The food lab better home cooking through science ( PDFDrive ) 1075

Corn Oil 450°F 13% Palm Oil 450°F 81% Soybean Oil 495°F 14% Safflower Oil 510°F 9% Avocado Oil 520°F 12% THE MYTH OF THE FRY: USING HOTTER OIL DOES NOT LEAD TO LESS OIL IN YOUR FOOD Crack open nearly any book about deep-frying and you’ll find this advice: “Make sure that your oil is hot enough before adding your food, or it will absorb fat and become greasy.” The theory is that as long as your oil as hot enough, as soon as you lower your food into it, the outward pressure of water vapor bubbles escaping the food will prevent oil from rushing into the food, and therefore your food will remain grease free At first glance, it makes sense, right? I mean, we’ve all eaten bad fried food that’s come out of a too-cool fryer, and indeed it does taste heavy and greasy But is it actually because it contains more grease? A study reported in the Journal of Food Process Engineering says differently Turns out that the truth is quite the opposite: the hotter you fry your food, the more oil it will absorb See, most foods that you throw in the fryer—whether batter-coated food, potatoes, or a hunk of chicken—are filled with water They are literally saturated with the stuff Imagine that French fry, for example, as a hotel with no vacancies— every single room is filled up with a water molecule In order for any oil at all to penetrate the potato and take up residence, some of that water must first check out If you think about this, you already know it: drop a piece of cold potato into a cold pot of oil Does it absorb any of that oil? Nope Wash the potato off, and it’s as if the oil was never there Now, here’s the thing: water is pretty happy with its cellular accommodations The only way to get it to leave is through forceful eviction, namely by adding some energy to it in the form of heat When you drop a piece of potato into hot oil, energy from the oil is transferred to the water inside it, which will eventually absorb so much energy that it leaps from within the potato’s cells and escapes in a bubble of vapor—thus freeing up a room for the oil to check into The water in a piece of food being fried exists in two forms: Free water will easily escape, jumping out of the food ... reported in the Journal of Food Process Engineering says differently Turns out that the truth is quite the opposite: the hotter you fry your food, the more oil it will absorb See, most foods that... escaping the food will prevent oil from rushing into the food, and therefore your food will remain grease free At first glance, it makes sense, right? I mean, we’ve all eaten bad fried food that’s come out... Does it absorb any of that oil? Nope Wash the potato off, and it’s as if the oil was never there Now, here’s the thing: water is pretty happy with its cellular accommodations The only way to get it to leave is through forceful eviction, namely by adding some energy to