Greasy deep fry?

[tavaritz]

Hello.

Why is that everyone and their uncle think that deep frying something makes the food immediately greasy?

A good batter does not retain the deep fying oil or grease but insted it flows off to the paper you put the final product on. How many greasy potato chips you’ve eaten?

I personally think that people just does not heat the oil or grease enough and that’s why they get greasy product.

Topi

[Acierocolotl]

@tavaritz

How many greasy potato chips you’ve eaten?

I can’t address the rest of your post, but this part, that I can address.

As a lab assistant at my alma mater, we would amuse and impress highschool students who were prospective undergraduates with chemistry stunts. One of these stunts was lighting potato chips on fire; the heat was sufficient to melt the grease and drip flaming gobbets.

So the answer is, simply, “all of them”. All the potato chips are greasy.

I would wager that if you made two pieces of food, each identical to the other, dry-baked one and fried the other, then put them both in a bomb calorimeter and measured their caloric output, the baked one would come up quite a bit less than the fried one.

The difference would be the oil retained.

[bob_2]

Here is a New Zealand study on the fat content of chips (fries) and the variations by cooking temperature etc.

Much of the fat is absorbed by the chip after being removed
from the fryer and is related to the adhesion of the fat to the chip
surface. As only 56% of the outlets fulfilled our criteria of adequate drainage, post-cooking technique may be a fruitful area
for training. With short frying times of 3-4.5 minutes, an extra
bang of the basket can reduce fat content of chips by two percentage points.

In a survey
of 150 hot chip outlets in New Zealand, the study found that the
fat content of this deep-fried food ranged from 5% to 20%, with
an average of 11.5%. Furthermore, they confirmed the results of
earlier studies which found that the hotter the temperature of the
cooking fat, the lower the fat content of the product as consumed,
and that chip morphology, through an effect on the surface area
to volume ratio, is also an important determinant of fat content.
Thin and crinkle cut chips absorb more fat than thicker, flat-cut
chips.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1467-842X.2002.tb00900.x

[engineer_comp_geek]

Moderator Action

Moving thread from GQ to the greasy Cafe Society.

[terentii]

The best french fries I’ve ever had came from a little hole-in-the-wall bar on the edge of downtown Minneapolis. They were obviously fried in lard, because the grease formed a lovely, flavorful film on the inside of my mouth. When people talk about umami, this is what they mean! :o

[Tim_T-Bonham.net]

@tavaritz

A good batter does not retain the deep fying oil or grease but insted it flows off to the paper you put the final product on. How many greasy potato chips you’ve eaten?

For American potato chips (English crisps), I spend several years working in a factory for them. Everything in the production half of the factory was greasy, and so were your clothes after a shift or two.

To test this, just empty a portion of chips onto a paper towel and leave them sit there for a half-hour or so. Then dump them into a bowl and look at the paper towel – it will be stained with big areas of oil that came off the chips. There’s a lot of oil left on them.

[Chefguy]

@Tim_T-Bonham.net

For American potato chips (English crisps), I spend several years working in a factory for them. Everything in the production half of the factory was greasy, and so were your clothes after a shift or two.

To test this, just empty a portion of chips onto a paper towel and leave them sit there for a half-hour or so. Then dump them into a bowl and look at the paper towel – it will be stained with big areas of oil that came off the chips. There’s a lot of oil left on them.

Or just eat a few and look at your fingers.

[Ukulele_Ike]

@engineer_comp_geek

Moving thread from GQ to the greasy Cafe Society.

Hey! We are NOT greasy! I’m IRISH!

I never deep-fry, only pan-fry. My medium is always nice and hot when I drop dredged chicken pieces or pork chops into it, and I’ve had nothing but compliments from folks who were afraid they’d have to eat greasy fried chicken or whatever.

[Acierocolotl]

@Tim_T-Bonham.net

For American potato chips (English crisps), I spend several years working in a factory for them. Everything in the production half of the factory was greasy, and so were your clothes after a shift or two.

Plain chips can serve as a candle in a pinch! I imagine the flavoured ones would be outright incendiary, all that powder being basically zesty-tasty napalm.

[DrCube]

Let’s draw a distinction between “greasy” and “contains fat”. Cake contains fat, but that doesn’t mean it’s greasy. OP is right that proper frying temperature and drainage will result in fried foods that are not greasy. Everyone else is right that fried foods still retain a fair amount of the cooking fat.

[kanicbird]

@DrCube

Let’s draw a distinction between “greasy” and “contains fat”. Cake contains fat, but that doesn’t mean it’s greasy. OP is right that proper frying temperature and drainage will result in fried foods that are not greasy. Everyone else is right that fried foods still retain a fair amount of the cooking fat.

Well yes and no. ‘Greasy’ seams something of a range that starts when there is a certain amount of oil retained in the food. The point where the oil starts to oversaturate and remain as oil, instead of a dissolved in the batter mixture.

But the OP clearly is under the impression that the oil can be completely drained out by the proper batter, cooking method and draining method:

A good batter does not retain the deep fying oil or grease but insted it flows off to the paper you put the final product on. How many greasy potato chips you’ve eaten?

Which I suspect is in error, but perhaps there are such good batters. I would say proper frying and draining, and I will add finishing the cooking on a oven rack, can greatly reduce the amount of retained oil to the point that the food does not taste greasy to many people, but ut still contains a good amount of that oil.

[lingyi]

This is one of a series of Crisco commercial from the 70’s showing that only one tablespoon of oil is absorbed when frying chicken: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haWZfiPCD7Q. I don’t know how true it is, but as has been stated, properly done, deep fried foods don’t retain as much oil as most people think.

On the other hand, if you need a good fire starter, ditch potato chips and use Cheetos! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I9AD0netPY. I think the reason the Cheetos burn so well is because the airy nature of them gives more surface area.

[kanicbird]

@lingyi

This is one of a series of Crisco commercial from the 70’s showing that only one tablespoon of oil is absorbed when frying chicken: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haWZfiPCD7Q. I don’t know how true it is, but as has been stated, properly done, deep fried foods don’t retain as much oil as most people think. …

Note: That was french fries, not batter dipped fried chicken.

[lingyi]

@kanicbird

Note: That was french fries, not batter dipped fried chicken.

Oops, just remembered the commercials and didn’t pay attention to what was being fried. Thanks!