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I recently made some home-made fries, deep frying them in a wok with vegetable oil. The oil smells faintly of fried potatoes, but it basically clean and it seems a shame to just throw away what is quite a large quantity of oil.
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I hope someone can follow up with a more definitive answer, but here are my experiences and what I know from doing a little bit of research. Once you cook with oil once, it is going to start to break down. I personally try to avoid deep frying because the oil almost always goes bad before I can use it more than a few times. Old reused oil can easily become rancid(or burnt flavor infused) if you are not careful. Do a little research and find out the smoke point of your oil. You want to fry foods at 350 - 375 F. If the oil starts to smoke before it reaches that point it is bad. If the oil becomes thick, dark, viscous, or develops a rancid smell it is also bad and shouldn't be used. I have had oil go bad on me a few times and you will definitely know by smell and/or taste. Make sure you strain the oil afterwards(be careful) and store in a cool dark place. Here is how I do my fries without wasting oil. Preheat the oven to 375 F. Cover 1/4 inch slices of potatoes with cold water. Add a teaspoon of vinegar per cup of water. The vinegar helps the potatoes keep there shape. Bring the pot to a boil. Once the water reaches a full boil drain the potatoes. From here you can either freeze the potatoes for later(this also makes the fries a little fluffier) or finish immediately. To finish coat the fries with a high smokepoint oil and place on a baking sheet. Cook for 10-15 minutes on each side(add a little extra time for frozen fries). sources: |
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Oh all right - In commercial kitchens the fryers are fitted with a monitor. When the temperature for a given power setting changes, they know it is time to change the oil. But they use the fryer every day. You need to use a different set of rules at home, because the oil will degrade on standing, and the degradation will set in faster with used oil. Used oil contains impurities from the food you cooked in it. At home, you should filter the oil after use and keep the bottle in a cool dark place. Use a tea strainer and/or coffee filter. If it darkens, develops a significant odor (not necessarily "smells bad"), or starts to smoke easily, it is time to discard it. Not much in the microbial world likes living in oil, so if you keep once used oil in a sealed bottle in a cool dark place it is probably going to still be useful after a couple of months. When you use it, it oxidizes in contact with the air. This reduces the content of beneficial unsaturated fats, so it "loses a little of its virtue" with every use - and it takes in some impurities as well from the food you are cooking. The impurities lower the cooking temperature, but it depends on what you cook, and how much of it, as to how much work is left in the oil. Before the world had effective seals on bottles and jars, people used fats to make a seal in the top of containers of food they preserved. There's not a lot of difference between fats and oils - just that fats are solid at room temperature. That is a reminder that the oil should have a significantly long life, but remember that the fat could stand contact with the air better because only the surface was in contact with the air - so close the bottle well. If it walks out of the door, don't stand in the way ... |
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