Deep fry v oven cook

corblimey

Apart from time is there any reason you shouldn't oven cook something that the recipe calls for deep frying? As long as the food is actually cooked, does deep frying do anything that might add to the flavour or taste?

seamus

As long as you know what you're doing, then it's perfectly possible to use any method to cook any food, regardless of what the packaging says.

The quality of the end result is the major difference. Standard frozen chips, for example, are basically chopped potato which has been frozen. If you bung it in the oven, it will cook, but it'll be nothing like deep-frying them and you'll effectively get slices of baked potato, whereas the deep fryer will actually create a solid "coat" on the potato and you get the little solid chips that we all know and love.

Oven chips are chips which have been already deep fried briefly and then frozen, so the oven is basically just heating them up.

corblimey

Just for further info, it's this: http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/633207

I don't really like fried foods, so I'm thinking I could just bung it in the oven for 20-30mins.

seamus

Yes and no. What frying offers, deep or otherwise is a sharp heat which is useful for creating coats and the like. The batter in this case relies on being very quickly heated by the oil in order to become solid. If you bung it into the oven, the batter may bind, but not very well; it'll be crumbly and soft.

What you could do is use a very hot oil to bind the batter to the chicken and then put it into the oven to finish the cooking. It'd be trial and error though to get it right.

Susie_Q

I agree with what Seamas said above. The recipe you have chosen opts for the deep frying method to make the outside of the chicken really crispy but you won't get the same effect by baking it. Try flash frying the chicken on a really hot pan with some olive oil for 1-2 mins on each side and then transfer to a baking tray and cook it in the oven. Let us know how it goes!

abouttobebanned

I got the tefal actifry yesterday. Wow...