deep frying?

[Tara & Guy]

Hi I stink at deep frying. Most recently I bought a box of
coconut shrimp with simple directions. Deep fry at 375 for 2
1/2 minute. I even bought a thermometer. Does anyone
remember my grease fire that burnt a wall in my old house?
:-) Funnel cake gone wrong.

Well, I had the grease at 365, added the shrimp, in 45
seconds they burnt and filled the house with smoke Got
them out of thwere fast, before the oil was flavored. Got
the oil down to 250 and the next batch came out perfect in
1.5 minutes.

Why such a difference in time and temp than the directions
said? Well, at least I stink at cooking the least healthful
food and I'm ok with foods that are better for us :-) Tara

[Bob]

Tara & Guy wrote:

> Hi I stink at deep frying. Most recently I bought a box of
> coconut shrimp with simple directions. Deep fry at 375 for
> 2 1/2 minute. I even bought a thermometer. Does anyone
> remember my grease fire that burnt a wall in my old house?
> :-) Funnel cake gone wrong.
>
> Well, I had the grease at 365, added the shrimp, in 45
> seconds they burnt and filled the house with smoke Got
> them out of thwere fast, before the oil was flavored. Got
> the oil down to 250 and the next batch came out perfect in
> 1.5 minutes.

I suspect your thermometer is drastically wrong. Put on a
pot of boiling water and see what it says.

Pastorio

>
> Why such a difference in time and temp than the directions
> said? Well, at least I stink at cooking the least
> healthful food and I'm ok with foods that are better for
> us :-) Tara

[Mark Thorson]

Tara & Guy wrote:

> Why such a difference in time and temp than the
> directions said?

The directions probably meant Fahrenheit.

[Jmcquown]

Tara & Guy wrote:
> Hi I stink at deep frying. Most recently I bought a box of
> coconut shrimp with simple directions. Deep fry at 375 for
> 2 1/2 minute. I even bought a thermometer.
(snippage)
> Tara

I don't bother with what the darned directions say, nor with
a thermometer. It's a simple matter to figure out if oil for
deep frying is not hot enough or too hot. Step back (this is
important!) and flick a drop of cold water in the oil. If it
freaks out (so to speak), it's probably too hot. If it
doesn't do much of anything, it's not hot enough. You want
it to start to bubble but not splatter.

You have to figure, if you're tossing in frozen food it's
got ice crystals on it. So if a drop of cold water makes it
go nuts and try to splatter, turn down the heat. When the
same test results in a reasonable bubble but not splatter
action, try a piece of the item (in this case, shrimp) and
see how it goes.

By the same token, those ice crystals are going to
significantly bring down the temp of the oil. So, cook
[whatever] in batches and let the oil come back up to
what you've determined is the ideal temp before adding
the next batch.

Good luck, Tara :)

Jill

[Bill]

On Sat, 03 Jul 2004 13:29:08 -0400, "Tara & Guy"
<pridy@accessless.net> wrote:

>Hi I stink at deep frying. Most recently I bought a box of
>coconut shrimp with simple directions. Deep fry at 375 for
>2 1/2 minute. I even bought a thermometer. Does anyone
>remember my grease fire that burnt a wall in my old house?
>:-) Funnel cake gone wrong.
>
>Well, I had the grease at 365, added the shrimp, in 45
>seconds they burnt and filled the house with smoke Got
>them out of thwere fast, before the oil was flavored. Got
>the oil down to 250 and the next batch came out perfect in
>1.5 minutes.
>
>Why such a difference in time and temp than the directions
>said? Well, at least I stink at cooking the least healthful
>food and I'm ok with foods that are better for us :-) Tara

Hey Tara! Funny you should mention deep frying today.
Yesterday my son brought his backyard type turkey fryer over
and we filled it half full of peanut oil, then we lit the
propane gas to heat it up. We had five pounds of peeled and
deveined shrimp to fry. We found that dipping and swishing
the shrimp in the batter and then just heaping them on a
dinner plate worked well to get them from the kitchen out to
the backyard. Then we used tongs to pick up individual
shrimp and drop them into the hot fat for cooking. Each one
took one to two minutes to brown nicely and then we scooped
them out. Everybody seemed to like the shrimp. We also
cooked some softshell crabs but apparently I didn't know the
proper way to clean the crabs before frying. The gills had
been removed from the crabs but they still had this yellow
stuff in them that probably should have been removed before
frying them. I thought they tasted wonderful but my wife was
a little taken aback watching me eat them with those little
legs dangling out of my mouth! Kinda like eating fried
terantulas!

