I’m planning on frying some okra tonight and Alton’s recipe calls for oil heated to 370[sup]o[/sup].
I don’t have a thermometer capable of measuring that, and I don’t plan on buying, inheriting, or discovering one between now and dinnertime. Is there a way to estimate this temperature?
Not accurately, no. You might try heating it at medium-high and keep some chunks of potato handy. When you can slide a piece of spud into the oil and it immediately is surrounded by bubbles, you’re probably close. It would be safer to just go out and spend the $3 for a thermometer.
Pooh. My cheapskate nature rankles.
Thanks for the advice, though. I guess I’ll go ahead and spring for it. Of course, then I’ll be able to make my own fudge, and that just can’t be a good thing.
A Chinese cookbook I read once said that if you can stick a chopstick into the oil and bubbles start to come up the sides, it’s hot enough for deep-frying. It’s worked for me so far, but I don’t do much deep-frying.
A thermometer is one of those things on my list of things to never remember to get around to buying.
I heat up the oil and get a little water on my fingers from the faucet, and flick a couple drops into the oil. When it pops & sizzles, the oil’s hot.
What worries me a little isn’t that oil isn’t hot enough, it’s that it could become too hot. I had a pot catch on fire once when I was a kid, and it scared me for life.
Well, $15 dollars later, I’ve got me a digital thermometer. I didn’t really plan on going digital, but all the analog instant-reads were only good to 220[sup]o[/sup]F, so I had to kick it up a n-
Nope, can’t do it.