March 15, 2022 • 24 mins
In this episode, Bobby and Sophie get to the bottom of the fryer basket, and cover everything you want to know about “The Art of Deep Frying”. First, Bobby outlines all of the various techniques used by different cultures. Then, together, they head to the kitchen to make and eat Fritto Misto!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
All right, guys, welcome to Always Hungry from My Heart Radio.
My name is Bobby Flay, and I'm here with my
daughter and co host, and I'm always Hungry. Sophie and
I gather around my stove to cook together. Well, you cook,
I asked the questions, and eat the food and does
any food left? We come to the table together to
share a meal, connect as a family, and tell the
stories that matter to us. All Right, The art of
(00:28):
deep frying. Deep frying kind of gets a little bit
of a rough rap, especially because you know, people consider
it unhealthy, etcetera. Well, I mean here's the thing. Um,
if you if you deep fry incorrectly, it's unhealthy because
what happens is you absorb all the oil into the food.
(00:49):
But but if you're if you deep fry correctly, even
if you're deep fat, even if you're deep frying, which
means you're you're surrounding whatever you're cooking in the in
the oil. If if it's at the right temperature, it's
actually repelling away from it and just making whatever the
battery is or the outside of it crispy. I mean,
(01:10):
you are definitely picking up some oil. I'm not saying
it's the healthiest way, but there's but there's healthier ways
to go about it. So I think, like, first of all,
let's talk about what kind of oil you should be using.
So you're not I mean I've seen it, I've seen
it done, but you're not gonna deep frying extra version
of oil not it's not a good idea. I mean,
(01:31):
extra version of olive oil is very thick, it has
a low smoking point. It can easily become very bitter
once it gets heated up to a certain temperature. So
you want something light, you know, you want something like
peanut oil or vegetable oil, canola oil, staff flour, grape
seed oil, you know, something along those lines. Something that
that something is a light oil that has a high
(01:53):
smoking point so I can really tolerate heat, because you
want to make sure that you can get your temperature
up to somewhere beach three fifty and you know, three
eighty or something like that, depending on what you're cooking.
So it has to be able to tolerate that sort
of temperature. And that's that's really key. And then, um,
you know what do you cook in While in the restaurants,
(02:14):
we have these things called fryers or fry lators, and
what's great about to make French fries in my house? Well,
you can buy a tabletop one. What do you mean,
Maybe I'll think about it. We're gonna get to French
fries in a minute, because French fries are probably the
most consumed deep fried thing there in the world, and
(02:34):
we all love them. But it takes a long time
they make good French fries. Um and so you know
what you cook it So basically you can cook into
like a in a you know, in a in a
heavy pot that has a lot of like sort of
a high edged pot so that you don't you know,
so that the when you you have to be careful
because when you put whatever you're putting into the oil
(02:56):
and it's hot, the oil is going to rise and
you don't want it to rise over the pot because
that can become very dangerous, especially because it's a flame
underneath it. So you need to be really careful about that.
You don't want you know, oil expands when it gets hot,
so you don't want to you know, overfill the pot
so to speak. That's what happens unfortunately on Thanksgiving, a
(03:17):
lot with deep front turpose yeah, yeah, we've seen those videos.
No no, no, no, I mean and people are like
they're they're like cooking them on their wooden decks. It's
a nightmare. I'm not even gonna get into it. I mean,
it's you know, it's scary. It's important also too, so
you have to be obviously, you have to be very
safe about deep frying. It's dangerous. I mean, there's no
(03:37):
getting away from it. It's definitely. It's more dangerous than
you know, poaching your halibit. You know, um, but um,
you know the results of it can be delicious. Who
doesn't want something crispy fried? So um. You know, it's
important to have a like a deep frying thermometer so
you can tell what your temperature is a pot, you know,
(03:59):
the thing about a fry later or or a tabletop
fryers they have it has a thermometer built into it.
So two things. Number one, it gets into the temperature
that you wanted to when you just set the dial.
