Here are 3 examples:
Fried egg, fried rice, fried chicken
All these “fry” are different. If you were to use the “fry” in fried rice to fry an egg, you’d get scrambled egg. Fried chicken is done by submerging it in oil, which you won’t do with fried egg or fried rice.
This post is made from the perspective of a Cantonese/Chinese speaker. We have different words for these different types of “fry” (煎, 炒, 炸 respectively)
(Turns out I did post it in the wrong sub and I didn’t realize, and now I feel very stupid. Photon UI has once again screwed me over. Got mad for no reason.)
This is why you sometimes have to make it specific by saying “deep fried” or “pan fried”.
Deep fried? Can I get deeper fried ones? How about the deepest fried ones?
Or isn’t this like the cooked stages of steak?
Non-native speaker, too.
Deep frying is when there’s like a bowl of oil that you completely submerge the food in.
Pan frying is when it’s just a light layer of oil.
Stir fry is like pan fry, but you stir while frying.
Check out variations section of the Wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frying
Deep frying specificaly refers to frying by submerging in hot oil. Fried chicken is deep fried.