LOW OIL VOLUME FRYING DEVICE AND METHOD

A commercial device and method for cooking food product in cooking oil in cludes a fry vat containing an amount of cooking oil used to cook discrete b atches of uncooked food in discrete batches of a weight relative to the amou nt of cooking oil in the range of from about 0.0375 to about 0.1, with the t otal amount of food being cooked at any one time relative to the amount of o il in the fry vat being about 0.1 or less. Cooking the food results in an up take of oil by the food in an amount of from about 5.5% to about 13% by weig ht of the uncooked food, and an oil turnover ratio of from about 0.0026 to a bout 0.007 per discrete batch. Replacement oil is periodically added, and a sufficient number of batches are cooked over 60 hours of operation to achiev e at least one vat oil turnover. Automated intermittent filtration is employ ed in the device and method that can include monitoring the elapsed time sin ce the last filtration of the cooking oil, monitoring the amount of food by number of batches or by weight of food product cooked in the oil since the l ast filtration, and filtering the oil when a predetermined threshold value i s reached based on the elapsed time since the last filtration and the amount of food cooked. An automated device and method for maintaining a level of o il in a fry vat having a volume includes sensing the level of oil in the vat . When the sensed level of oil in the vat is less than or equal to a first p redetermined level, replacement oil is automatically added to the fry vat, t ypically when at ambient temperature at a low average flow rate in the range of about 0.008 to about 0.08 gallons per minute per gallon of the oil prese nt in the vat at the first predetermined level. The low average flow rate of added oil avoids a temperature drop of more than 15°F, 100F or 5°F in the b ulk oil present in the fry vat as result of adding the oil as desired.