Frequently Asked Questions

Can you really make a bowl full of hush puppies in under 30 minutes?

Yes. Prepare your hush puppy batter while your oil is heating up (4-8 minutes depending on your stove). Hush puppies only take 3-1/2 minutes to cook.  Add some time for dropping the batter into the hot oil and also removing the finished hush puppies - let's round up to 4 minutes per batch.  Our recipe will make 10 large hush puppies (a bowl full).  You can deep fry two at a time, so 5 batches x 4 minutes = 20 minutes.  Total time = 8 minutes preparation + 20 minutes cooking = 28 minutes!

Why is temperature control so important?

When dropping food into hot oil at the proper temperature a "seal" is instantly created on the outside.  This prevents oil from getting in and it is actually the moisture inside the food (which becomes steam) that cooks from within.  If your cooking temperature is too low you will not create an effective seal resulting in oil getting inside and making your food oily/greasy.  On the other hand if your cooking temperature is too high the outside will either burn or the inside will be undercooked.  With a litte practice you will be able to maintain your target cooking temperature which results in consistent and delicious food.

Can I resuse the cooking oil?

When using a traditional deep-fryer folks often save their used oil because it's expensive to discard such a large quantity after one use. But we know this is a lot of work and can be messy. Once oil is heated to cooking temperature it can quickly go rancid, so are you really going to be using it again? Besides, who wants their next batch of donuts tasting like their last batch of chicken wings?

Then there are the health concerns. It is well known that oil breaks down under repeated use which creates unhealthy compounds. Restaurants usually test their deep-fryers for these unhealthy compounds or discard their oil after a certain period of time. Since The Microfryer only uses one cup of oil we recommend simply discarding it to alleviate any health concerns.

How much does a cup of oil cost?

That depends.  Do you want to use a cheap, inflammatory seed oil like most restaurants?  If so, you can pick up "vegetable" oil at Walmart for about $0.67 per cup.  However if you want to use a healthy oil like avacado (our favorite), you can find that for $3-4 per cup.