I love deep fried food. You can take anything, even stuff that isn’t very good, deep fry it, and wham you’ve got a culinary delight. For example, zucchini, although everyone grows it in their garden it really isn’t that great of a vegetable. I know it makes delicious brownies, cakes and bread. That’s only because you’ve added a ton of sugar and chocolate with it. You take away the zucchini and what do you have? Right, a very nice chocolate cake, brownies or bread without strands of weird green stuff. I know some of you pulverize the zucchini in your blender so that it will be undetected in your special recipe. But then what’s the point? Oh you want the kids to have something green and healthy in their diet. That’s where deep fat frying comes in.
Serve the kids breaded and deep fried zucchini with ketchup or a little ranch dressing and 9 times out of 10, or 9 out of 10 kids, as is the case in our house, they will love it. And you will not have to resort to trickery.
When I was in the Marine Corps cooking for our nations finest we deep fried everything, except for soup. Not only did deep frying put a nice crispy coat on the food but it was fast. We could do a couple of hundred pounds of bacon in just a few minutes. Have you ever fried donuts after cooking several hundred pounds of bacon? Well let me tell you, they do not need any glaze or frosting after that. They come out with this unique smoky, salty flavor that the troops used to just love.
Once you get the hang of cross contamination or what we liked to call cross seasoning you will be amazed at all the different tastes you can come up with.
The other day I purchased my first deep fryer. I don’t know how we got along without one all these years. Immediately we set about making donuts and scones, corn dogs, French fries, and I even dropped a wad of biscuit dough into it. Not good. Contrary to what I may have said earlier in this column not everything is better deep fried. The French fries were great as were the scones. We dipped the scones into some glaze and they were just like raised donuts. The corn dogs were a disaster. I think we just need to keep searching for the right recipe.
I did however have some success with deep fried beef strips. I took some chuck roast meat that was on sale and cut it up into small strips and marinated in 3 parts soy sauce to one part balsamic vinegar and seasoned with garlic and onion powder and pepper for about two days. The chuck meat can be a little chewy so I purchased a flatiron and cut it into strips as well for comparison. Both the cross ribs and chucks were on sale so I was able to get the flatiron as a cross rib roast really cheap. You can too, just ask the butcher for one when the cross rib roasts are on sale.
Anyhow after marinating for two days I drained the strips and coated with flour and then dipped them into the batter. For a suitable coating I usually root around in the fridge for leftover pancake batter and then add just a little more milk to thin it down a little bit. Of course if there isn’t any batter in the fridge then I’ll just make up a little bit from scratch. Any pancake recipe will do. Just thin it up a little bit. Once dipped into the batter I drop the strips into the 350 degree oil until they turn a nice light brown. Remove and drain and then dip into ketchup or ranch or bleu cheese or eat them plain they are delicious.
We made up a bunch of them and served them with my favorite potato dish- funeral potatoes, and of course biscuits. Talking about being in heaven.
Remember Our Marine Corps motto Semper Fi do or die. Or in our case down at the mess hall Semper Fi do or fry.