I'm Just Here for the Food_ Version 2.0 - Alton Brown [51]
Yield: 2 servings
Note: If you’re serving a crowd, fight the temptation to cook too large a batch. Move your draining rig to a warm oven and stockpile the calamari as it’s cooked—it will keep for up to 30 minutes without becoming rubbery.
Software:
½ pound calamari
1 cup buttermilk
¼ cup water
1 cup cornstarch
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup Rice Krispies, ground fine in
a food processor
2 teaspoons table salt (kosher salt
will sink to the bottom of the
dredge)
1 tablespoon freshly ground white
pepper
2 quarts safflower or peanut oil
Small hand strainer
Mixing bowl just large enough to
hold the strainer
Sealable plastic container
Large, long-handled, wide-mesh
hand strainer (referred to in the
trade as a “spider”)
Clean plastic placemat
Electric fryer or heavy Dutch
oven fitted with a fat/candy
thermometer
Draining rig
Paper towels soak up oil but then the food has to sit in it. Newspaper also wicks oil well, but the food still sits in the grease. And, many inks are fat soluble, so you get a nice reversal of newsprint on the food. Yum.
Racks are great except that fat (especially used fat) hangs in droplets under suspended bars and slowly soaks into food. What then must we do? The drainage answer: Turn the cooling rack over so that it’s in direct contact with newspaper. That way oil runs off food over bars and onto paper. The food stays above the fray and no droplets accumulate on the rack.
Quick-Dip Potato Strips
Once you taste your own you may never go back to store-bought chips again. I don’t peel my potatoes here, but it won’t matter if you do.
Application: Immersion-Frying
Place the drain basket of a salad spinner in its base (the bowl) and fill halfway with cold water.
Heat the oil. When it reaches 350° F, use a vegetable peeler to carefully carve long strips off the potato, moving straight from end to end. As the flat side becomes wider, rotate the potato a bit so that you don’t end up with a surface wider than the cutting plane of the peeler. Repeat this so that you end up with three flat spots on the potato to peel from. This way most of your strips will be of uniform width—that is, as wide as the cutting area of the peeler, and about 4 inches long. Allow these strips to fall directly into the water in the salad spinner.
When you’ve cut about 15 strips, remove the basket from the bowl, drain the water, and spin the strips in the salad spinner to dry them; do not skip this step under pain of death.
Hold the strips in one hand just over the hot oil (its temperature should be between 360° and 380° F). Move your fingers back and forth so that the strips fall separately into the oil. Be ready with a splatter guard because the oil will bubble furiously for a few seconds. When the bubbles subside, use a slotted spoon to gently push down on the strips to keep them fully submerged and separate. Do not stir. As the strips dry and stiffen you’ll be able to flip them over, which will help to ensure even doneness.
When the strips are pleasantly golden brown and the bubbles start to slow noticeably, spread the strips on a draining rack and immediately season with salt and pepper.
(If you use brand-new oil, the first batch of potato strips may be on the pale side. If this is going to bother you, make the first batch small and cook it a little past what you would consider done.)
Start peeling the next batch into the water, and repeat. The oil will be back up to temperature and ready to go by the time you are. While the new strips are in the oil, stack the finished strips in a serving dish.
You’ll be shocked how many of these potato strips you can get out of one spud. You’ll also be surprised by how great they look. Above all, you’ll be surprised by the flavor.
Yield: A stack o’ chips (which no matter how many you make, should be considered a single serving; if there’s more than one person,