A stainless steel pot you deep fry in, with a fine mesh screen that filters the used oil straight back into it. The pot that cooked dinner is then where the oil lives, under its own lid, until next time.
No funnel. No sieve lined with paper towel. No jar of cloudy oil at the back of a cupboard.
The oil is the reason people stop frying at home
Frying is the easy part, and nobody needs it explained to them. What stops people is the pot of hot oil afterwards, and none of the three things you can do with it is any good. Down the sink is a plumber. Into the trash is a bag that leaks. Into a jar means a funnel, a sieve, a paper towel and a counter you are still wiping at eleven at night.
So most kitchens fry twice a year, in a pan that was never meant for it, and pour fifty ounces of perfectly good oil away both times.
The screen is the floor of a bowl, not something you buy again
The filter is a shallow steel bowl with a fine mesh disc set into its floor. It drops into the pot's mouth and its flared rim rests on the pot's rim. Used oil goes in the top and comes out of the bottom already strained, into the pot it came from. The crumbs and the loose batter stay up on the screen, in plain sight, and tip into the trash in one go.
Nothing to replace, and nothing to run out of. The screen is steel, and it goes in the dishwasher with the rest of it.
The food comes out and the oil stays where it is
Inside the pot sits a mesh basket nearly as tall as the pot itself, on a wire handle that folds flat when you are not using it. Everything you fry goes in the basket rather than loose in the oil. One lift brings the whole batch out together, and the oil runs back down through the mesh while you hold it over the rim.
A slotted spoon never manages that. Chasing six pieces of chicken around a pan one at a time is exactly how the first two come out soft and the last one comes out too dark.
Why not the deep pan you already own
A saucepan does work, and it costs you three times the oil to do it. Depth is what fries food properly, and in a wide pan depth means volume, so one batch of fries in a ten inch pan swallows most of a bottle. This is a shade over five inches across the mouth and six inches tall, which is the shape that buys you the depth without the volume.
The other half is getting the oil back out. This one has a flared pouring lip on one side and an open steel loop of a handle on the other, clear of the body. A stockpot has two short lugs and no spout. Tipping fifty ounces of used oil out of one is where most of the mess in this business comes from.
With the lid on, the filtered oil keeps in the pot on the counter, and that is the difference between frying twice a year and frying whenever you feel like it.
Specifications
Capacity: 50.7 fl oz (1.5 liters)
Dimensions: 7.48 x 6.29 in (19 x 16 cm), measured across the handle and spout, by height
Pot mouth: 5.1 in (13 cm) across
Weight: 1.8 lb (820 g)
Material: Stainless steel
Color: Silver, brushed finish
Filter: A shallow bowl with a fine mesh screen set into its floor, resting in the pot's mouth on its own flared rim, with a flat tab handle
Fry basket: A straight-sided mesh cylinder that drops inside the pot, on a folding wire bail handle
Lid: A shallow steel disc that sits over the rim, with a wire strap handle across the middle
Handle: An open steel loop on one side of the pot, standing clear of the body
Spout: A flared pouring lip on the side opposite the handle
Shape: A barrel body, narrower across the mouth than across the base
Cleaning: Dishwasher safe, or by hand
Suits: Deep frying, shallow frying, simmering, boiling, and storing the oil between times
Package Includes
1x Oil Strainer Pot
1x Fry Basket
1x Filter Bowl with Mesh Screen
1x Lid