Martha Stewart's Bread Cube Trick To Check Frying Oil Temperature
You cannot leave the temperature of your oil to chance when you are getting ready to fry something and no one knows this better than Martha Stewart. The ultimate hostess shared on her YouTube channel that before she fries up a batch of chicken, she tests the heat of her grease by tossing a cube of bread into the oily bath. If it doesn't turn golden within a minute or less, she knows the oil isn't hot enough and she needs to wait.
Why does it matter? Stewart explains that if the oil isn't hot enough, then the food you are cooking in it will absorb too much of the fat. However, if the oil is too hot, the surface of the food will burn before it cooks on the inside. For this reason, Stewart said it is important to keep the temperature at a steady constant so you do not encounter either of these hiccups as you fry your breaded zucchini or your favorite fried chicken.
Keep room temp oil nearby
Keeping your oil at a constant temperature is easier said than done. This is why Stewart recommends keeping some room-temperature vegetable oil close by so you can pour it into the hot oil to cool it down a bit. This will not cause your oil to spit and splatter all over the place so don't worry about that. However, she stresses that the oil must be room temperature and not cold. This is because cold oil will really bring the temperature down, so much so, that you may have to wait for it to heat back up before you resume frying.
There is also another reason to keep that room-temperature vegetable oil close by: Because your food is absorbing the oil, you may also need to add more oil. This is especially true if you are frying food in batches. If you do not have enough oil in the pan, you will find your food will stick to the bottom of the pan and you won't get that beautiful golden brown color you are hoping to achieve.