Editor's note: Midweek is when most folks start thinking about the weekend and plans to visit the lake house, hunting camp or have friends over for a cookout. Our periodic offerings on food or cooking will appear on Wednesday.

A few years ago while attending a writer's event at Birdsong Marina on Kentucky Lake, longtime guide Jim Duckworth was extolling the virtues of the fish fryer he planned to use for our evening meal.

Yeah, yeah, I thought. It's a fish fryer. Propane, oil, fish and voila! Supper in just a few minutes.

Boy, was I wrong.

The Cajun Fryer FF2 model holds up to 4 gallons of oil and has two cooking baskets, making it one of the company's most popular models.

Duckworth was using a Cajun Fryer from R&V Works in Homer, La. The company is only a few years old but is gaining traction among chefs for its wonderful fryers. If that sounds weird to say a hot-oil cooker is wonderful, it's only because you haven't used one.

The design of the fryer allows the oil to heat to the appropriate temperature for cooking and then be regulated quite easily. A built-in thermometer offers quick and easy readings at a glance, and you can follow the temperature's rise or fall as you adjust the burner.

I know, this sounds like just another cooker. It's hard to describe it unless you see it. But the heating design isn't the coolest thing.

The flames from the ignited propane burn inside tubes in the Cajun Fryer, which is the neat part of the design. It's not just "flame on oil" like with a pot sitting on a burner. Since heat rises, that design allows the oil in the cooking area to get hot while keeping the bottom of the cooker cool.

"I've never burned anything and never have had anything taste oily, greasy or burned," Duckworth said. "When you're through cooking and the oil cools, you can clean out the bits of coating or fish that flaked off and reuse the oil again. The oil doesn't pick up any burned flavor because there isn't any."

Because the Cajun Fryer's "vee" design has this cooler area at the bottom of the cooker, anything from the food settles below the burner tubes. They don't keep cooking -- and burn -- so you don't get that funky taste or smell.

The fish fry at Duckworth's event is a highlight and we gorge like vultures at a deer carcass. Crappie, sauger, white bass and some spotted bass get a good coating of Uncle Buck's seasoned meal in the Coating Buddy, which is pretty darn cool, too. A perforated separator in the Coating Buddy allows quick and clean coating of fish or meats without any mess. Just put in your coating and spices, drop in a few pieces of meat or fish, close the lid, shake and coat.

Some folks then immediately cook their coated items and you can do that, but I like to put them in the fridge for 10-15 minutes. That allows the meat to chill and the coating to seal a little better. Remember to add a pinch of salt or seasoning after removing anything from the cooker and don't leave it in too long. Test a piece after 4-5 minutes and if the fish flecks away, remove it from the hot oil.

For more information on the Cajun Fryer and Coating Buddy, visit:

http://www.cajunfryer.com/

http://www.coatingbuddy.com/

-- Alan Clemons

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