No Fail Frying

Alert follower Ian chimed in this morning with a great question:

‘How would I bread something wet like a pickle spear, or tempura vegetables?

The smooth surfaces would make binding difficult, would it not?’

As always, thanks for following and asking – I love being able to help with stuff like this.

The short answer is – Yes – A smooth and/or wet surface is a challenge when it comes to getting a coating to hang on whilst deep frying, or for baking for that matter. As many of you know, we like to watch a bit of food porn, and Chopped is right there at the top of our list. The other night, we watched a professional Chef and culinary instructor serve fish breaded with an ingredient from the mystery basket – His breading fell off. His fish ended up dried out, he’d effectively missed a mandatory ingredient, and he got chopped – Even Pros get the blues with this issue.

A further problematic component is the solution(s); ask five people their advice/method, and you’ll get five different answers – Egg wash, no egg wash – refrigerate, don’t refrigerate – cornstarch, no cornstarch – And on it goes. If the problem has ever happened to you, (and if you tell me it never has, I won’t believe you), we’re here to tell you how to make the bad thing stop.

The first consideration when frying stuff is whether or not any treatment is needed. You certainly could fry almost anything with no coating at all, but you’re not likely to get what you’re after with some foods. Frying is a relatively high heat cooking method, and the density of oil means that heat gets right to work on your food and stays at it. Relatively delicate stuff like veggies, seafood, and chicken can and will get dry and tough real quickly if they’re not properly prepped for frying. The reason we coat things is threefold.

First, a good coating protects foods from drying out or charring, and promotes browning;

Secondly, it forms a tasty, crunchy crust;

And third, that coating forms a barrier that keeps food from absorbing too much oil and becoming greasy.

That’s a description of a good crust, of course, but not all crusts come out that way. A bad crust falls off, ends up tough and chewy, or soft and mushy – We’ve all experienced those, so the question is, how do we achieve a good crust?

The first aspect to explore is what to coat with; each permutation has its plusses and pitfalls.

There’s breading, which means some combination of bread crumbs and seasoning. I’ve made breading with crumbs from many different breads, cereal, crackers, and potato or corn chips. Breading certainly makes a formidable barrier layer, and can add a nice elements of crunch and flavor, but may do so at the cost of overwhelming the food being breaded. Things to keep in mind are crumb source and size – Crackers and chips generally have higher fat content than bread, so those can end up burning easier and/or tasting greasy, so compensate with attentive frying and proper proportion. Same goes for exceptionally large crumbs – a lot of oil can and will get caught therein if things aren’t just right, so reducing crumb size with a quick spin in a processor or grinder might be warranted.

Dredges are usually flour based with some added seasoning. They’re far subtler than breading, but in and of themselves, don’t add as much crunch, which in the case of, say, fried chicken, might be highly desirable. Things to watch here are quantity and source. Too much flour leads to tough, doughy coatings, too little to an inordinately fragile shell. All purpose and bread flours made from wheat are relatively high in gluten, so they stick well, but that also makes them potentially gluey. Low protein alternatives, like Wondra, cake, rice, or corn flour will make a thinner, crunchier crust that won’t get sloppy. Root and nut flours are not recommended for dredges, because they’re prone to rapid breakdown in the high heat range of frying, and can lead to soggy results. Finally, mixing in a little cornstarch rarely hurts – it’ll help dry things out a bit and acts as additional glue.

For both breading and dredges, the egg wash is a must as far as I’m concerned – That’s the glue that makes your coating stick, and without it, it’s a lot more likely to fall off. Pat your food dry before you coat it, and here’s a serious secret weapon: The double dip and cryo routine is a sure fire way to avoid catastrophic crust release; here’s how it works.

Set out bowls of egg wash, (1 tablespoon of whole milk per egg, beaten well), and your seasoned crumbs or dredge. Drag whatever you’re frying through the egg wash, shake it a couple times, then run it through the crumbs or dredge, shake or tap off the excess, then repeat – So, egg/dry/egg/dry. That second run will lock both the glue and the coating tightly onboard. Then, place your prepped stuff in a single layer on a waxed paper lined plate or pan, and slide that into the fridge for about 30 minutes while you heat your oil. The cryo-treatment keeps that crust firmly onboard until you fry. Again, watch your oil temp, as colder food will make it drop faster – Work in small batches and adjust temp as needed to stay where you need to be.

Batters are wet coatings, made with water, milk, or beer. Again, batter adds great crunch and taste, but done wrong it can override primary flavors, and lead to that chewy or mushy coating we mentioned earlier. Batters really require deep frying to shine, while breading or dredging can be done shallow with fine results. Dairy or beer generally works better than water for batters heavier than tempura; the water has a tendency to turn quickly to steam when it hits the oil, and can lead to that premature coating release we want to avoid. If you’re working with slippery food in this genre, a quick dusting of corn starch makes a great batter glue, and won’t appreciably affect taste. Finally, adding a bit of a chemical leavening agent like baking soda helps form a lighter crust.

My advice is to experiment freely, trying different combinations to arrive at a favorite or two. With all of these options, make sure you season your crumbs/dredge/batter – boring batter leads to more blah fried stuff than any other source. Keep in mind that seasonings get amplified by frying, so watch the salt especially.

Proper temperature is also a big part of good results. You should fry pretty much everything between 325° F and 375° F – Lower than that range will allow oil to enter the food, make things heavy and greasy; too much higher and most oils will start to smoke, which is dangerous and not at all tasty. More delicate stuff like veggies and fish go at the bottom of that range, chicken in the middle, root veggies at the top. Oil variety is up to you. We fry in peanut oil, because it has a nice, savory taste note, can be had relatively cheaply, and is a monounsaturated oil that’s relatively good for you. Canola is cheap and works well too.

For post fry draining, brown paper bags are our go to – You’ll get the crunchiest results using those instead of paper towels or newspaper.

For Ian’s primary question, deep frying pickles, there is a trick I like a lot. Use thoroughly chilled pickle chips, slices or wedges. Make a thin beer batter with 50% – 50% cake flour and beer. Pull those pickles, batter them, and place on a waxed paper lined plate in the fridge for about 30 minutes while you heat your oil. Again, that cryo-treatment really helps the coating stay put. Fry at 350° F, in small batches, closely monitoring oil temp. NOTE: If you like the idea of breaded pickles, try crushed sea salt and vinegar, or black pepper and sea salt chips as your crumb; they’re both pretty stellar.

For tempura and veggies, incorporating rice flour will help the batter stick better. Our go-to tempura batter is nice and light – It looks like this:

1 Cup ice cold Water

1/2 Cup Cake Flour

1/2 Cup Rice Flour

1 large Egg

2 Tablespoons Corn Starch

1 Tablespoon Baking Soda

In a mixing bowl, combine all dry ingredients and incorporate thoroughly.

In a large mixing bowl, combine egg and water and beat to incorporate thoroughly.

Add half the dry mix and whisk gently to incorporate, then add the remaining half and combine thoroughly.

Fry veggies at 325° F; when they pop to the top of the oil and are light golden brown, they’re good to go.

Now, everybody say “Thanks, Ian,” for a great question!