Something else I discovered doing the backyard frying
yesterday. Be very carefull putting only small amounts of
food in the hot oil to cook. If you fill the bottom of the
fry basket it cools your oil down too much and it takes a
long time to heat back up. If you cook like a half dozen or
so shrimp at a time, they don't cool the oil down very much
and they cook fairly fast.

Regards, Bill

[Kswck]

"Tara & Guy" <pridy@accessless.net> wrote in message
news:10edocts5l1h348@corp.supernews.com...
> Hi I stink at deep frying. Most recently I bought a box of
> coconut shrimp with simple directions.
Deep
> fry at 375 for 2 1/2 minute. I even bought a thermometer.
> Does anyone remember my grease fire that burnt a wall in
> my old house? :-) Funnel
cake
> gone wrong.
>

You didn't learn from the first time to try deep-frying
outdoors? A suggestion: Next time-Outdoors, and use a long-
handled basket made just for that purpose.

[Patscga]

Get an electric fryer. Works for me. They come in many
different sizes. Pat

[Donna Rose]

In article <mdSFc.6061$o62.2448@bignews2.bellsouth.net>,
jmcquown@bellsouth.net says...
> don't bother with what the darned directions say, nor
> with a thermometer. It's a simple matter to figure out if
> oil for deep frying is not hot enough or too hot. Step
> back (this is important!) and flick a drop of cold water
> in the oil. If it freaks out (so to speak), it's probably
> too hot. If it doesn't do much of anything, it's not hot
> enough. You want it to start to bubble but not splatter.
>
>
I think it would be much safer dropping in a bread cube -
the test is the same - if it bubbles up furiously, it's too
hot; if it barely sizzles, it's not hot enough, etc. But in
this case I'd definitely depend on a thermometer (just test
it in boiling water first to make sure it's functioning
properly).
--
Donna A pessimist believes all women are bad. An optimist
hopes they are.

[Penmart01]

>"Kswck" sputters:
>
>"Tara & Guy" wrote:
>>
>> I stink at deep frying. Most recently I bought a box of
>> coconut shrimp with simple directions.
>Deep
>> fry at 375 for 2 1/2 minute. I even bought a thermometer.
>> Does anyone remember my grease fire that burnt a wall in
>> my old house? :-)
>
>You didn't learn from the first time to try deep-frying
>outdoors? A suggestion: Next time-Outdoors, and use a long-
>handled basket made just for that purpose.

Then why bother at all... all that will accomplish is
keeping the house from burning, but until it's figured out
*why*, the food will burn just as well (BADLY) outdoors as
indoors. Duh!

It should be quite problem-free to deep fry a few shrimp...
the OP is doing something incorrectly and doesn't know what,
obviously. The oil is too hot, there is no other reason for
burned deep fried food ... but very scanty info is offered,
don't even know if it's a thermostatically controlled deep
fryer or simply a potful of oil heating on the stove...
perhaps that new thermometer is inaccurate. Don't really
need any stinkin' thermometer... next time tune in the oil
temperature by cooking just *one* shrimp at a time... by the
3rd shrimp, if any kinda cook at all, the proper temperature
will be zeroed in.... now just refrain from overloading the
batches to prevent sodden/soggy and no one will need to
instead *burn* their food outdoors like a friggin'
IMBECILE... Kswk is *obviously* NOT any kind of a cook, he's
more of a fercocktah fireman. LOL

Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha. . .

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UNITED NATIONS To Paris =---
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