I really like deep frying shrimp and veggies in tempura batter, but every time I put these goods in the deep frying pan they stick to the net that is in there to make the goods easy to put in and take out. It then fries around the bottom of the net and when I try to take the item out of the net it will tear off half the batter coating.
This is both incredibly messy and a bad for the look of the final product, which is now only half coated.
Is there any way to keep this from happening? I don't want to take out the net, because then the food would touch the heating coil, which will probably ruin the food and/or the fryer. I'd like to avoid frying in a regular pan because it uses huge amounts of oil and I can't easily reuse it, which makes it expensive and wasteful.
So ideally I'd like to know of a way to deep-fry tempura coated shrimp and veggies in a regular deep-fryer without sticking to the net.
(For reference and due to possible language issues, an image. I have one of these)
Best Answer
What you are describing should not happen when using the right technique. I suspect this is happening because you are either lowering the battered food into the oil using the net, or your oil temperature is not hot enough to cook the batter before the food sinks to the bottom. The net is only for removing the food once it is cooked.
Battered food should be partially lowered gently into the oil by hand and then dropped the rest of the way once partially submerged, if you lower using the net the batter will get in the net and it will all cook together.
Temperature-wise your oil should be about 175C (350F), if it's much lower than that the batter won't crust up fast enough.
Also avoid crowding your fryer, if you put too much in at once your oil temperature will drop too much and it may end up forcing pieces in to the net too quickly.