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By Root 615 0

(split them down the middle, but not far enough to split them in half; you can also leave the tails on to allow an unbattered “handle”), and blanched vegetables, such as sliced sweet potatoes, broccoli, squash, and flat-leaf parsley. This recipe makes enough batter to coat about ½ pound of U21/25 shrimp, a medium-sized head of broccoli cut into florets, and one large sweet potato, thinly sliced.

Software:

2 quarts peanut or safflower oil

(see Notes)

Salt

Freshly ground white pepper

¾ cup cornstarch

1 cup egg whites

Target food (see Notes)

Hardware:

Electric fryer or heavy Dutch

oven fitted with a fat/candy

thermometer

Small mixing bowl

Mesh strainer for sifting

Medium mixing bowl

Electric mixer

Tongs

Draining rig (see illustration)

PONZU

Ponzu sauce is Japanese and is typically made with lemon juice or rice vinegar, soy sauce, mirin or sake, seaweed, and dried bonito flakes. Bonito flakes, also called katsuobushi, are made of strongly flavored tuna.

Fats for Cooking

Fat is one of the body’s basic nutrients. According to Harold McGee in his On Food and Cooking, fats account for about 10 percent of daily caloric intake in developing countries, while in affluent societies like our own the figure is more like 40 percent.

As consumers, we became saturated with fat talk years ago when doctors decided that fat was bad. Since Americans have been steadily plumping up for the last few decades, this wasn’t a great leap of quantum thinking. But then somebody figured out that different fats elicit different responses in the body, depending on their saturation. Thus began the great dialogue and even greater confusion regarding the nature of saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats. As for cholesterol, well, let’s just say that the amount of cholesterol in the foods we consume is not necessarily reflected in the amount of serum cholesterol in our bloodstream. But, just in case you’ve been buying one particular brand of vegetable oil simply because the container proudly proclaims it “cholesterol free,” you can feel safe and secure in knowing that it’s true. Of course, there’s no such thing as a vegetable oil containing cholesterol. Only animal products, such as lard, contain cholesterol.

All culinary fats are called triglycerides. The term refers to the fats’ molecular architecture, comprising three fatty acids that are esterified, or hitched, to a glycerine molecule. The structure of these fatty acids greatly determines how the fat is going to act when it gets into the culinary (and biological) food chain. Although there are a lot of different fatty acids (a whole lot actually), they all fall into one of three categories: saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated.

A fatty acid is basically a long chain of carbon atoms. Besides being anchored to the carbon in front as well as behind, each carbon has two chemical arms that can each hold a hydrogen atom. When all the carbons in a chain have their hands full of hydrogen, it is saturated, meaning that it can hold no more. Fats high in this kind of fat tend to be solid at room temperature, and they make cardiologists nervous.

If two adjoining carbons on a chain are lacking a hydrogen (this always happens in twos; there are never singles or threesomes), they join hands, creating a double bond.

FRY VESSELS

Until recently I did all my frying on the cook top in a big Dutch oven. I still fry french fries there because I use a two-pass method, which requires a pass at 300° F, then another at 350° F. That said, I recently came into possession of an electric fryer and I have to say, I like it.

I’m not talking about one of those fancy Italian numbers with the hinged lid and the “cool touch” chassis. This thing looks like a dark metal bucket with a cord coming out of the base. It’s called a “Dual Daddy” and it’s nice and wide but still deeper than wide, which is good. And get this: no thermostat. It shoots for about 380° F, then waits like a dog by the door. You put in the food, and unless you really overload it you’ll never