Review of Presto 05462 Digital ProFry Immersion-Element 9-Cup Deep Fryer

When I purchased the parts for my last computer several of them came with mail-in rebates.  Most of the rebates came in the form of American Express of Visa gift cards, and because I didn't have a lot of extra room in my wallet I just left them sitting in a stack on the top shelf of my computer desk.  Recently while cleaning up the desk I went through the cards and noticed that $30 in visa rebate cards had already expired, so I thought it was about time that I used the rest.  The question was what to spend them on?

Recently I've had a hankering to make some good fried chicken, but my deep fryer gave up the ghost a while ago and because I'm really the only one in the house who really likes fried food I never replaced it.  With the rebate cards in hand I figured it was time, so I started doing some research.  My goal was to find something that wasn't too big (since there are only three of us in the house), not too expensive and had received good ratings.  The one I finally settled on is the Presto 05462 digital deep fryer.  It has a 9 cup food capacity (which is probably more than I'll ever need), an 1800 watt heating element for fast heating of the oil and quick recovery time, a price on Amazon of $60 (I had $55 in rebate cards that were still good) and digital controls.

Purchasing the fryer had to be done in a round-about way, Amazon doesn't allow the use of multiple Amex rebate cards on a single order.  They do allow multiple Amazon gift cards to be used though, so I just used the Amex rebate cards to purchase Amazon gift cards and had them send to me via email.  Each arrived within a few seconds of checking out and were then used to purchase the fryer.  All said and done I had to kick in just $5 for the fryer after selecting free SuperSaver shipping and had the box in my hands 4 days later.

he first things I dd were to make french fries (turned out pretty good even though the potatoes were pretty old and I didn't let them soak overnight like I prefer to do) and hush puppies from a pre-made mix I bought at Weisenberger Mill in Midway Kentucky last time I was down visiting my parents.  Those turned out GREAT.  Now it was time to make some fried chicken and I thought it would be fun to do some tests on the fryer at the same time.

The first thing was to figure out what type of chicken I was going to make.  I stopped by Dominick's to see what was on sale and ended up with a package of chicken tenders, some buttermilk and 5 quarts of oil (the fryer needs 4 quarts minimum).  I made a butter milk marinade with salt, Sriracha, garlic powder, Old Bay Seasoning, Mrs. Dash and ancho chili powder.  No real recipe, just grabbed things from the cupboard that seemed to go together in my mind.  The chicken was put in a zip-top bag with the marinade and put in the fridge for what was supposed to be only a few hours but things came up and as a result the pieces soaked for over 24 hours instead.  Longer than I wanted to go, but OK.  Now it was time to fry.

The first thing was to set up the fryer and get it heating.  I put it on a sheet pan just in case there was any overflow and put it on the stove under the exhaust fan, this is pretty effective in keeping the odors down in the house.  4 quarts of oil were added.  The fryer can only be set to four temperatures, 300, 325, 350 and 375.  I set it to 375 and put in a temperature probe to see how accurate the on-board sensor is.  Once the oil had reached temp I let everything sit for a few minutes and checked my thermometer, which indicated that the temperature sitting around 385.  Running a little hotter than the setting was something I had read in a few other reviews, but it wasn't enough to be a deal breaker.  

While the oil was heating I prepared a dredge with Wondra flour, AP flour and some of the same seasonings I had put in the marinade (Old Bay, Mrs. Dash, salt, pepper etc...) and placed a few of the marinaded chicken tenders in the dredge at a time.  Once those pieces were coated they were put on a foil lined baking sheet wile the rest of the chicken tenders were coated.  I let them sit for a few minutes and dredged each piece again.  I put around 300 grams of chicken tenders (slightly above refrigerator temperature) in the oil for the first batch.  The oil temperature dropped to around 353 before starting to inch back up.  I set the timer for 3 minutes but the pieces looked done after a little more than 2 1/2.  The oil quickly returned to temperature and the rest of the pieces were cooked in the second batch.

The end result was chicken strips that were nice and juicy, but had a little bit of a rubbery texture which I blame on the long soak in buttermilk.  So far I've been pretty satisfied with this fryer, with the exception of the oil going about 10 degrees over the set point.  But as long as I know that this is going to happen I can make adjustments to compensate.  Next time I set it up I'm going to check the temperature at all four set points.  There are several things I want to try next, I think it would be cool to try making some falafel at home along with some pita, tahini sauce and toum (garlic sauce).  I saw a recipe for Korean style chicken wings done by the people at Modernist cuisine that I'd like to try and I also have the recipe for the Sriracha wings that Goose Island serves at their brewpubs so I'd like to see if I can make them as good at home.  Gonna be a lot of unhealthy eating at the Balhg household over the next few months!