Cooking apparatus for oil frying

A cooking apparatus for oil frying comprising an outer pan, a rotational wheel and a plurality of pivotal dummy plates wherein the wheel is mounted on a pivot axis between two shaft brackets of the outer pan, the dummy plates are mounted on the circumference of the wheel, and the pivot axis of each dummy plate is parallel with the pivot axis of the wheel. Food can be filled for deep-fried cooking through an end of the outer pan and is pushed forward by the dummy plates on the wheel and forcibly pushed out of another end of the outer pan.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
The conventional oil-fried cooking often uses a manual type apparatus. A 
pan with a round bottom is used for loading and heating oil, and then food 
together with spices are put into the pan for frying and removing 
manually. How many times that oil-fried food is turned over and how long 
the food is fried entirely depends on the experience and skill of the 
cook. Hence, it is difficult to control the quality of oil-fried food. In 
addition, oil-fried food together with spices must be filled, turned over 
and removed manually each time so that the cooker is too busy to maintain 
quality control when a large quantity of food is being oil fried 
simultaneously. Besides, a cook's skills and working speed are limited so 
that it is difficult to make a great quantity of oil-fried food in exactly 
the same quality. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
This invention relates to a cooking apparatus for oil frying having a wheel 
being driven by an external power input for rotation within an outer pan 
at a predetermined speed. Dummy plates on the rotational wheel are 
provided to push and separate various kinds of oil-fried food so as to 
promote both quality and quantity of the fried food.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
This invention provides cooking apparatus for oil frying comprising an 
outer pan 1, a rotational wheel 2 and a plurality of dummy plates 3; said 
outer pan 1 is an oil container resembling a semi-round shape and is 
permitted to be heated. Said outer pan 1 consists of two parallel 
semi-round plates 11. A shaft bracket 12 is mounted at the circular center 
of each semi-round plate 11 and an arc plate 13 is connected between the 
arc edges 11a of said two semi-round plates 11. One end of said arc plate 
13 extends downwards and obliquely into the inlet port 14 of the outer pan 
1 and the other end extends downwards and obliquely to the outlet port 15. 
Said outlet port 15 has an inwardly projecting portion 16 that can force 
the dummy plates 3 to deflect backwards at a predetermined angle. As shown 
in FIG. 2, said rotational wheel 2 is a hollow and close wheel body and at 
the center of said rotational wheel a support shaft 21 is pivotally 
mounted on the shaft bracket 12 of the outer pan 1. Said shaft 21 is 
geared by the motor 4 to rotate at a predetermined speed. When said 
rotational wheel 2 uses the support shaft 21 to mount on the shaft bracket 
12 it will occupy most of the loading space in the outer pan 1. The 
plurality of dummy plates 3 are equally spaced and pivotally mounted on 
the circumference of the rotational wheel 2, and are each respectively 
pushed forward by an elastic element 31. The pivot axis of each said dummy 
plate 3 and center shaft line of the rotational wheel 2 are in parallel. A 
check bending plate 32 is provided in front of the pivot axis of each 
dummy plate 3 to limit the pivotal deflection of each dummy plate 3 within 
a predetermined angle. 
Referring to FIG. 2, food 5 for oil-fried cooking can be slid through the 
inlet port 14 of the outer pan 1 onto the first dummy plate 3A. Due to the 
rotational wheel 2 in rotating according to a proper speed, food 5 for 
oil-fried cooking on the first dummy plate 3A is pushed under the surface 
of oil 6 to enable said food 5 to be disposed between the first dummy 
plate 3A and the second dummy plate 3B. Though oil 6 is permitted to enter 
between said two dummy plates 3A and 3B, food 5 is confined therebetween. 
Hence, food 5 will be heated and deeply fried, while traveling an arc 
route. Finally, oil-fried food 5 located between the first and second 
dummy plates 3A and 3B exits from the surface of oil 6 and naturally drops 
onto the second dummy plate 3B. As the projecting portion 16 of the inlet 
port 15 of the outer pan 1 blocks the outer end of the second dummy plate 
3 B said second dummy plate 3B swings downwards so that oil-fried food 5 
slides downwards along the second dummy plate 3B out the outlet port 15 of 
the outer pan 1 at the end of the oil-fried cooking procedure. 
For the use of this invention, food 5 for oil-fried cooking is forcibly 
pushed forward under the surface of oil 6. As the oil-fried food 5 is 
pushed forward along a semi-arc route and turns over. Further because 
oil-fried food 5 is submerged in the oil 6, all surfaces of food 5 will be 
heated uniformely in full due to food 5 being turned over so that cooking 
time can be greatly reduced. 
Furthermore, the time for heating oil-fried food 5 can be controlled by the 
rotational speed of motor 4 so that the operator may easily control the 
quality of oil-fried food 5 to produce a large quantity of oil-fried food 
having uniform quality. 
In addition to being made as a hollow and closed wheel body, as the 
above-mentioned example, the rotational wheel 2 can also be made with a 
plurality of venting holes to form a net-type metal structure. However, a 
hollow and closed type wheel serves to economize oil consumption.