ABSTRACT
Deep-fat frying is a process of cooking foods by immersing them in edible fat or oil at a temperature above the boiling point of water, usually 150-200°C for a speci c period of time. It is very popular and one of the oldest methods of food preparation for more than 3000 years (Stier 2004). Frying is popular throughout the world, not only in industrial food manufacturing, but also in restaurants and domestic food preparations. The production of high-quality food is the purpose of frying. The objective of deep-fat frying is to produce foods for immediate consumption or for additional processing. Many foods have been successfully deep-fat fried, such as potato chips, French fries, donuts, extruded snacks, sh sticks and fried chicken products. Deepfat frying is a complicated cooking and drying process accomplished in hot oil in which heat and mass transfer take place simultaneously. Convective heat transfer takes place from the oil to the food surface, and then conductive heat transfer into the interior of the food. Also, mass transfer occurs due to oil uptake into the product, and the release of water in the form of vapor from the food through the oil (Miranda and Aguilera 2006).
