To Fry or not to Fry.........

Well, I think that depends on how you feel about frying.  I, myself, seldom fry, but I got an OVERWHELMING urge to fry when I read an article in Fine Cooking about making your own french fries.

Now, I was intrigued because they indicated that you should fry your fries twice.  Once to cook the potatoes and the second time to give them a great crispy, golden brown crust.  Sounds interesting, doesn't it?

I called my friend, Anne Steele, the Mother Of All Things Fried, and asked her about this concept of double frying.  Now, Anne's British and knows something about making "chips".  She goes through more potatoes in one month than I probably do in 4 to 6 months (of course that was before I found my potato ricer).  Anne said that she'd heard about the double fry process, tried it and didn't see much difference.

Well, that was good enough for me.  Anything to save time! 

Now, you might ask why a little German girl, who doesn't fry was so determined to make french fries?  Well, it all harks back to "using it up" (don't you just love your Grandma's sayings?).  I had 20#'s of potaotes (it was a moment of weakness), 10#'s of onions (I do use onions a lot) and up the ying yang amounts of zucchini from the garden (did I tell you those puppies grow during the night? They must be on steroids!).

I'm a BIG believer that if you're going to make a mess in your kitchen, you may as well make it worth your while, so I decided to have a "fry party" with my kids, Danny, Camille and Kathrine, oh yeah, I forgot Fred (he counts as one of the kids).  I decided that we'd have french fries, sweet potato fries (I LOVE sweet potato fries!), onion rings (I LOVE onion rings) and fried zucchini (that too!).

I did a little research and found out that you should fry with, either, canola oil or peanut oil because they have a higher smoke threshold compared to other oils.  You difinely don't want smoking oil in your house.  I read an article that indicated that you should fry your foods, not lower than, 360 degrees.  This seals the outside quickly, preventing your foods from absorbing the oil.  They also had a great idea about how to drain your fried foods.  Place them on a cooling rack over a cookie sheet instead of on paper towels.  This way they don't sit on top of each other and absorb the oil from the paper towel.  The article also indicated that the best way to fry foods was in castiron and that the oil level should not be more than 1/3 the depth of the pan.

Well, it all sounded good.  I set everything up, got out my dutch oven (that I bought for the No Time For Bread - bread, beyond yummy), I filled it 1/3 full with canola oil, got out my digital themometer so I could keep the temperature at 360, set up my cooling rack and cookie sheet, cut and sliced all the vegetables and made my YUMMY batter for the onion rings and zucchini.  I was good to go.

One thing I didn't realize was how quickly the temperature of your oil dropped once you put food in it, you have to keep an eye on that and you need to let it come back up to temperature before adding your next batch.

I cut the sweet potatoes and potatoes too big (my cutie Camille cut them down for me), I sliced the onion rings to thin and, let me tell you, 4 potatoes makes a MONGO amount of french fries.

I LOVED the onion rings and zucchini.  The sweet potato fires were really good and the french fries tasted good.  Would I go to all the mess (and there is MESS) again to make french fries?  Probably not, but I'd do it again to make the onion rings and fried zucchini.  They were CRAZY GOOD!

No matter how you work it, it is more fattening, so I wouldn't do it every day, but it would be a fun treat to share with family and friends.  I think next time, I'd try an electric fryer and see if it makes a difference in stabilizing the temperature, but the dutch oven worked great.  You can use any deep pan, just remember to fill it no more than 1/3 full (this allows space for the oil to bubble up when you add the food without boiling over) and don't over crowd your pan.  You need to allow room for the food to move around a little.

Well, that was my experience.  It was fun and everyone ate their fill.  We had some leftovers, but they didn't make it through the night....must have been good.

Here's the recipe for the Onion Ring batter, give it a try -

2 C. flour
3/4 tsp. salt
12 oz. of beer*
1/4 C. oil
    Combine all the ingredients, but don't beat.
2 egg whites - beat till stiff and fold into the batter.

This is a great batter.  I used it for the onion rings and zucchini.  It's light and fluffy (due to the whipped egg whites).  I doubled the recipe (you know me) and it covered 3 large onions and 1 large zucchini.  It was a lot.  Next time, I'll only make one recipe, unless I'm having a crowd.

Note:  If your egg whites are at room temperature before you whip them stiff, they'll whip much faster and you'll get more volume.

*I didn't have the beer, so I used 12 oz. of milk instead.  It worked just fine.  If you like the yeasty flavor from the Hops, you'll want the beer.