It also has an automatic reset so that when you
add something to something. So if you if you put
something in hot oil at three seventy you know, let's
(04:20):
say you put two pieces of fried chicken that you're frying,
and what do you think happens to the oil if
it's that? What if it's at three seventy five, Now
you're putting two pieces of chicken that you're frying, and
what's what's gonna happen to the oil? It's gonna lose
its temperature because you're putting something in to cool it down.
So so what these fryers do is they they they
they basically put themselves back on to get to So
(04:44):
now it's at three forty because you added something to it,
So now it's going to get back up to the temperature.
So it helps get back to the back to zero
in terms of the temperature. Okay, Um, And then you
need a couple of tools. I mean, I think it's
important to have like what does I have a spider
which is like this round Um, it's around headed tool
(05:05):
that has a lot of sort of holes through it.
And what it does is it allows you to go
into the deep fat fryer, pick out the thing that
you're frying, and it leaves the oil behind, you know
what I'm saying. And then of course you need paper towels,
a good place to land it. That's always important as well,
(05:28):
all right, so we're gonna we're gonna make some fritto
misto nice. You know what is nope, fried seafood. Yeah yeah,
I mean, you know, mixed fried stuff. So we're gonna
do um squid shrimp and some lemon, then slices of lemon.
(05:49):
I'm gonna fry. And this is a dish that we
do with a moufie. It's a really fun appetizer. And uh,
do you want to make the io league? Sure? So mayonnaise,
garlic and lemon. How much? I don't know, Put some
mayonnaise in the bowl. Okay, said enough? Garlic? Yeah, just
(06:16):
chop it up. This is a classic, you know, Italian appetizer.
And the thing about Europe is that they really think
about deep frying as an art. Go to Spain, you
go to Italy. I mean, it's really important to the cuisine.
(06:36):
But it's done in a really exceptional way. Sometimes, like
especially in this country, when we hear deep rying, we
think it's gonna be like fast food or something. But
it doesn't have to be that way. It's actually a
really great way to cook if you do it right. Okay,
so garlic, some lemon, salt and pepper, let's get up.
(07:11):
So I'm gonna make this batter. The basically, it's gonna
take rice flour and some water that's gonna be the
batter with some salt and pepper. Okay, it's gonna thin
it out so it makes it batter. And then we're
(07:36):
gonna take some shrimp and some squid. Make some circles
here as well as we have some of the squid heads,
and we have sumped some of the m hm, the tentacles.
I like the tentacles talk to you better. Oh, I
don't hate them. I don't hate some thin slices of women.
(07:57):
So we're just gonna we're gonna dreg this in some
rice fur its own, and then we're gonna put it
into into the batter, into the oil. Then you have
to decide, like how are you going to batter it.
(08:20):
There's all kinds of batters, and like you know, as
I was saying before, like every culture has its own
version of deep frying. So if you go to Spain,
you like you walk around like places like Barcelona, Madrid,
you're gonna you're gonna see in the windows of these
restaurants like they're deep frying, like all this fish and
you know, you know, squid and cuttle fish and all
these different things and shrimp and all that, and they're
(08:40):
and they're and they're frying them like perfectly. It's just
kind of like what we did here in terms of
like just a very light clothing of batter so that
you can really taste the fish. And I think that
that's really important. And again they serve it with like
little iolies and things like that as well, just very
very simple women, etcetera. Um, So you can make batteries
(09:01):
like just straight flour that you can season, like a
lot of times fried chicken will have it will be
like all purpose flour and we'll have like I don't know,
garlic powder, onion powder, you know, paprika, maybe some kind
of cayenne or something, depending if you wanted spicy, you know,
so received things like that to flavor the flavor the chicken.
One of the things I do for my fried chicken
(09:22):
is I put flour and corn starch in it. And
the corn starch makes it extra crispy, like if you're
eating like Korean fried chicken, there's corn starch in it
because it gets it really glass like crispy. So good. Um.
And then there's like other other kinds of batters, like
rice flower, which is what's something that I use a lot.
It's you know, it has a very it has a
(09:43):
very low obviously low gluten low gluten, so to speak.
