Ruhlman's Twenty (48 page)

1
/Mise-en-place for branzino.

2
/Stuff the fish with aromatics.

3
/When browned on one side, flip the fish.

4
/Remove and discard the stuffing before serving the fish.

BOILING FOOD IN OIL IS ONE OF THE MOST
flavorful methods of cooking food and perhaps the most misunderstood and least used at home. We tend to think of fried foods as high in calories, and while there’s no denying that deep-fried foods retain some of the calorie-dense oil they’re cooked in, when you fry properly, the food should not be overly oily. The oil is not penetrating the dense muscle of a chicken drumstick undergoing deep-frying. Rather, the oil is cooking the water out of the skin and batter and turning them a flavorful, crisp, golden brown as it heats the meat through. When you drop batons of potato into hot oil, the water in the potato boils and vaporizes in countless bubbles, pushing the oil away from the potato.

As my friend Russ Parsons, food editor of the
Los Angeles Times,
writes in his book
How to Read a French Fry,
“At a certain point, depending on the temperature and the food being fried, the exiting steam and the penetrating oil collide and reach an uneasy balance. That is why food that is properly fried has a crisp exterior but a very delicate interior. In reality, the outside is fried, but the inside is steamed.”

The high heat is responsible for the flavorful browning, but adding to its benefits is the impact of the density of the oil, which makes the oil an extraordinarily efficient heat transferer. A chicken leg in 350°F/180°C oil cooks two or three times faster than a chicken leg cooked in a 350°F/180°C/gas 4 oven. The density of the oil may also help prevent flavor from being squeezed out of the meat along with the vaporizing water, another reason fried chicken may be more chickeny than roasted chicken.

Although deep-frying food is an efficient technique for making food delicious, a drawback is the cost. Oil is more expensive than the inexpensive hot air of your oven. But frying oil can be strained into a pot or back into the oil container and used again.

To mitigate expense, we can use a second fry technique, called panfrying. Panfrying means cooking food in a shallow amount of oil, not the thin layer used for sautéing, but enough oil so that about half of what you’re panfrying is submerged. We use this technique for thinner items such as pork chops or chicken, which we often bread
(see
Standard Breading Procedure
)
. Anything you can panfry— that breaded pork chop, for instance—can be deep-fried, but in most cases this would be a waste of oil, since the basically same effect can be achieved through panfrying.

Both panfrying and deep-frying cook food at very high temperatures uniformly and efficiently. In addition to the added expense of oil, many people avoid deep-frying because they’re afraid. Others avoid it because they associate it with high calories, others because of the way the house smells the next day (an exhaust fan really helps!), and still others because they don’t like the cleanup.

Why, then, deep-fry? Because deep-fried food is so tasty! If you love to make food delicious, there may be no tastier way of cooking. It’s not an everyday technique, but for special occasions, there may be nothing better than fried chicken
(see ROSEMARY-BRINED, BUTTERMILK FRIED CHICKEN)
or
Apple-Cinnamon Doughnuts
.

1
/ Always use a large pot, at least 7 quarts/6.6 liters, and only fill it a third of the way (you’ll need ½ to 3 quarts/2.4 to 2.8 liters oil). The release of voluminous bubbles causes the oil to rise in the pot to as much as twice its volume. Putting too much oil in too small a pot can result in overflowing oil, making a mess or, worse, igniting.

2
/ Use a thermometer to ensure that you are cooking at the right temperature (usually 350° to 375°F/180° to 190°C) and are not letting the oil get too hot.

3
/ Don’t leave a pot of oil over flame unattended.

That’s all there is to it. The biggest safety issue is simply not letting the oil get too hot. Oil should not smoke. When it smokes, it has begun to break down, and the fumes it releases can ignite. Add a little more oil to cool it. If the oil ignites, don’t freak out. Simply put a lid on the pot and turn off the burner until the oil has cooled.

There are a few less critical considerations. Peanut/groundnut oil is the best oil for deep frying—it is flavorful and has a high smoke temperature. Canola, corn, and other vegetable oils are fine to use and less expensive than peanut oil.

