Eli5 why is frying not possible with water and boiling not possible with oil
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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.)
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