Why Double Fry?
Many recipes recommend double-frying to make food crispier. Does it work? Yes, but not without a few risks.
Double-frying doesn’t just mean dunking food in very hot oil twice. If you do that, you’ll end up overcooking your food. You get a crispy exterior but dry interior.
The correct process for double-frying goes like this:
- Fry long at a lower temp. Fry first at a lower temp, around 325°F (or 162°C). In this step, you want to cook your food a bit gently and fry the skin at the same time. Pull the food out of the oil when it’s fully cooked. At this stage, you end up with fully cooked food with a dried-out, browned exterior that’s slightly crispy.
- Dry and cool down. With the meat pre-fried and your meat fully cooked, cool down your food until the internal temp is at room temp or cooler. For smaller cuts of food, you can even freeze. Think about frozen fries or frozen chicken popcorn—those come pre-fried!
