Also, the more volume of oil that you have "at temperature", the better results you will have for fried foods, for when you drop in a couple of items, you don't lower the temperature of the oil as much. Of course, if you overload the pot with to many items to be fried, you'll still lower the temp of the oil to far and get soggy fried foods. This is one of the main reasons why restaurants have huge deep fryers. However, the energy required to heat large quantities of oil is large, so be aware of that.