And um, I love using rice flour on things like salad, squash, blossoms,
you know, things that are really delicate. I think the
rice flower works really nicely. When we went to Blue Ribbon,
what were they thing for their fried chicken matsa meal.
(10:03):
I've never done that. Um. Yeah, I mean you know
the Bramber brothers. I mean that's obviously from their Jewish upbringing, Like,
you know, it's a cool way to use mats of yeah, definitely. Um.
And it makes it crispy I I use in my
fried chicken, I usually use like seasoned flour and corn
starch and then panco bread crumbs all mixed together, so
(10:24):
it gives it a really great texture. Um. And it's
light as well. Um. And then you know there's things
like then it's tempora, which is a completely different thing.
When I think about your fried chicken, though, I always
think of bar American, right. So it used to be
like you used to only offer it on Mondays or
something when you first did it. One of the best
fried chickens I think I made was a shark, which
(10:45):
is not like only lasted two years because the palms
closed and it was a It was a Yeah. That
fried chicken was killer. It was like red chilies and
lime and honey. And I kind of cheat on fried chicken.
You mean, I have this process where I where I
actually I soaked the chicken in buttermilk first, okay, and
(11:07):
I slowly steam the chicken in the buttermilk in the
oven about three quarters of the way cooked, and then
I let it cool and then I put it back
in buttermilk, and then I double dredge it and then
I fry it. Why do I do that? Because it's
really hard. Frying chicken is a very hard thing to do.
(11:28):
In my opinion, people that make great fried chicken or geniuses.
That's why they're famous for their fried chicken. Because two
things have to happen perfectly and at the exact same time.
It has to be perfectly cooked through, and it has
to be perfectly golden brown and crispy on the outside.
It's hard to accomplish both of those things in a
big vat of oil. People think it's easy. It's not
(11:51):
easy anyway. That's another story we're not talking about. I mean,
we are talking about fried chicken only. I would like
to talk about fried chicken in every show. But but
you know, what about like coconut shrimp? What about it? Like,
(12:25):
how do you make coconut trimp? It's a you know,
it's a batter and then you put flakes in there.
But basically what Yeah, you put coconut flakes in the
batter or you put that, you batter it and then
just dredge it, running through the coconut flakes and put
it in. But you want you want some of the
batter to cover the coconut flakes, so otherwise they're gonna
burn sugar on them. You like cocon love cocon Oh
(12:48):
my god, don't you like cocing a trimp? Yeah? What
kind of dipping sauce? Do you like? That's fried food? Yeah?
What I kind of like a like a sweet and
sour sauce. How about like a icy mango or something
like that. I mean, yeah, that sound sounds great. Something
citrusy or fruity or something like that that's spicy. Though,
you know, you need some like habin arrow or some
(13:10):
kind of chili. The sweet and sour sauce works. But
like my sweet and sour is not spicy. It's sweet
and sour. Yeah, but it's yeah, just checking up on yourself,
all right. So like, you know, look here the things
that we think about frying so friedo misto, which is
what we did today. You know, a bunch of seafood
(13:32):
and um, you know, it's basically mixed fried things. We
put some lemons in there. You can put other things
in there. Something and I um at a mouth. We
we also use muscles, We do squad, We do squid
muscles and and shrimp and lemons. So good. Um. Of course,
fried calamari. You can serve that with your friend, your
(13:53):
favorite spicy Italian tomato sauce. Um. Of course, fried shrimp.
And that could be you know, it could be corn
meal shrimp. It could be just you know, like it
could be like a fried chicken batter kind of thing. Um.
Bobby Flay steak in Atlantic City, one of our most famous,
one of the most famous, one of our most popular
(14:14):
appetizer dishes was a crispy lobster and squid salad. So
we cooked lobster steamed it, took the meat out, chopped
it up, and then put it in a rice flour also,
and the squid was raw. So we had the squid
and the lobster we'd fried together and it would be
like this actually a sweet and spicy sauce and some
fresh mint and it was really really good. Salad um
(14:38):
fried clams, like if you go to like a clamshack,
so good, my favorite, so good. I like to cook
this around we are six degrees something like that. And
basically the key to this not over battering it, because
(15:02):
I want to taste the seafood and I want to
see the seafood if you just if you just cover
it in batter and all you're doing is eating fried batter.
