Frying Time!!!!

Now who doesn't like things fried right? I basically think that anything good just gets better when fried. Heck they are even deep frying twinkies for goodness sakes. (Has anyone ever tried this? It sounds a little scary to me.) I was looking forward to this section for many reasons. I LOVE FRIED FOOD. Not as much as I use to because my stomach does not have the same love affair. I have always had trouble frying food. From the spraying oil to the uneven cooking time I've never made it perfect. I have even bought a deep fryer hoping to relive the days that my mom deep fried things with her baby fry daddy. (I wonder if they even make these anymore.) The worst thing is when there is a beautiful golden brown crust around the food and then you take a bite and the breading comes off the food. BOOOOO!!! Even though I rarely fry food anymore, I decided it was a skill that I needed to conquer. If not for me but for the sake of my McDonalds bill. :) If I could replicate that I could save a lot of money the way my kids their nuggets.

The first application of frying was to make a sort of "tempura" style food. I love tempura frying because the breading is so light and not greasy. You can usually tell what the food was before it was fried which is unlike other thick breading applications. For this application I fried sweet potatoes, broccoli, and shrimp. When I saw this "recipe" I immediately thought of my grandpa and how he use to work in the truck at the airshow and make fried veggies for the rotary club. They were yummy. Just wanted to give him a shout out.

The first thing I did was cut and clean the veggies. I tried to make all of the cuts even so even cooking time could occur. Here is my matchstick sweet potatoes....

Broccoli...

I then made the batter. This is corn starch and egg whites mixed.

And then whipped until frothy...

Here is my mies en place AKA: the ingredients ready to go.

I then heated peanut oil to 350 degrees. I do not have a candy thermometer (hint hint) so I had to improvise.

I took each item individually and dipped it into the egg white/corn starch mixture and lightly dipped it.

Then I let the excess batter drip off...

Into the hot oil, Love that sizzle sound. :) 1st the shrimp

then the veggies

I made sure to only put 3-4 items in at one time. Here is the done shrimp. I quickly hit it with kosher salt while still hot.
So I know I don't have a finished product of everything but Ryan was sick that day. So basically Symon and I were eating it right out of the oil. It was really good. The shrimp was my favorite. The broccoli burned a lot and the sweet potatoes were basically raw in the inside which was a bummer. I did like the breading/tempura style and the breading did stay on the food which was good. I do want to note that I used new oil. AB suggests using old oil to get a better flavor. Because of this, I let the oil cool and saved it for the next application. Overall it was yummy. Would definitely do it again. Next up, going south with green tomatoes.