I don't eat a lot of fried foods for heath reasons but I do love it once in
a while. I recently bought one of those nice rectangular, stainless steel
deep fryers with a nice basket. Look professional but is for the home. My
problem is that when I do batter fried things like fish and onion rings
(especially onion rings) they stick to the basket. When I try and pry them
loose I usually loose some of the outer coating. With Onion rings it is
especially bad. I don't even make them because they just get all broken up
(me to) when I try and pry them loose from the basket. Can anyone give me
any pointers. Do I need a thicker batter? I used a commercial batter mix
and make it to the consistency of pancake batter, maybe a little thinner.
It coats them nicely but as soon as I drop them in the basket, they fall to
the bottom and get stuck. Help would be greatly appreciated.

Remove nospam to respond.

Soak your onions in ice water before drying, coating and frying.




On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 19:12:21 -0800, "cc0112453"
> wrote:

>I don't eat a lot of fried foods for heath reasons but I do love it once in
>a while. I recently bought one of those nice rectangular, stainless steel
>deep fryers with a nice basket. Look professional but is for the home. My
>problem is that when I do batter fried things like fish and onion rings
>(especially onion rings) they stick to the basket. When I try and pry them
>loose I usually loose some of the outer coating. With Onion rings it is
>especially bad. I don't even make them because they just get all broken up
>(me to) when I try and pry them loose from the basket. Can anyone give me
>any pointers. Do I need a thicker batter? I used a commercial batter mix
>and make it to the consistency of pancake batter, maybe a little thinner.
>It coats them nicely but as soon as I drop them in the basket, they fall to
>the bottom and get stuck. Help would be greatly appreciated.
>
>Remove nospam to respond.
>
>

"try frying them without the basket in, and then use a slotted spoon
to take them out and any bits of batter left behind.only do a few at a
time so they do not stick together. had the same trouble with batter
covered pork balls for a chinese meal.

"paula" > wrote in message
om...
> "try frying them without the basket in, and then use a slotted spoon
> to take them out and any bits of batter left behind.only do a few at a
> time so they do not stick together. had the same trouble with batter
> covered pork balls for a chinese meal.

you could try heating the basket with the oil so that the onion rings fry
instantly on contact and therefore not stick
Diane

cc0112453 wrote:

> I don't eat a lot of fried foods for heath reasons but I do love it once in
> a while. I recently bought one of those nice rectangular, stainless steel
> deep fryers with a nice basket. Look professional but is for the home. My
> problem is that when I do batter fried things like fish and onion rings
> (especially onion rings) they stick to the basket. When I try and pry them
> loose I usually loose some of the outer coating. With Onion rings it is
> especially bad. I don't even make them because they just get all broken up
> (me to) when I try and pry them loose from the basket. Can anyone give me
> any pointers. Do I need a thicker batter? I used a commercial batter mix
> and make it to the consistency of pancake batter, maybe a little thinner.
> It coats them nicely but as soon as I drop them in the basket, they fall to
> the bottom and get stuck. Help would be greatly appreciated.

I'm assuming that you put that basket down and then drop the onion
rings into the hot oil rather than putting the freshly coated onion
rings into the basket and then lower it. That last guarantees that
they'll weld themselves to the basket.

Several possibilities:
1) your batter is too thin
2) your batter is too thick

Go to a source that gives you a scratch batter and see if that's any
better. I suspect it might be. Baking powder can lose its strength,
fats can oxidize and change characteristics. Mixes make it hard to see
those effects.

3) your oil isn't hot enough (should be at least 365F)
4) your oil isn't deep enough
5) Lower them into the oil instead of dropping

Pastorio

Several other people gave excellent suggestions. Here is what I have to add:

First, do not overload the basket. This is true for anything you fry in
a home deep frier. Home friers simply do not have powerful enough
heating coils. When you add in a bunch of frozen or room temperature
food you take heat from the oil. The more you add, the lower the
temperature. This means longer cooking times and potentially problems
like you have with food sticking to the basket or to itself (i.e. an
onion ring log).

Second, don't just let the food sit until it is done -- shake it up like
they do at fast food restaurants. If you shake the basket it forces the
food to move around (assuming the basket isn't overloaded), so there is
less of a chance it will stick to the basket. I have no proof, but I
also think it helps heat the food evenly given the generally inadequat
heating coils in home deep friers.

Deep frying does not have to be unhealthy, whatever your subjective
definition of "healthy" is (low fat? low carb? vegetarian?). If you pick
the right oil in which to fry food, pick the right kind of batter, etc,
you can cook moderately healthy food no matter what diet you are on. Try
Googling this newsgroup, this topic has come up several times in the
past few months.

--
John Gaughan
http://www.johngaughan.net/