Well oil is that that's canoa oil. And this is
a spider m hm. You know this is a good
thing to have. So so basically what we're doing is
we're just gonna cook this until the batter gets nice
(15:22):
and crispy. Yeah, I see that, and the and the
seafood cooks. I also I'm also frying some lemons. Yeah,
you're delicious. It smells good already. But the key the
keating heat, the deep frying is something we're going to
talk about. Is you know, there's temperature is really important.
(15:45):
Temperature of the oil, temperature of the batter um, like
you know, like a temperture of the battery. Like Noble
has this, like you know, his thing. He does like
this this temp you know, he does at temp poor
about on a couple of decision his restaurant, and he's
like the water and the flower and they do a
(16:05):
tempo about it. So it has egg in it. Um,
we'll talk about that. But he's like they almost all
three of those things have to be the same temperature.
Oh that's so interesting. Did you take the temperature? We're no,
you're better. That's a tempore a better looking good. I
like that. You fry the lemons too. We also fry
(16:35):
a lot of vegetables in this world. You know. One
of the things that I'm that I'm loving seeing is well,
first of all, zucchini. So there's fried zucchini, which is
classic usually their batton nets, but like I like fried
zucchini chips. Those are really really really really good. Or
eggplant chips those are those are good as well. Um,
fried cauliflower popular, I know, and people are like doing
(16:57):
that like buffalo cauliflower. And then fried Brussels sprouts so good,
slice them up, fry, oh my god, so good. Mix
them with like some parmesan cheese and so good. We
have those from Katsuya. Oh they're so good. I mean
I make them. Oh right, Michael Simon and I make Um.
(17:17):
We did something together. We fried some Brussels sprots. I
think it was like an Iron Chef or something. It
was like I think we did like a Thanksgiving holiday
special on Iron Chef and we and we were teammates
and we fried some Brussels sprouts. Um. Michael's never seen
her deep fried doesn't like Um, that's his Midwest upbringing.
And then green tomatoes, fried green tomato, so good, lots
(17:39):
of I like to put. I like to put cor
meals and I make like free. I like fried green
tomato salads, fried green tomatoes with goat cheese, fried green
tomatoes sandwiches. Yeah, I would like one of those soon.
Here's a here's a trivia quiz for you. I'm always
bad when you quiz me. Yeah yeah, okay, go ahead.
You're you're representing the audience. They're listening for you. It's
(18:03):
a fried dish. That's made out of chickpeas. Fried dish
that's made out of chickpeas, fried chickpeas. It's Middle Eastern.
I'm sure I know it and can't think of it,
but oh my god, I love flawful delicious. You know
(18:24):
these are all deep fried vegetables. Okay, you go to Rome,
go to the Jewish ghetto. What are you gonna have?
What's the numb waring dish? There? Fried artichokes, Oh, oh
my god, I love fried artichokes so good. And then
of course there's onion rings. Dull, you make such a
good onion ring. Thank you, the bodymls rings and Bobby
(18:46):
Burgers come and get it. And then like listen, I
mean we were kind of um talking about the disasters
of a deep fried turkey. Now that's said, it can
be fantastic. Have you ever done it? Have you had one? No?
Have you ever made one? Yes? I did it. I
never at home. I did it in the restaurant a
(19:07):
couple of times, just to try it. But I also
have a fryer, so I took the baskets out and
I dropped the turkey in there, and like literally it
cooked in like eighteen minutes. It's crazy. I mean I'm exaggerating.
It cooks very fast compared to compared to roasting it
because you have direct heat on this thing. And it's spectacular. Yeah,
but I mean it's like it's just you know, it's
(19:28):
very juicy from olive oil that's become part of the turkey,
and it's you know, it gets really crispy on the outside.
