So, I bought a personal deep fryer.

[Michael_in_TX]

This was very much an impulse buy. As I am quite difficult to shop for, my famiy gets me JC Penney gift cards for my birthday or Christmas. On Black Friday, I was perusing the site in the Home and Kitchen section looking for things. (I got a crazy deal on some cutting boards last year.)

I stumbled upon this personal deep fryer, which normally sells for $50. It was knocked down to $30 and with my rewards, knocked it down to $15 (!). So I thought, why the heck not? And as I used a gift card, the cost to me was actually zero.

It's one of these cute little things:



It only holds 1.5 L or 6 cups of oil, so as I said....personal deep fryer. I've only taken it out of the box and looked at it. I kinda like it. It's small, so won't take up much counter space and seems relatively easy to clean. Given its size, my hope is that it also will heat up oil fairly quickly (and the converse, let it cool down fairly quickly).

Should be perfect for some fried shrimp, pork chop, or tempura for lunch.

Can't wait to try it.

[Michael_in_TX]

(Another advantage is that being small, I won't be frying up a ton of food at a time in it. Whenever I fry in my cast iron dutch oven, I feel compelled to cook a lot.....and I don't need to be eating that much fried food, as good as it is.)

[Clawbear57]

No neighborhood fish fry there. I hope it work out good for you.

[Michael_in_TX]

Well, at 10 pm I got hungry.

I also happened to remember that I had a bag of frozen breaded okra in the freezer. Dare I? Yes, yes I do.

I put in the requisite amount of oil and set it to heat to 350 F. It took about 12 minutes. Heated faster than I expected, which is nice. Unfortunately -- and I was prepared for this on something so inexpensive -- the temp dial is not calibrated correctly. It's 350 F was more 325 F, as judged by my Themapen. When I set it to 375 F, it heated up to a steady 350 F. For $15 of not my money, I'm not going to overly complain about that.

Here it is after the okra went in. I like the lid. It'll keep the oil smell down, at least a little....and next-to-no splatter!



The okra were nice and golden brown after six minutes. Here they are draining.



And plated up.



(No, I didn't eat all of them. Inadvertently put in more than I intended!)

It has been while since I've done frozen okra, but I do think these came out better than the last time I tried doing them in my 12" cast iron skillet.

There is definitely enough room in this thing to do shrimp for a po-boy (even a Texas-sized one), which is my primary desired use case for it.

The only other immediate quibble I have is that the fry basket, while not fragile, is a little on the delicate side. I could see bending and breaking the mesh with aggressive scrubbing. (The basket and lid are dishwasher safe, so I will probably do that.

Oh, and it has no power switch: it has a magnetic plug on the back you pull out (it's actually just resting on magnets, like an Apple Magsafe connector). Not an issue, and perhaps a nice safety feature.

Now to get some shrimp.

[Draznnl]

My wife has been talking about an air fryer. My last ditch argument has been that they are too big for our limited counter space. I think I’ll show her this little cutie. I’m sure we can find space for a real fryer.

[jfmorris]

We ended up getting one of the basket style air fryers and find it quite useful. Similar footprint to one of the wife’s crockpots, just taller, and stores in a closet when not in use. It’s pretty useful for reheating, but the frying is not really the same.

Your wife probably wants the air fryer so that you DON’T deep fry in oil for health reasons, at least that was my wife’s reasoning…

[Duanessmokedmeats]

My wife and I were not impressed with our air fryer, so we now have a deep fryer and are quite happy with it.

[Spinaker]

They are also just a convection oven that sits on your counter top. They are not fryers at all, really. If you have a convection setting on your oven, you already have an "air fryer:" Plus, who likes having stuff clutter up your counter top? Not me.

[Bkhuna]

I had deep fryers for years. This is something good to know about dealing with your oil:

https://www.seriouseats.com/ask-the-food-lab-how-many-times-can-i-reuse-fry-oil

[Panhead John]

Ok, it’s 4 in the morning, I just woke up and can’t go back to sleep. My first thought seeing this was……….

JC Pennys? What happened, Kmart was closed?

[smokenoob]

Ha! My first thought was what is Michael_in_TX cooking at 4:00 am 😁

[Michael_in_TX]

Giggle.....sometimes I think I am the only person keeping this store chain alive. I actually have a skill. Their sales are like Themaworks in a way. If you know how to watch them and collect their discount codes properly, you can knock your order down by nearly 50% (and free shipping, too).