The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

alone here. I love fried chicken. You love fried chicken. Irving our doorman loves fried chicken. Ou ...

{ WHAT IS DEEP- FRYING? } If there’s one cooking technique that home cooks fear more than any other, it’ ...

of oil up to 375°F on your stovetop is a frightening prospect. But what if I told you th ...

they can do it, then so can you. Here’s what happens when you drop a piece of food into a deep fr ...

oven. This expansion brings lightness and crispness to fried foods. Protein coagulation. Cooking in ho ...

own, with very little direction needed from you, the cook. THE WOK: THE BEST VESSEL FOR DEEP-FRYING F ...

in a Dutch oven, you know that your range gets splattered with little droplets of oil splas ...

technique more economical. The edges of a Dutch oven can harbor burnt bread crumbs, little bits of French ...

Don’t Fear the Fat! A hot wok of oil is nothing to be trifled with, but just like a pit bull, it can sense ...

foods into the oil a piece at a time will also keep battered items from sticking together in ...

smaller batches. Dry = Good As we’ve discussed, deep-frying is essentially a process of dehydration. The hot oil cau ...

a bowl to get rid of any leftover detritus. Keep It Moving Ever notice how when you’re in a cool swi ...

rack, very little oil actually drips out of the food—the oil’s surface tension keeps it in place. A paper ...

you’ve just fried dog sh*t. If it comes out of the fryer, you season it the second it does!” And he’s righ ...

“vegetable” oil (usually a mix of soybean and corn oil), grapeseed oil, and bacon fat. I imm ...

We hear the terms “saturated fat” and “unsaturated fat” thrown about often, but what do they r ...

Highly saturated fats like lard or shortening are solid at room temperature and melt into a liquid w ...

account trans and cis fats, terms used to describe the geometry of unsaturated fats. Trans fats are ...

rendered bacon fat). Avoid using bacon fat for more delicate things like vegetables or fish. Q: I’ve h ...

Unfortunately, when you fry, all three of these types of exposure occur in abundance. On its ...