The Next Culinary Mastery

In my home growing up the extent of our fried food consumption was crisp tortillas with tostadas. My mother would stay far away from oil (for good reason) in her cooking. In the past little bit, I have been running in to recipes that require frying food. One notable experience was frying little chicken bits in Pittsburgh. All I remember was some of them were great, some were black and the whole apartment was smokey. So I have been eying fryers for the past little bit. Reading up on them, and seeing what I should look for.

Then my birthday came, and I had some money burning a hole on my desk from my Grandparents (Thanks Grandma and Gramps!). I thought this was a perfect reason to venture out in to the dangerous water (nay, oil) of American obesity. Ok, that is a little harsh, but Gwyn and I made a promise to each other that we would only break out the fryer once a month.

So what was the first thing I fried you ask? TOTS! Dating back to my time at Lockheed, hanging out after work with Steve, Steven, Alan and Brian, I grew a fondness towards Tater Tots. They are just so great. The first basket in the oil was a big ol' basket of golden potato nuggets, and they were awesome! I left them in long, they got super crispy! And super tasty!

Before

After

 Next up, harking back to Polish Hill in Pittsburgh: Pierogies! The Rock Room, one of my favorite establishments, would only serve one food item on any given night, and Wednesdays and Thursdays were Piergoie night! For a whopping $0.15/pierogie, you could fill up on what I am sure were Mrs. T. frozen pierogies that had been thrown in a fryer. So Gwyn and I decided that we would do a little taste test between two brands that are available here in Boston, Mrs. Ts and Poppy's. The Mrs. T. won. And they were awesome. I did burn my mouth on a hot pocket of potato-y goodness, but such is the battle for food glory.

The last thing, influence by The Onion back in Spokane, Fried Oreos! They were not the first person to bread a cookie and submerge it in oil, but they were my first. Using pancake batter as a coating, these were super easy. I did some of them with a little peanut butter dab on one side. So very tasty.

All about presentation.

All in all, a great experience. I have been researching what to try next. It is going to be great!