I mean it's like it's fried turkey. I mean, let's
face it, so good, but also like fried. You know,
chicken wings are fried to Oh my god, yeah, and
I love a chicken wing. Um. Do you know the
process for for for chicken wings? Is it similar to
like what we just did. No, not at all. So
(19:48):
you take chicken wings, no batter, throw them in the fryer,
and they get crispy because of the skin on them,
take them out, put him in a mixing bowl, and
you mix them with hot sauce and butter. Oh that's it, okay,
and then you serve it with you know, blue cheese ranch. Great. Wait,
then that is kind of similar to what we just did.
No we batter these. Oh there's no batter. No, there's
(20:12):
no bad got it? So are they unhealthy for you?
Then depends on the sauce. Um, they are healthy for you.
I'm not going to say they're diet cuisine. Listen, everything
in moderation. That that That's my whole point of this thing,
which is like, don't sleep on deep frying food because
it could be really delicious if it's done properly and
(20:33):
you don't have to eat it every single night. No obviously, um,
but of so much of it is fun, all right,
(20:56):
So oh nice, okay, nice and crispy now yeah, but
but light at the same time. Yeah, definitely, so you're
still you still tastey. There's lemons and you can still
see the color exactly the shrimp and a little ali
(21:18):
on top tip. Oh my good. She is like, it's
like what the fight glass, you know, m hm, it's
so good. I don't realize how easy it was to
make an ali too. The thing I like about, you know,
(21:45):
cooking like this is that it's fried, but you can
see the seafood right through the batter. It's almost stealth.
Like that's the key. Don't sleep on deep frying food
because it could be really delicious if it's done properly
and you don't have to eat it everything all night. No, obviously, um,
but some of so much of it is fun, I mean,
(22:05):
and then you know, getting to desserts, like you know,
what do you think of Well, no, I'm not into that.
I mean, like all those things. That's one thing I'm
not into. Dough come on, well with little powdered sugar. Zep's.
I mean, so I was gonna say, donuts are fried
(22:27):
benye's you know the deep the New Orleans exactly beautiful
with a cup of chickeny coffee. Only a big donut person,
you're not how about turos? Yep, sign me up. So
churos are a donnat it's it's it's it's a donut
recipe that is um piped out of a pastry bag.
(22:49):
Would they with the star tip on it? So it
has those ridges and then when they come out of
the when they come out of the oil, they're nice
and crispy you roll them and sugar and cinnamon so good.
Oh they're insane. That's that's a really good way to
end the meal, and it might be a good way
for us to end this podcast. We I really have
to ask you have you experimented at all with an
(23:12):
air fryer? No, and I have to say, I feel
like I'm missing out because everybody tells me they're awesome.
Have you done it? But I think maybe I'll get
you one. Okay, do you know which one to get? Yeah?
I know, if you, But I'm like curious to see
what you would do with an air fryer. What can
(23:32):
you do in them? Like people are making everything in them,
like sweet potato fries to like salmon, Like it's crazy.
So I'm gonna this, This is to be continued. I
gotta get you an air frier and see what let's
do an air fi podcast. We should because everybody tells
me the remaining Yeah, all right, and I believe it same, Okay, Okay,
(23:53):
I'll see in the air frire I bed, bathroom beyond it.
Always Hungry is created by Bobby Flay and Sophie Flay.
Our executive producer is Christopher Hasiotis. Always Hungry is produced, edited,
and mixed by Jonathan Howks Stressler. Always Hungry is engineered
by Sophie Flay. For more podcast from My Heart Radio,
(24:14):
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
All right, guys, welcome to Always Hungry from My Heart Radio.
My name is Bobby Flay, and I'm here with my
daughter and co host, and I'm always Hungry. Sophie and
I gather around my stove to cook together. Well, you cook,
I asked the questions, and eat the food and does
any food left? We come to the table together to
share a meal, connect as a family, and tell the
stories that matter to us. All Right, The art of
(00:28):
deep frying. Deep frying kind of gets a little bit
of a rough rap, especially because you know, people consider
it unhealthy, etcetera. Well, I mean here's the thing. Um,
if you if you deep fry incorrectly, it's unhealthy because
what happens is you absorb all the oil into the food.