Don’t crowd your pot. Putting in too much food can drop the temperature to the point that your food is not cooking but soaking in oil. Cooking food in plenty of oil also ensures even, thorough cooking and a uniformly crisp exterior.

Potatoes are one of the best reasons to go to the trouble of deep-frying. They are an exception to the practice that almost all foods should be deep-fried at 350° to 375°F/180° to 190°C. To ensure crispy french fries/chips, first blanch them in 275°F/135°C oil for 10 minutes or until tender. Remove them to a rack and allow them to cool (they can be refrigerated or even frozen at this point). When you’re ready to complete cooking them, bring the oil to 350° to 375°F/ 180° to 190°C and fry them until golden and crisp. Remove them from the oil, allow the oil to drain off, and then put the fries in a large bowl lined with paper towels/absorbent paper. Flip and toss the fries in the bowl while raining fine grain sea salt down on them. Serve immediately.

You need a mandoline or some way of cutting the potatoes uniformly. I use a Benriner mandoline, also called a Japanese mandoline. The key is not to crowd the chips/crisps in the oil, so I do them in one-potato batches.

Bring the oil to 350°F/180°C. Slice the first potato. Working quickly, slip each slice into the oil individually as if you were dealing cards. Have someone join you if possible—the faster you get the slices into the oil, the more evenly they’ll cook. Stir them with a spider or basket strainer (I use a big basket strainer, commonly available at Asian markets). While they’re cooking, cut the next potato. When the first batch is golden brown, remove the chips from the oil, shaking off the excess, and put in a bowl lined with paper towels/absorbent paper. Shake the bowl aggressively as you salt the chips with fine sea salt. You can keep them warm in a 200°F/ 95°C oven while you make successive batches.

Pour ¼ to 1/3 inch/6 to 8 millimeters of oil into a pan over high heat. When the oil begins to get wavy and shimmery, it should be hot enough to cook in. If you’re unsure, dip a wood chopstick into the oil; it should start bubbling instantly. If it doesn’t, the oil is not hot enough. When the oil is hot, add the items you’re panfrying. Cook until the underside is golden brown, then turn the food and continue cooking until the second side is golden brown.

One of the advantages of serving fried food is that it holds well in a hot oven. If you’ve given it a nice protective crust, the interior will stay hot and moist in a warm oven. This is especially valuable when frying tough cuts, or cuts that can take extended heat such as chicken legs. I often put fried foods on a rack and hold them in a
250°F/120°C/gas ½ oven, which is hot enough to keep the exterior crisp and to allow the meat to finish cooking. Steam released by the food can make the exterior soft, so use the convection feature if your oven has it.

One of the ways to create a crispy crust on food that doesn’t already have one is to bread it. The standard method is to use a flour, egg, and bread crumb trio.

Set up three dishes, the first with flour, and the second with 1 or 2 eggs beaten to uniformity, and the third with bread crumbs. I prefer panko, Japanese bread crumbs that are good for frying because they stay especially dry and crisp. Dip the food in the flour to give it a dry surface. Then dip it in the egg, which will adhere to the dry flour. Next dredge the food in the bread crumbs, which will adhere to the wet egg.

If you’d like an extra-thick crust, or you want to prevent something liquid from leaking out (butter in chicken Kiev, for example, or to make fried ice cream), repeat the process as needed.

Adding seasoning to the flour or the egg is a good way to flavor the crust. Try stirring plenty of black pepper or paprika or onion and garlic powder into the flour, or Sriracha or other hot sauce into the egg, or fresh herbs, depending on what you’re cooking.

Oil you’ve used for deep-frying can be reused. If you fry often, you may want to designate a pot with a lid as your frying pot and store the oil, covered, in the pot in your pantry. Otherwise, you can strain the oil and store it in its container. If you cook potatoes, oil can be reused numerous times. Oil used for batter-fried foods, especially meats, breaks down very quickly; this oil can only be used once or twice.

It’s best not to dump used oil down your drain. Over time, oil can solidify in the pipes and build up to the point that you may require plumbing intervention. Allow spent fry oil to cool and return it to an empty oil container and discard. Some cities have oil disposal or recycling programs.