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"Fry" is an ambiguous word in English (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by NorthWestWind@lemmy.world to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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Here are 3 examples:
Fried egg, fried rice, fried chicken

All these "fry" are different. If you were to use the "fry" in fried rice to fry an egg, you'd get scrambled egg. Fried chicken is done by submerging it in oil, which you won't do with fried egg or fried rice.

This post is made from the perspective of a Cantonese/Chinese speaker. We have different words for these different types of "fry" (煎, 炒, 炸 respectively)

(Turns out I did post it in the wrong sub and I didn't realize, and now I feel very stupid. Photon UI has once again screwed me over. Got mad for no reason.)

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[-] SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 96 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Fry means to cook with oil.

You have pan frying, deep frying, shallow frying, they all have additional descriptors, and you can usually infer the type from the product. You can always say deep fried chicken, but that’s also assumed when you say “fried chicken” already. If it’s fried different you would maybe say “pan fried chicken” instead.

[-] altec@midwest.social 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There's also "air fry", which is just an aggressive convection oven

[-] SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Usually you need to spray or toss the stuff with a small amount of oil first, or stuff has natural oils. The term is usually for using “another oil” so I would say adding oil would be a must instead of its own oils myself.

[-] general_kitten@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 year ago

I wouldn't say it's always true. If i fry a duck breast in a pan only with fat from it's skin i would still classify it as frying even when all the fat is from the duck breast.

[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Usually, the food has it's own oil, which is heated by the air around it. That's how air-frying gets food crispy (but it doesn't always work).

[-] ccunning@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Maybe with hot oil?

I don’t think confit would be considered frying.

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[-] BackOnMyBS@lemmy.autism.place 3 points 1 year ago

In your opinion, what's the difference between pan frying and sautéing?

[-] ccunning@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

I think they can be used synonymously; sautéing may imply stirring or shaking the ingredients in the pan similarly to stir-frying.

[-] BackOnMyBS@lemmy.autism.place 3 points 1 year ago

Ah, thank you! I always found those terms confusing. I learned to cook in Spanish, so when I would describe a recipe that included "sautéing" to Anglophones, I would say that I "fried" it because that's how it's said in Spanish, and I guess the context helps if you are familiar with the cuisine. Anglophones would think something like deep frying, which would cause confusion or hesitation. Whereas any Latino would know that no one is deep frying sofrito.

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[-] snooggums@midwest.social 4 points 1 year ago

I thought pan fried was with a lot of oil, like pan fried chicken, and sautéed was with a small amount of oil.

[-] BackOnMyBS@lemmy.autism.place 5 points 1 year ago

Ok, so they are different??

Let's say I want use a a small amount of olive oil to lightly fry pressed garlic, chopped onions and green bell pepper enough to make the onion translucent and release the oil from the garlic into the olive oil. The amount of olive oil used is a little more than enough to wet the mix in oil. That would be considered sautéing, not pan frying, correct?

[-] OhmsLawn@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

With sautéeing, the heat is being transferred from the pan to the food, with the thin layer of oil serving to increase the contact area and prevent sticking. It's a low-fat cooking method.

With pan frying, it's the hot oil that's doing the cooking, with the pan heating the oil, not the food directly.

Edit: link

https://www.tastingtable.com/1255018/difference-sauteing-frying/

[-] SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

You sauté to soften and pan fry to crispen would be the difference I guess. So starting from a “soft” or “hard” ingredient, but both require same amount of oil and heat. I’ve never thought of them differently, since they’re the same action.

[-] snooggums@midwest.social 2 points 1 year ago

Everything that I have seen called pan frying uses enough oil to partially submerge the food being cooked, while sautéeing is just enough oil to keep things from sticking.

Not the same amount of oil.

[-] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

They do not require the same amount of oil, by any measure (Metric or ACU).

Nor do they require the same heat. That's determined by the food and end goal.

Sautéing green beans at the same temp as a fried egg will make for unevenly cooked beans.

Trying to fry an egg at green been temps will make for a nasty, oil-soaked blob where the whites are rubber and the yolk is hard, and you'll never brown the whites.

Frying requires a moderately high heat. Sautéing can, but usually lower temps work better. With my pans, frying is about 70% heat, sautéing about 45%.

It also depends on the food.

[-] snooggums@midwest.social 3 points 1 year ago

Yes, that is sauteeing because you using a small amount of oil to keep the food from sticking and the oil kid of coats the food.

Pan fried chicken uses multiple cups of oil ao the chicken is partially submerged. If you tried to pan fry onions and green peppers the same way as pan fried chicken the oil will splash out when you put them it in due to the amount of moisture and hot oil.

Note: while I am based in the US and pan frying is probably used to mean the same thing as sauteeing somewhere else, I haven't stumbled across that usage in a recipe before.

[-] BackOnMyBS@lemmy.autism.place 2 points 1 year ago

thank you!

[-] SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

English and French terms?

[-] EherVielleicht@feddit.org 40 points 1 year ago

[-] DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

A true deep Fry meme

[-] snooggums@midwest.social 6 points 1 year ago

Lars is so dreamy!

[-] Alue42@fedia.io 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
[-] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 27 points 1 year ago

Wait until you run into the other usages of the word!

But frying food is just using direct heat and oil to cook, regardless of the depth of the oil. And, you'd be surprised how deep the oil is when some people fry eggs or rice. It isn't too unusual for eggs to have enough oil that they more or less float on top of it, though that isn't done for scrambled eggs.

The word fry is also used to mean baby fish, electronics being damaged by surges or excess voltage/amperage, and sometimes even to indicate that someone is inebriated via drugs other than alcohol. Plus there's irregular uses of the word.

[-] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Don't forget vocal fry.

[-] snooggums@midwest.social 6 points 1 year ago

Even worse, trailing off vocal fryyyyy.y.y..y.y.y..

[-] Speculater@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

And the most common use of the fish version is to describe a person or animal as a "small fry" when comparing them to another similar group.

[-] Donebrach@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

No, it isn’t.

[-] JeSuisUnHombre@lemm.ee 21 points 1 year ago

"To fry" means to cook in oil or fat. A distinction we can make is "deep fry" like the chicken, and "pan fry" for the other 2. We don't use woks as much here so really the only difference between fried rice and a fried egg is whether you stir it or flip it, but both are still cooked in a pan with oil.

[-] snooggums@midwest.social 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Deep fried and pan fried chicken are two different things even though both are cooking chicken in oil.

[-] xeekei@lemm.ee 21 points 1 year ago

You forgot the small fry that will be vader someday later.

[-] sxan@midwest.social 11 points 1 year ago

I think y'all are missing the point. OP points out that in their native language, Cantonese, they have different words for each of these kinds of cooking. In English, we apply modifiers, if anything; "deep fry", "air fry", but we don't have different words for the different types of frying.

That's all they're saying. Eskimo words for snow. Oregonian words for rain. Georgian words for "you're an idiot." Apparently, in Cantonese, they have a lot of different words for different types of frying.

[-] arefx@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago

Sometimes after an aggressive cannabis consuming session I myself even become fried.

[-] EffortlessEffluvium@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago

Scrambled egg is still fried egg

[-] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

Nope, nothing ambiguous to me.

To fry means to cook in a fat. That is all.

That's like saying "blue" is ambiguous simply because there's also 13 different Pantone blues.

[-] kbal@fedia.io 6 points 1 year ago

Never mind the small fry. The word "put" has enough different meanings to fry your CPU.

[-] pH3ra@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

English cooking vocabulary matches the sofistication of their cuisine

[-] deegeese@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

Fry is the name for baby fish.

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this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024
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