3 S T E P B R E A D I N G & O V E N F RY I N G

Whats not to love about breaded and fried food? Well, besides how unhealthy it is. However, if you only eat this sort of food occasionally and make it at home, it really isnt that evil. Breading keeps foods moist and adds some crunch and interest to them. It is most often used for deep fried foods, but with a bit of tweaking, you can have that fried food crunch with much less fat (and also keep the house from reeking). And your kids will once again be able to eat chicken nuggets (if thats something to aspire to?) In fact, this is a cooking project most kids will happily join. 3 step breading The classic breading technique uses 3 steps: dredging in flour, dipping in liquid, then dipping in crumbs. You can alter these 3 ingredients to suit your taste and food preferencesflours other than wheat can serve in step 1; non-dairy liquids in step 2; gluten-free crumbs in step 3. This can be a somewhat tedious process, and there will be some gooey moments when you forget which hand is which, but set up as below, decide on your wet and dry hand, and lets get started. In French, mise en place means everything in placeits a good habit to acquire if you dont have it already: when all your ingredients and implements are in place, you wont have to pause in the recipe midstream. Its particularly important in this technique because once you get started, stopping involves a lot of hand washing and youll really get slowed down! Youll want to have: 1. Your food itemchicken strips, zucchini or eggplant rounds, onion rings, etc.all clean and patted dry as necessary. Fairly thin/small items are best. 2. 1 shallow bowl of 1 c flour (whole wheat, all purpose, rice, spelt, anything goes) mixed with 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper; 3. 1 shallow bowl with 1 egg and 2 T milk or water whisked together; 4. 1 shallow bowl with 2 c crumbs (bread, cracker, unsweetened cereal); 5. 1 plate or sheet pan on which to place the breaded food. Line these items up in the direction you like to work, left to right or right to left? Next you should decide on a dry and wet handsounds funny, but itll save you a lot of goop! If you work left to right, I suggest designating the left hand dry and the right hand wet; if you work right to left, the right hand should be designated dry and the left wet. These instructions will be for those working left to right: 1. With your wet/right hand, pick up the food item and place it in the bowl of flour without touching the flour. 2. With your dry/left hand, sprinkle then coat the food with flour, turning it until it is evenly covered; shake off the excess over the bowl and drop it gently into the bowl of liquid without touching the liquid with your hand. 3. With your wet/right hand, gently turn the food in the liquid; let the excess drip off over the bowl and drop it gently into the bowl of crumbs without touching the crumbs with your hand.
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4. With your dry/left hand, coat the food thoroughly with crumbs, gently shake off the excess over the bowl, then place on the prepared plate or sheet pan. 5. Start over from step 1. These instructions may seem overly complex, but if followed, your hands should stay relatively glop-free. If you mess up and your fingers get gluey, be sure to rinse in cold water, as that will remove the starchy mass more quickly than hot water would. oven frying Deep fat frying makes for delicious, if very unhealthy, food. Oven frying gives you a decent imitation of deep frying with much less fat. The keys are to use a really hot oven and a bit of fat with a relatively high smoke point. 1. Preheat the oven to 425F (400F convection) and place a heavy sheet pan or glass baking dish in the oven as it preheats. 2. Shortly before or just after the oven is ready, put 2 T fat (I like to use 1 T butter and 1 T olive oil) into the pan. 3. When the oven is hot and the butter (if youre using it) is melted, tilt the pan around to coat it completely with fat, then quickly place the food on it in a single layer and return it to the oven. 4. Keep a close eye on the foodcooking times will vary greatly, but a good estimate for small items (vegetables, chicken strips) is 5-10 m on the first side. When the crumbs are nicely browned, turn the food and return to the oven. 5. When both sides are evenly brown and the food is cooked through (the best test is to cut a piece open), remove from the oven and serve. variations If you plan to bread larger items, like pieces of chicken on the bone, brown the breaded skin side (whether you kept the skin on or not) first, then turn the piece, reduce the heat to 325F (300F convection) and finish the cooking at the lower heat. make ahead

The breaded food is best cooked right away, but you can also refrigerate it up to 6 hours or pop it in the freezer between layers of wax paper in an airtight container, where it can stay up to 6 months. If you have time to make this sort of food ahead, its well worth it to take advantage of the setup, make at least a double batch, and save yourself the mess next time around! Making sure that the excess flour, egg, and crumbs are shaken off the food will keep the final coating even and will keep flour out of the egg and egg out of the crumbs. The reason to use this somewhat complicated process instead of simply dipping food in flour or crumbs is that each layer serves as a surface to better hold onto the next layer: most food that you will fry is moist enough to adhere flour to it, but not crumbs; egg sticks nicely to flour; and finally crumbs stick better to food that is wet, not just moist.

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SIMPLY: HOME COOKING t 310 892 9485 f 310 424 7138 e simplyhomecooking@gmail.com