Eli5 why is frying not possible with water and boiling not possible with oil
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Pretty straightforward. Water boils at 212 degrees F whereas frying occurs at a higher temperature. Tge chemical reactions thst occur in food are different depending on the temperature.
Fat can heat up much hotter than water. When you fry something, you’re using fat to accomplish two things:
1) To brown the carbohydrates by cooking at a temperature that is much higher than boiling; and,
2) To cause the water in the food to evaporate out. That water is then replaced by the fat you’re cooking the food in, which causes it to become become firmer and adds a fatty taste to it.
Water can’t get hot enough to brown food, so you can’t brown food by boiling it. When you boil food, steam from the boiling water forces itself into the food being boiled. This increases the food’s water content, in contrast to frying where the food’s water content is decreased.
In other words – you fry food to brown it and reduce the amount of water it has, which makes soft food crispy. You boil food to increase the amount of water that it has, which makes crispy food soft.
It’s a matter of naming. The process is almost the same. You put food on a pan and heat it, but in order to distribute heat evenly, you put it into a liquid. In the case of oil, you don’t usually cover it in the liquid, just wet it a bit; and it gives you fat and flavour. In the case of water, you usually cover it well, maybe watch it float. In the case of oil, you stay well below the smoke point because if you turn some of the molecules in oil to gas or rather combust them with oxygen, you get very toxic chemicals and potentially very dangerous fires. In the case of water, you can’t combust it, but it turns to gas at 100 degrees, so you do take it to that point where it turns to vapour. This process guarantees that the food is slow cooked at an even temperature, and water is cheap and non-toxic, so you can afford to keep it at boiling point.
It’s healthier and cleaner to boil in water than to fry in oil, but oil gives you flavour (and fat, which will be very unhealthy fat except if it’s olive or avocado oil); due to the higher temperature it can produce a different, richer flavour in food like cheese, and it can also make food, especially bread (like breaded food) crispy. Water, OTOH, dissolves some food (which can’t be boiled) and spoils bread (which requires a particular amount of humidity). (For an alternative that’s as healthy as boiling and crispy as frying, try an oven. Or that thing they call air fryer which is actually, surprise surprise, an oven.)
When you fry something in oil, the oil is hot enough to cause the water on the surface of the food to boil instantly, providing a layer of gas that stops the rest of the food from absorbing the oil. That’s why the outside of fried chicken is crispy while the inside is moist.
If you try to do the same with water, you would boil the water off vefore being able to cook your food. As a side note, you can try to fry something with oil that’s not hot enough, you’ll be left with a very soggy fried chicken because the breading would absorb the oil.
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