Frying
Because fat, oil or butter is essential to frying, the common idea is that the food cooked in this way must be rich and greasy. There cannot be a greater mistake. The fats are essential to it, not because of their richness, but because of the great heat which they can transmit. If water could be heated up to 300° or 400°, it would produce all the effect of frying. In the article on boiling it has been explained how meat plunged into boiling water (212°) has the albumen coagulated on the surface in the first five minutes which is as it were a coatof-mail through which the water cannot penetrate and the juices cannot escape. Much more is this coat-of-mail rapidly and decidedly formed if the food is plunged into a fluid at the temperature of 300° or 400°. That fluid is fat, and it neither penetrates into fish, flesh or vegetable, nor does it allow their juices to exude. It has not only this preservative effect on the interior of the food-it also developes the roast appearance and flavour on the exterior. The difference between roasting and boiling is not a difference Frying between the mediums, be it water, fat, air, or steam, which may surround the food in the process of cooking: it is a difference entirely of temperature; and frying, which by means of the fats conveys heat to the food at a temperature varying from the boiling point of water upwards to 300°, 400°, 500°, and even higher, is in fact a species of roasting. Any one who likes may try this experiment, which ought to enlighten him as to the nature of frying. If he wishes to be very accurate, he can send to E. Cetti and Co., 11, Brooke Street, Holborn, London, who will provide him with a thermometer registering up to 500° Fahrenheit for three shillings. Negretti and Zambra will charge double and four times the sum. Put a leg of mutton into a kettle of fat at the frying temperature of 400°. In 14 or 1½ hour (it depends on the size) that is, in half the ordinary time-it will come out a perfectly roasted gigot, and nobody at the table who is not warned of a difference will discover any between it and a leg of mutton roasted in the ordinary way. This is a little secret for those who have to study the arts of impromptu cookery; and here it is let out only to illustrate the nature of frying, and to show that it is but a manner of roasting-the most certain and expeditious manner of safely transmitting the roasting heat.
If the reader has grasped this explanation and will superintend this experiment, he will be prepared to appreciate clearly the distinction between frying proper and the half-frying which is so often in England supposed to be the same thing as whole-frying-the distinction, in short, between a frying-kettle and a frying-pan. In the kettle the thing to be fried is completely immersed in the liquid fat, the heat is transmitted to every part alike, above and below, and a crisp unbroken surface is on every side created which excludes grease; so that whatever is thus fried will when drained appear at table without any oiliness. In the flat frying-pan, which is best known in Frying England, it is not so. There is so little butter, fat or oil in it, that the food-say a sole, which is on its lower surface subjected to a very high temperature, is on its upper surface open to the air at a much lower temperature. The cooking is thus unequal; and worse than this, the sole is knocked about in the flat frying-pan, to prevent burning; the skin breaks; and while the fish is being cooked on its under side the bubbling fat splutters on to the broken upper surface, which being at a lower temperature, incapable of resistance, absorbs these splutterings, so that when presented at table it is decidedly greasy. If the sole be cooked whole in a frying-kettle, instead of being half-fried in a frying-pan-that is, half at a time-there will be no such complaint of greasiness. It must not be supposed that the frying-kettle is expensive because of the large quantity of fat required for it. The fat lasts, and can be used over and over again with little waste, whereas there is great waste of fat in the frying-pan.
One of the reasons why frying is supposed to be a greasy mode of cooking is because lard is so much used for it. Lard is the very worst of the fats which could be selected for frying, and invariably makes the food look greasy. Probably there is nothing so good as oil; but it is not in general suited to English tastes, it is expensive, and it requires extraordinary care for it must be heated very slowly, and is always apt to boil over. Butter also is expensive, and requires much care and slowness of heating. The best of all the fats for frying is the cook's perquisite the clarified dripping of roast meat and the top fat of the stockpot; but in small households there is never quite enough of it. Practically the fat which is found to be most available is beef fat. Break it to pieces, melt it slowly, and then strain it for use-taking care, however, that it is not so hot as to melt the solder of the strainer. When the strained fat is to be used, let it reach the proper heat before anything is put into it. The proper Galantine heat is usually ascertained by throwing a small bit of bread into it. If the fat is hot enough, the bread will fizz, and give out airbells.
N.B.
There must be no salt in the fat nor in the food fried in it. The salting takes place afterwards.