very timely. we just bought a deep fryer and have used it twice, on frenh fries, onion rings, and fried mushrooms.
What surprised me was that after frying and filtering, I got almost all the oil back! Being temperature controlled, it does get as much oil absorbed as when I used to pan fry.
We have an old thing for deep-frying; it’s also a steamer, and may be one of those ‘Presto’ gizmos. The problem with these is getting the oil hot enough, and bringing it back up to temp with succeeding batches. But we’ve found that we get almost all the oil back, as well. If you filter it well, and keep it in the fridge, you can use it several times. But we try to do all the frying within days, so we’re not having to save it very long.
-JT