i've tried stove-top deep frying. I experienced all the annoyances mentioned above: took forever to get high temp (375+), must start with warm or room temp food, but still took forever to recover temp, any moisture on food creates serious risk of overflow/splatter, could only fry a small amount at a time, bad smell in kitchen. I'm told that commercial home fryers (DeLonghi, etc.) aren't very good. Apparently they don't generate enough heat and often break.