This is what happens to me all the time…well, whenever I’m about to fry something anyway…I get excited about heating up the oil and turn the stove burner on too high.  The oil ends up much hotter than I needed it to be and … now what do I do?

3 things I can tell you from experience:

1. Start your burner at medium heat.  You’ll most likely find that frying temps of 350 – 375 degrees are found at a medium heat setting, or thereabouts.  Adjust the dial as necessary.
2. If you’ve become overzealous and you started by setting your burner on high, your oil temp is probably sky-high, as shown above.  You can either add more oil to the pot to lower the temperature (if you happen to have more oil on hand and don’t mind using up a lot more of it) or …
3. you can remove your pot from the burner, allow the oil in the pot to cool to the temp you want while you turn the burner down to around medium!