Frying

 Being engaged in cooking my entire adult life, it is interesting how we all have things, techniques, cuisines that we like to cook and others that seem to be a big challenge or out of our wheelhouse. That has certainly been the case with deep fat frying. I think I have always had this image of the fat overflowing, causing a huge fire or dipping on me and causing third-degree burns. Hence a real reluctance to try it. There has also been the question of what one does with all that oil/fat when you are done. If you are not frying on a regular basis, it seems like a lot of waste.

But in our pandemic, locked-down world where I have been cooking more than ever, I was tempted to give it a try. My first attempt was with some leftover lentils cooked Indian style. I thought it would be great as a deep fried fritter. Unfortunately, my means of binding the lentils together was not sufficient and they disintegrated the moment they went into the hot oil (I managed to salvage the lentils by pan frying them as patties). 

But, I had found deep in our freezer a package of shrimp leftover from Daughter #2 when she was here with the family last spring. Most of the time we buy Costco bags of frozen shrimp that nice and separate so I can take out just what Wife and I will eat. But this was a big block of shrimp that had to be defrosted all at once. For some reason, the idea of deep fried shrimp appealed to me. 

In general the experiment turned out pretty good. Flavor and texture were good. Consistency of product from batch to batch sucked. 

You will notice from the picture above a distinct difference in how the shrimp look. This was because I had a very hard time keeping the temperature consistent. For the first batch (the dark upper shrimp), I was getting my heat a bit higher than called for on the theory that the heat would drop when you put the food in. Unfortunately, the heat was quite a bit higher and these were cooked in a fraction of the time I expected.

The second group was the best. (The middle group) After fishing out the first batch, I hurriedly got the next batch in. These seemed to cook just right. BUT, the amount I put in was too large and the temperature dropped below desired.

The third batch (the lower group) suffered from my having run out of breading. Plus the heat would not seem to get up despite the amount of flame I applied. Then suddenly the heat was too hot. So I was scrambling again. 

Despite all this drama, both the flavor and the mouth appeal (the crunch of the crust compared to the tenderness of the food) was very nice for all three batches.  I think I need to be more careful about how much quantity I put in with each batch to help avoid the swings of oil temperature.