Deep fryin'

[BGDrew]

Next time you do mushrooms come up with some type of stuffing before battering them up. Herbal cream cheese is great in them. I know where I work we use a batter called Drake's. Instead of water we use beer to mix it up.

Something else that is absolutely delicious deep-fried is broccoli. I like it with ranch to dip in. You might want to also check the store for bags of battered mac-n-cheese. That's pretty good with ranch or ketchup.

[TG1996]

I almost grabbed some broccoli when I grabbed the shrooms last week. And I've had fried mac-n-cheese before, I'll definitely agree there. One that we want to try to find is ravioli. It's all over the the place in STL, topped with parmesan cheese and served with a marinara sauce. Great stuff.

Right now I'm all about finding a thicker batter (more flour? let it sit longer?) because while the shrooms were pretty good, they could have been a lot better.

We threw some green olives in for the hell of it... they tasted like olives. But with a thicker batter, I might try to replace the pimentos with cheese or something first.

[hammb]

Batter is simple. You can use Drakes if you want, but it's really nothing special either. I do like it though.

The thickness of the batter is going to be determined by your proportions of liquid:flour. For thicker, just use more flour or less liquid.

[McConvey]

One thing I always like is won tons. They're much better than what you'd get at a restaurant because I actually put stuff inside the skins, rather than just try to make a design with it. I don't know that it's genuine Chinese food, but it tastes damned good!

[Pete Segaard]

If you like deep fried dill pickles try frying Tony Packo's Sweet Hot pickles.
a dusting of flour
left to sit in buttermilk
Tony C's breading
deep fry

for dipping I like to use Tony Packo's spicy ketchup or ranch sauce.

I think using the breading instead of batter makes them more crispy.

[The Niz]

I'm glad this thread was posted, I have been searching for a decent way to make batter since xmas (when the GF's dad bought us a delux turkey fryer). I have tried just mixing flour baking powder beer salt and pepper but my proportions are WAY off and I can't afford to waste any more ingrediants on failure. Can someone at least give me a base to start with?

[TG1996]

Can someone at least give me a base to start with?

Flour, water, eggs. I think if you start with a cup of flour and a half cup of water or so and a large egg. As was mentioned here, you can always add more flour if it's too thin, or more water if it's too thick. And those three ingredients are pretty cheap, even for a college kid.

[TG1996]

Hey Niz, I fried some mushrooms today and might have a simple winner of a recipe for ya, trying to keep track of measurements, though by the end, I was just tossing stuff in here and there...

1 1/4 cup flour (started with 1 c., added a couple "half handfuls" in stage 2)
1 TBSP garlic salt
1 1/2 TBSP corn starch (started with 1 TBSP, added a bit more right out of the box later)

Mixed that up, and then whisked it with what ended up being all but a swallow of a beer bottle. (Bud Light is what I had at hand.)

Came out possibly a little thin in the end, but I also experimented with frying them at 375 for a couple minutes, pulling them out to paper towels and then dipping them again before frying again for a little longer. They came out pretty good, with a decent beer taste. I imagine with a heavier beer, you'd get more of that to come out.

[The Niz]

We just fried a chicken tonight with a creaole butter injection, and a simple salt and pepper rub. It was GLORIOUS!


I may have to wait a while to try your batter recipe there TG, as I can feel myself trying to die after tonights chicken Thanks for posting it though, I will probably give in and try it sometime this week.