The world of food science has come up with the radiant fryer, which purports to be able to create the consistency and taste of fried food without dumping it in a fry-o-lator.
Food processing engineer Kevin Keener, Ph.D., of Purdue University, has invented an oven that exposes food to infrared light in order to cook it faster -- meaning the oven can apparently reduce the amount of oil and associated fat by 50 percent.
"It will cook the inside," Dr. Keener explained. "It will cook the outside and create that crust just like it would in hot oil immersion frying."The news story shows his product in action. It looks like a series of baskets that pass in front of a bank of infrared lamps. Apparently the small version of the oven can produce 300 dozen donuts in an hour.
Keener has scheduled a head-to-head demonstration today at Indiana University, where he'll be cooking chicken patties in hash browns in his radiant fryer and an oil fryer.
This seems to be a natural extension of infrared cooking, which bubbled to the surface in 2007 as a wave of infrared grills
hit the marketplace for the home griller. The trend hasn't
caught on, in part because even though infrared home grills are
significantly cheaper than commercial versions, they still can run
between $500 and $1,000.
Is this the future of fried food? If it is, I hope we are all as happy
as Kevin Keener, eating a hash brown and gazing thoughtfully into the
distance (see 1:21 into the video).
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