re: Made a big pot of crawfish bisque

NP, are you thinking of the Rainbow Inn, right by the bridge? Granted, my memories of the place go back a little bit -- like to around the early 1960's when my otherwise-nonadventurous parents would take the drive down for some good food.

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You’ve presumably done it with used oil and without, and prefer used oil if I’m interpreting your description accurately. What are the trade-offs of using used frying oil?

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I've only used oil that I've fried chicken with since it is a fair amount of oil to begin with in order to submerge the pieces in so it fries evenly.

What I do is allow it to cool and use a very fine mesh sieve to strain out any particulates out of the oil. I always use fresh All-Purpose Flour to make the roux. I did make the mistake of using the flour from frying the chicken once and it ruined the roux since it was heavily seasoned and much of the seasonings burned in the roux, so I tossed it.

I've often thought about using fish/oyster/shrimp frying oil to make my roux for seafood gumbos, but I don't make them as often as chicken/sausage/okra gumbo so I just make a fresh roux using all new ingredients.

After I make my roux I let it cool completely and then put it in quart jars to save in the refrigerator until needed. I don't put it in jars and toss in the pantry.

I think the thing with restaurants is their oil is used very heavily, especially when frying chicken and seafood and it may be getting changed out near the point of being burned after hours of high temperature use. But that's only a wild guess.