Electric Deep-Fryers Keep Your Workspace Clean . . . but Require Lots of Cleanup Themselves
Another quality testers appreciated: How neat almost all the fryers were. Frying in a Dutch oven can require a commitment to deep-cleaning your kitchen afterward, as oil can spatter all over your range, counter, exhaust hood or surrounding cabinetry. By contrast, most electric deep-fryers do a great job of containing those splatters. First, because they have relatively high walls, the food and oil sit fairly low inside the bin—as long as you observe the maximum fill lines. And second, all but one model came with lids that held in any spatter that might have managed to escape during cooking.
The trouble is, whatever time you gain from not having to clean your kitchen is lost again when you have to clean the machine itself. With most electric deep-fryers, you’re still going to have to get out a strainer and a coffee filter to clean the oil after every session, as we do after frying in a Dutch oven, removing old bits of batter or food that would otherwise burn and give your oil off-flavors during future frying sessions. (We’ve found that filtered frying oil can be cleaned and reused up to 3 times with no adverse effect on flavor.) Two machines had a small advantage: They featured built-in filters through which oil could be drained, eliminating the need to dirty extra tools.
But those filters couldn’t take away from the bigger problem: Once the oil is filtered and removed, you’re still going to have to clean the machine. That’s where things can get messy. Most of these fryers have a lot of parts, all of which get covered in oil and/or debris during cooking. The lids, bins, and baskets can be dropped in the dishwasher, but for best results, they first need to be wiped down thoroughly to remove as much oil as possible; often, they also require some scrubbing or detailing to get out any stuck-on bits of food. The control consoles and heating elements can’t be put in the dishwasher at all, but must be carefully cleaned by hand. By contrast, the cleanup after frying in a Dutch oven is pretty simple: Just wash the pot, probe thermometer, and whatever tool you used to fish out your food.
Leave a comment and join the conversation!