The Appliance no Home is Complete Without

I used my new deep fryer again today. I made the same things I made poorly two days ago: fried chicken and hush puppies. I also made slaw using Robert Irvine’s recipe, but of course, I changed it slightly. I’ll post my version, but his is available online.

INGREDIENTS
1 bag Publix coleslaw mix
1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1-1/2 teaspoons celery seed
1/4 cup sugar
Salt and pepper if desired

This works great, but the amount of sauce is a little excessive for one bag of slaw, so it would be best to hold some back and add more later if needed.

This time, everything came out very well. My wife liked the chicken better than I did. She asked how we were supposed to enjoy fried chicken from restaurants after tonight. She said it was the best fried chicken she had had in the US.

In case anyone wants to try the recipe, I’ll post it, but I am still improving it, so I wouldn’t be in a rush to put it to the test. I felt it was too salty, and I think it still needs more heat.

BREADING INGREDIENTS:
1 cup flour
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon sage
1/2 teaspoon chipotle
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

This will get you through a 4-pound chicken, but just barely.

WASH INGREDIENTS:
2 eggs
3-4 teaspoons Frank’s Red Hot sauce or something similar
1 tablespoon beer
salt

I managed to find a 4-1/2-pound chicken, which is a midget by local standards. I am going to keep looking for 3-pound chickens. I was not able to find small chickens already cut up, and big chicken pieces are hard to fry well. I ended up cutting the breasts up because they were huge. Ideally, every piece of chicken should be the same size so everything cooks at the same speed and likes the same temperature.

I don’t cut chickens up well. I’ll keep working on it.

I did not listen to the insanity about frying at 350°. Maybe that works if you can find small chickens. I tried to stay below 330°, and the chicken cooked very nicely. No dark areas. No undercooked meat. The breading stayed on the chicken. The crust was similar to KFC extra crispy in texture and appearance.

I think I would do even better at 300°. Maybe lower, once the crust is set. My grandmother made good chicken, and she used to fry it on relatively high heat for 5 minutes and then cook it on lower heat for 20.

I used a Thermapen to check the internal temperature of each piece. They varied tremendously, so I think this was necessary.

I have always found that chicken fried at 350° burns on the outside before it cooks inside. As I have said before, I believe recipes that recommend 350° are intended for small cooking vessels. The people who write the recipes know that when you add chicken to a small pan, the temperature drops fast, so you end up cooking between 300° and 330°. When you have 4 gallons of hot oil and a propane burner, your oil temperature is not going to drop.

I dumped the raw chicken in a bowl. I salted it pretty generously and poured in a lot of Frank’s. I stirred everything up and left the chicken in the fridge while I worked on other things.

In retrospect, I think I should use a hotter sauce than Frank’s, because fried chicken somehow loses heat during the preparation and cooking processes.

I beat the eggs with a little beer. I didn’t taste beer in the final product, but I think eggs alone are too thick.

I dipped each piece in the eggs and then rolled it in flour. I lowered each piece into the hot oil individually to avoid having them hit the bottoms of the baskets while still raw. I was afraid they would stick if I did that. It happened last time.

I did not crowd the pieces. I believe I never had more than 4 pieces in a basket. I tried to group large and small pieces as well as I could, hoping all the pieces in each basket would be done at the same time. It didn’t work, but at least I didn’t mix wings and breasts. Having pieces of similar sizes made some difference, even if it wasn’t a perfect solution.

I cut the propane off at least twice. This machine will burn chicken very easily because it has a lot of power. You have to watch it.

In the past, I have double-breaded chicken, but this time I decided not to push it. It worked. One application of wash and flour worked great.

Day before yesterday, I used a Southern Living hush puppy recipe, and it was no good. The hush puppies had too much flour in them. They were doughy, like biscuits. They didn’t have enough onion flavor. They lacked salt and sweetness. They weren’t dark enough. The batter was too loose.

Today, I used much less flour, more onions, and more salt. I added a little beer to the buttermilk just for fun. The hush puppies were nearly perfect. Next time, more sugar, less salt, and stiffer batter. I plan to add the liquids a little bit at a time until I get what I want, instead of relying on a fixed amount called for by a recipe.

I don’t know why the people at Southern Living can’t make hush puppies. Maybe they’re like other magazines. Maybe they hire a lot of gay urban writers who only pretend to know their subjects.

INGREDIENTS

3/4 cup cornmeal mix (self-rising)
1/4 cup self-rising flour
1 tsp. salt
1 large egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
1-1/4 cups finely-chopped onion
1/2 tbsp. sugar

As noted above, I added a little beer to the buttermilk. I didn’t use the entire half-cup of liquid, but the batter was still looser than I liked. I ended up adding almost three tablespoons of meal.

I didn’t have self-rising flour, so I added 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder.

If you try this recipe, reduce the salt to 3/4 tsp. and increase the sugar to 2 teaspoons or so.

I used Martha White corn meal mix.

Do not use sweet onions. You never cook a Vidalia.

Even with too much salt and not enough sugar, these were dynamite. They tasted exactly like the taste you taste in your mind when you hear the phrase “hush puppies.” They browned better than the first batch because of the sugar.

I think they would be even better if I omitted the flour completely. Martha White mix already has some wheat flour in it.

I turned the heat up for the hush puppies. Small food needs more heat than big food, and hush puppies need to be darker than chicken. The fryer requires a certain amount of technique. You can’t just dump things in it without planning or watching and expect the best results. It’s not like making the same batch of fries 10,000 times at McDonald’s.

My conclusion is that the fryer is a winner. Everyone should have one. But frying is still a lot of work. I don’t have to wash a frying pot or filter and move oil, but I have to wash the baskets. Fried chicken involves a cutting board, a knife, a big bowl to hold the pieces before frying, a bowl for flour, and a bowl for egg wash. You also need tongs and a few other things. It’s not like a deep fryer is a toaster and you just pop your chicken pieces into it.

My wife wants to make fries in it. That should be nice. She makes them Zambian-style. Very thin and wide. They’re wonderful. Surprised me.

So that’s it. I can make good fried chicken now. My chicken will get better and better in the future. I have mastered hush puppies. On to the next challenge.

Maybe I’ll add a food photo later. I have a couple. They don’t look great, but they show that the food was fried nicely.