So I finally got a deep-fryer, a DualDaddy deep-fryer, to be precise. I’d been wanting one for a while, and was recently given a hand-me-down of one by a friend. I don’t want to use it very often, obviously, as I’d rather not weigh 400 pounds, so I’m looking for extra-special things to do with it on occasion. Not looking for typical onion rings/chicken nuggets/french fries- yeah, yeah, I can do that. More looking for things like stuffed jalapenos (how do you get the breading to stick?) or things I wouldn’t have necessarily come up with myself but that are interesting and delicious.
Make your own fresh tortilla chips from packaged tortillas. I find white corn tortillas work best. Also flour tortillas, fry them until they begin to brown.
But the main reason you got the fryer was to make deep fried Milky Way bars. Make a flour batter with a little double acting baking powder. Not too thick, it should take a couple of seconds to drip off your finger. Dip a frozen milky way in the batter, roll in flour, dip again, then holding one end with your fingers (or tongs if you’re dainty), hold the rest of the Milky Way in the oil until the batter sets up, then release it and it will float. Turn until lightly browned.
You can make all sorts of fried seafood without wrecking it the way so many places do. Use butterflied shrimp, scallops (bay scallops, or sea scallops that aren’t too large), calamari rings, clams, oysters, whatever you have. Keep them wet in their own juices, or use an egg wash, then roll them well in the breading of your choice. Work the breading into the seafood, put them in the basket, but not over the fryer, and shake off excess breading. Drop the basket in 350F oil, after a few seconds pick up and shake to seperate the pieces, then drop again. Once everything floats give only a few more seconds, another shake to get everything evenly cooked, a few more seconds and they are done. Don’t wait for the breading to brown up a lot, get them out while the seafood is tender and tasty.
Blacken on your stovetop four poblano or pasilla chiles. Peel them, slit them open and cut out the big seed chunk inside. Stuff them with grated monterey jack cheese put them in the fridge.
Start to get your oil up to deep frying temperature. Separate four eggs. Beat the yolks with a quarter cup of flour until they’re smooth and light. Whip the whites until they form stiff peaks, then fold together the two egg mixtures.
Dip the stuffed chiles into the fluffy egg batter, contriving to get as much batter to cling as possible. Deep-fry the coated chiles until they’re light golden brown all over and serve them in a puddle of plain tomato sauce.
Deep fried avocados. You need to use firm, underripe avocados for this. Halve and peel the avocados, remove the pit, and scoop out some of the flesh to embiggen the hole. Stuff it with whatever; if it would be good as a tamale filling, it’d be good in there. Close it back up; feel free to use toothpicks to hold it together. Standard egg-and-breadcrumbs coating. Go ahead, double dip it. Deep fry until golden brown.
One “trick” I learned in my youth, working at a McDonalds:
When making french fries, put them in the deep fryer for a few minutes, then take them OUT and allow them to become at least cool to the touch, then re-submerge them for final cooking. This two-step process gets the fries to come out perfectly. I have found it is not a bad trick even when doing things like fish fillets bought in the frozen foods section.
Being from the Midwest, I miss the good old pork tenderloin sandwiches common in most areas there. I finally found the perfect recipe:
Take boneless pork chops (thin), then take a good meat hammer and pound those suckers until they are paper thin and about the size of a dinner plate. (Helps to put them between Saran Wrap strips so it doesn’t get too messy.)
Dip in egg mixture.
In a separate bowl, take a full box of Ritz crackers (the generic versions of Ritz cracker work well and are cheaper) and grind them into a fine flour mixture.
Dredge the thin pork chop in egg mixture through the cracker flour. Then re-dip into egg mixture and again through the Ritz cracker flour mixture until there is a fairly thick coating.
This is a bit of a pain in the ass to make, so you might as well make a bunch of them when doing it - they freeze really well! Oh, and those you want to eat sooner - put them in the fridge to cool for at least an hour or so before deep frying - don’t know why, but this makes a huge difference to cook them when at least nice and cool, not room temperature!
Oh man do I love breaded pork tenderloin sandwiches. I have to go to Indiana or Iowa to get a really good one, though. Illinois doesn’t seem to do pork tenderloin sandwiches that much. The Wisconsin chain Culver’s has them, but they’re not quite right. I’ll have to try your recipe soon. I usually just do the flour-egg-breadcrumb thing. Never tried it with Ritz crackers. Sounds perfect. Mmmm…
Beyond that, Modernist Cuisine at Home recommends cooking steaks sous-vide to med-rare, and then deep-frying the outsides to get a uniform and excellent sear. I haven’t tried it myself, but it does sound like it would work well.
Lots of trial and error, but yes - the Ritz crackers ground into a fine flour is the key trick! I can pretty much give you a 100% guarantee you will agree. But seriously - go ahead and use the generic brands of Ritz - no difference one iota. Saves a couple bucks.
Anything with a beer batter coating. Whenever I am in Canadia, I buy two or three of these to get us through until the next trip. We coat chicken strips, fish, onion rings, mushrooms, zucchini chunks, etc in this and it is really good. I usually roll the food to be coated in plain flour first, then dunk in the batter and transfer to the fryer. It’s just a touch sweeter than homemade, but cooks up better than any we have made from scratch.
Speaking of olives, there was a restaurant around here, since closed, that served an appetizer of sausage wrapped around blue-cheese-stuffed green olives, breaded and deep fried. Man, they were good!
Refrigerated biscuit dough, each biscuit cut into quarters. Deep fry, then toss in granulated sugar, cinnamon sugar, powdered sugar, honey, simple syrup (with or without lime or lemon zest), or put a couple under a scoop of ice cream or berry compote.
I’ve also done a savory version, tossed in a bit of melted garlic butter and rolling in shredded Parmesan and herbs.
