It's cheap and can withstand high cooking temperatures, both of which are good things when you are deep frying. When you are done with it you can filter it through a piece of cheesecloth and reuse the oil, but used oil doesn't last very long before it goes rancid.

You want the temperature of the oil to be about 375-400F before you put them into the oil. The temperature will drop, but you don't want it to drop too much, so limit how many you cook at one time. If the temperature drops too much by the time they are brown and crispy on the outside, they will be overcooked on the inside and will have absorbed too much oil. In other words, a gut bomb. If the oil is too hot relative to the size of the hush puppy, they will still be undercooked on the inside when they are crispy on the outside.

I like to use a #20 disher to make mine or about the size of a golf ball. I use a 5 qt cast iron dutch oven with about 2 quarts of oil and cook 3 of them at a time.

I was trying to keep it at 350, but put a bunch in, dropped to 300, put pot on high, and tried to catch it before topped 375, dropped flame again. ..and just turned over when golden to dark?

Also, that is a lot of oil. If you tell me it is necessary, I buy it. But again, I have been frying chicken ....wait, the good hush puppies I have had are uniform. You are right.

The more oil you use and the more dense your cooking vessel is, the less the temperature will drop when the food is put in and the easier it will be to maintain a more constant cooking temperature. The key to frying is to reduce the cooking time as much as possible to produce a crispy exterior that is cooked throughout. This means keeping your oil at the desired cooking temperature without too far of a swing plus or minus. Col. Sanders became famous for his fried chicken recipe by cooking in a pressure cooker. His chicken cooked faster throughout which means he was able to achieve a light crispy exterior and a juicy interior because less oil was absorbed and less interior moisture was lost during the cooking process. Hush puppies become gut bombs when they absorb too much oil and dry out too much inside, so the idea is to cook them as fast as possible.

Corn oil sells for about 8 bucks a gallon so it's not that expensive if you're reusing it several times. You can certainly use less oil if you like, but temperature control will be more difficult and you won't be able to reuse the oil as many times so depending on how often you are reusing the oil, this can either be a good or bad thing in terms of expense.

Gonna do it a few times and figure it out. But my main concerns you addressed.

the oil by putting a notice on craigslist that you have veggie oil at the curb....the trick to great fried chicken is marinating it beforehand, and drying it off.

The fried artichokes? Jewish Roman food. delish.

Jes like Miz t.