With all the gloomy, grey, grim early spring weather I had a craving for a Paula Deen moment: FRIED FOOD! Supreme comfort food, fried food has the ability to squelch even the poorest moods, if but for a moment when the indigestion kicks in. But it's well worth it. A close friend is gluten intolerant so I thought I would try a 'dry run' of the menu before inviting her over for dinner. I have made a lot of fried foods from many cuisines and usually use regular flour-which means it comes from wheat.
Many people do not know this or perhaps the information is located somewhere deep in the brain as wheat products are so pervasive in almost every single ingredient list on supermarket shelves today. I began by purchasing the protein ingredients which I decided were going to be Asian and brought home some shrimp, cod, mussels and locally made tofu. Vegetables on the list were zucchini, eggplant, button mushroooms and Napa cabbage.
Most important part of the menu was the Gluten Free flour I would need to use. I chose rice flour as it gives a wonderful light crispy texture to the finished product. Sadly I can't give precise measurements here as I am a cook that doesn't measure unless baking breads or cakes. But I can illustrate some descriptives. When using regular flour (i.e, wheat based) one must mix the frying batter and let it rest for about 30 mins to let the Gluten develop. Well here with non-gluten frying that's not an issue. In fact, it can hurt the final texture and make it less crispy. Therefore less time involved. Yay! I made up a classic tempura batter of ice water, rice flour, club soda and two egg yolks. Basically you want to wait until the last minute to mix this up right before frying. I decided with all the fried goodies I needed a palate cleanser. That's what the Napa cabbage was for. I shredded it up, added some fresh ginger, garlic and rice vinegar and let it all steep together until the food was ready.
While that awaited me, I prepped the vegetables by cutting them up and drying them on towels. This is a must for frying otherwise it will spatter and come out soggy and not as crispy crunchy.
Next up was cutting the fish, and tofu. Same process, making sure everything was dry and ready to fry.
I discovered a great product to make prep time even quicker. This frozen package of mussels, cleaned, debearded and ready to go!
The local tofu is made by Vermont Soy a bit north of here, and what great packaging!
All that was left was a dipping sauce for all and to get fryin'! I grated some fresh ginger and garlic over a bowl,
added some tamari sauce (San-J wheat free), sesame seeds, sesame oil, scallions and rice vinegar all to taste.
Meanwhile the rice was cooking and the oil in the fryer was heating up.
Next I made up the fryer batter which consisted of ice water, rice flour, 2 egg yolks and some club soda. I do this by sight and it should be made right before frying. Asian cooks actually mix it with chopsticks until barely come together with lumps left in. I used a fork as I had no chopsticks on hand. The thickness should be that of thin cream. And I actually put the ice right in with the water.
Below is tofu being dipped in the batter before lowering into the fryer.
And some cut up cod fillets in the fryer.
I got so fry crazy I began to fry everything in sight! I even fried little cuts of scallions. Just to hear that sizzle and take in that wonderful fried food smell. Unfortunately as time is of the essence in this sort of meal, I stopped taking photos when it was done. And the food was on! What's next? Fish and chips. This time a beer batter for the cod. The gloomies are gone.
Endnote: everything was fried at 375 degrees F.
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