Smokey Mountain Breakdown

Deep Frying 101

I have a confession to make. Until last week, I have never deep-fried anything. That’s right, Southerner to the core and have never used a deep fryer. It’s embarrassing.

Last week I purchased an inexpensive deep fryer because I wanted to try out my tempura skills. I now get it. Deep-frying is addictive. I’ve been picking up food items and thinking, gee, I wonder what would happen if I deep-fried this? I suspect this is how deep-fried Mars Bars came into being. The dogs are beside themselves with approval since I can’t actually eat this stuff beyond a bite or two.

It may not be surprising to other Southerners, since we use pan frying more often than not. I suspect many of us learned this working in fast food restaurants in high school. I was fired from Pizza Hut and never got to work at McDonalds. Food service was not my forte.

So, my deep-frying experiment has been something of a revelation and I thought I’d share what I learned—just in case there are some of you out there like me, who have been interested, but haven’t attempted this.

The best coating I found was self-rising flour mixed with ice water. I actually put crushed ice in the batter to keep it icy cold.

Tips

1. The oil needs to heat up very hot. Do not cover the fryer with a lid.

2. Dredge your food items with flour before dipping them in the icy cold coating.

3. Have lots of paper towel to drain.

I still don’t have the draining bit down. I’d like my tempura to be even lighter, but even so—they did turn out rather nicely.