I finally went out and bought a deep fryer, and last Friday I held the seventh Houston "Fryday" event. Pictured above is my deep frying rig. On the left is the fryer, a Philips HD6161 fryer. It's pretty nice, as budget fryers go. Vented lid (with window) to prevent spattering but allow the escape of steam, the basket is maneuverable with the lid on, stainless steel modular construction for easy cleanup, and a digitally controlled heating element. On the right, the draining rig - a cookie sheet with a cooling rack set on top.
I practiced using easy stuff - zucchini, potatoes, mushrooms - and then gradually started frying more interesting things, like battered scallops (fresh from J & R Seafood). My brilliant idea for this time around was fried chili. Not fried chilies, but chili - the stew-like substance that we all love on cold winter days. I put small dollops on wax paper and froze them, and then when I pulled them, dipped them in egg wash and rolled them in crushed Fritos twice. Then I threw them in the oil. They were pretty fantastic. We also fried various cookies, ice cream, sausages, pickles, and more.
Clean up was not fun - frying sweet stuff generally makes the oil go bad really, really quickly, especially when people have been drinking and are no longer paying attention to the fryer. What began as light golden oil ended up a dark brown syrup, and there was a blackened sludge at the bottom of the fryer. Surprisingly enough, it was all very easy to clean - I poured the oil back into its original bottle using an improvised funnel of aluminum foil and the rest of the fryer disassembled into the component parts for easy cleaning.
