Frying

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

For other uses, see Fry. Fried redirects here. For the webcomic, see Fried (webcomic).

Frying is the cooking of food with cooking oil as the heat transfer medium. Because oil can reach higher temperatures than water at atmospheric pressure, cooking times are much shorter than with boiling or steaming, and the food is affected differently: the outside in particular of fried foods will often be cooked much more, to the point of caramelization or carbonization (burning). This does not usually happen to boiled or steamed foods.

Similarly, oil offers a faster rate of heat transfer than air does, so frying is generally faster than baking.

Types of frying include sautéing, stir frying, and deep frying.

Sautéing and stir-frying involve cooking foods in a thin layer of oil on a hot surface, such as a frying pan, griddle, or wok; in the latter case the food is stirred constantly to keep it from sticking or burning, and this allows the oil to be safely raised to significantly higher temperatures.

Deep-frying involves completely immersing food in hot oil to cook it.

Fried dough foods are common in many cultures.