taste of rapeseed oil.

[MrsSmith]

Peanut oil. And you can use cheese cloth to strain/clean, but easier just to throw in a couple handfuls of sliced or "fry cut" potatoes. They'll absorb food remnants, odors, and "aftertastes" of whatever you've fried previously. If you finish with a batch of french fries each time you use it, the oil will last for a long time.

[coppertales]

Lard is the best.  However, most of you are too young to have tasted food fried in lard...........................chris3

[lupinus]

Lard is the best.  However, most of you are too young to have tasted food fried in lard...........................chris3

Local BBQ place still uses lard IIRC

[K Frame]

Lard is a rather mediocre frying medium from a taste standpoint.

Beef tallow is the way to go.

French fries or onion rings fried in beef tallow simply can't be described.