CALL it County Fair Syndrome. Americans in droves are becoming frybabies. New versions of electric deep fryers have been elbowing their way onto our kitchen counters, enabling us to drop anything edible into hot oil.
Some fryers are compact, for quick, easy crisping of small ingredients -- you might use one for snacks, side dishes or to create a garnish or topping. Other, bigger models are billed as "professional" in style and seem geared to quantities that would allow a home cook to set up a drive-by window for, say, the neighborhood football team.
I recently tested six new deep fryers. The smaller models could fry up about one cup of, say, mushrooms; the larger models could handle about as much as four cups of, for example, hand-cut fries at a time. They range in price from $20 to $130. Some have such bells and whistles as a digital-display control panel or an odor-control filter; others offer simple but useful features such as a pour spout for removing oil after use. I assessed the machines based on the quality of fried food each made, the ease of use and cleanup, safety, whether special features were useful and effective and whether the fryer was a good value. I was tempted to fry Twinkies, but common sense prevailed. For my test, I put the fryers to work on batter-coated zucchini sticks, using canola oil.
All six machines offered up crispy zucchini in three minutes or less and were easy to assemble and operate. But some had safety and/or cleaning issues. And choosing the right machine for your kitchen depends on how much room you have and how many servings you want to prepare at one time.
My favorite fryer was one of the mid-size, mid-price models, the Presto CoolDaddy cool-touch deep fryer. It has a sleek, modern look, and its oil tub is nonstick and removable, making cleanup a breeze. Zucchini fried in it for two minutes was tender and moist, tucked inside a light, crispy crust.
The two biggest and most serious-looking fryers, the Euro-Pro ($80) and the Waring Pro ($130), were efficient for cooking super-size portions. In both machines, the heating element sits in the oil tub along with the food. Some cooks prefer this configuration, because the oil has a faster "recovery" time -- that is, it returns more quickly to the proper temperature -- when you're cooking multiple servings. But I couldn't get past the idea that you don't wash the heating element (the instructions say to wipe it off). That didn't fly with my inner fussbudget.
