mastering the deep fryer

The deep fryer has, for whatever reason, been deemed an unsafe form of cooking. But the truth is if you are careful and paying attention, deep frying food is fun and delicious.

Deep frying, in case you don't know is a form of cooking that involves submerging your food in oil that is heated to about 365 degrees, give or take. Peanut oil is preferred because of its high smoking point, but olive oil works great too.

Before you get started there are a few things you are going to want to have prepared. First the type of pot you are going to use; you want a pot that is about 5" to 6" deep and 8" to 10" in diameter. Preferable you are going to want a cast iron, but most of us don’t have a cast iron that size (even though we'd like to) so any kind of pot that size will do just fine.

Second, you are going to want to have both a pair of tongs as well as a slotted spatula on hand. You are also going to want a drying rack for when your food is done. The best thing to use is a cooling rack on top of a cookie sheet, but a cookie sheet with some paper towels on it will do just fine. And lastly, a bowl of salt to season your food after it comes out of the fryer.

Next is what to fry. Theoretically, you can fry just about anything, from potatoes to bananas. Most of the time when people fry things it is because of the crunch you get from the frying batter, so let us start there. The batter used to achieve this crunch can be one of the simplest things you will ever make.

For most things you are going to use a beer batter. It’s simple and easy, and works great. In a large bowl combine flour and beer, that's it! The carbonation in the beer lends to a beautiful texture to the fried batter. Start off with one cup of flour and 1 cup of beer, and then add beer little by little until you get a consistency that is a little bit looser than a pancake batter. A little tip is to not make your batter until you are completely ready to start frying, because the longer the batter sits the less carbonation it will have. For fried chicken you won't necessarily want a beer batter, try my fried chicken recipe instead.

Ok so you are ready to start frying, but what ARE you going to fry? French fries? Onion rings? Zucchini? Banana? Chicken? Those questions I’ll leave up to you.

A few things you need to think about when you are frying are; how long will it take to cook my food? And is my oil hot enough? For the most part by the time your food is ready to be taken out, it will be fully cook, but something like a potato you are going to want to blanch first before you fry them. This is because if you fry them raw, by the time the inside is fully cooked the outside will be so burnt you wouldn’t want to eat it anymore. You, also, have to remember that every time you put something into the fryer the temperature of the oil will drop and the lower the temp the slower it will take to cook and you will in turn lose that beautiful crisp you get when you fry things. To ensure the oil stays at the right temp invest in an instant read thermometer that hooks on to the side of your pot. Eventually, after frying for a while you will be able to gauge if your oil is hot enough by how long it takes to brown whatever it is you are frying.

Now, let's get frying!!!

1-2-3 BBQ Wings

BBQ wings have been a staple of American food since, well the dawn of time. The problem is people have associating wings with unhealthy or fatty, but if you cook them right and only have a few at a time, there is no reason why you can't make some delicious BBQ wings.

I like to make my wings in what I like to call the 1-2-3

Regardless of how I cook them - stove top or grill - I start off my sprinkling all the pieces with some salt and pepper. There are some people, OK most people, who would say to soak it in buttermilk first, but I feel that it is a little unnecessary. That's step one.

Step two, when using the stove top, heat up a sauté pan with a little bit of oil. Once the pan is hot, place the chicken wings in the pan, but make sure you don't crowd them. Crowding the pan will lead to steaming the chicken instead of searing them. When searing chicken, you want to get a real nice golden crisp to the skin on all sides. Rotate the chicken until it is fully cooked.

For the grill, heat up the grill to about 450 degrees, then grill the wings until you get that great grill char on the wings, then flip and repeat until the chicken is fully cooked.

Step three is when you go from grilled wings to BBQ wings. Remove the wings from the grill or pan and place in a large bowl with your favorite BBQ sauce. Mix the wings until they have a nice coat on them, and then return them to the pan or grill to get the crisp back that was lost when you coated the wings.

And that's my 1-2-3 BBQ wings.