(00:49):
But but if you're if you deep fry correctly, even
if you're deep fat, even if you're deep frying, which
means you're you're surrounding whatever you're cooking in the in
the oil. If if it's at the right temperature, it's
actually repelling away from it and just making whatever the
battery is or the outside of it crispy. I mean,
(01:10):
you are definitely picking up some oil. I'm not saying
it's the healthiest way, but there's but there's healthier ways
to go about it. So I think, like, first of all,
let's talk about what kind of oil you should be using.
So you're not I mean I've seen it, I've seen
it done, but you're not gonna deep frying extra version
of oil not it's not a good idea. I mean,
(01:31):
extra version of olive oil is very thick, it has
a low smoking point. It can easily become very bitter
once it gets heated up to a certain temperature. So
you want something light, you know, you want something like
peanut oil or vegetable oil, canola oil, staff flour, grape
seed oil, you know, something along those lines. Something that
that something is a light oil that has a high
(01:53):
smoking point so I can really tolerate heat, because you
want to make sure that you can get your temperature
up to somewhere beach three fifty and you know, three
eighty or something like that, depending on what you're cooking.
So it has to be able to tolerate that sort
of temperature. And that's that's really key. And then, um,
you know what do you cook in While in the restaurants,
(02:14):
we have these things called fryers or fry lators, and
what's great about to make French fries in my house? Well,
you can buy a tabletop one. What do you mean,
Maybe I'll think about it. We're gonna get to French
fries in a minute, because French fries are probably the
most consumed deep fried thing there in the world, and
(02:34):
we all love them. But it takes a long time
they make good French fries. Um and so you know
what you cook it So basically you can cook into
like a in a you know, in a in a
heavy pot that has a lot of like sort of
a high edged pot so that you don't you know,
so that the when you you have to be careful
because when you put whatever you're putting into the oil
(02:56):
and it's hot, the oil is going to rise and
you don't want it to rise over the pot because
that can become very dangerous, especially because it's a flame
underneath it. So you need to be really careful about that.
You don't want you know, oil expands when it gets hot,
so you don't want to you know, overfill the pot
so to speak. That's what happens unfortunately on Thanksgiving, a
(03:17):
lot with deep front turpose yeah, yeah, we've seen those videos.
No no, no, no, I mean and people are like
they're they're like cooking them on their wooden decks. It's
a nightmare. I'm not even gonna get into it. I mean,
it's you know, it's scary. It's important also too, so
you have to be obviously, you have to be very
safe about deep frying. It's dangerous. I mean, there's no
(03:37):
getting away from it. It's definitely. It's more dangerous than
you know, poaching your halibit. You know, um, but um,
you know the results of it can be delicious. Who
doesn't want something crispy fried? So um. You know, it's
important to have a like a deep frying thermometer so
you can tell what your temperature is a pot, you know,
(03:59):
the thing about a fry later or or a tabletop
fryers they have it has a thermometer built into it.
So two things. Number one, it gets into the temperature
that you wanted to when you just set the dial.
It also has an automatic reset so that when you
add something to something. So if you if you put
something in hot oil at three seventy you know, let's
(04:20):
say you put two pieces of fried chicken that you're frying,
and what do you think happens to the oil if
it's that? What if it's at three seventy five, Now
you're putting two pieces of chicken that you're frying, and
what's what's gonna happen to the oil? It's gonna lose
its temperature because you're putting something in to cool it down.
So so what these fryers do is they they they
they basically put themselves back on to get to So
(04:44):
now it's at three forty because you added something to it,
So now it's going to get back up to the temperature.
So it helps get back to the back to zero
in terms of the temperature. Okay, Um, And then you
need a couple of tools. I mean, I think it's
important to have like what does I have a spider
which is like this round Um, it's around headed tool
(05:05):
that has a lot of sort of holes through it.
And what it does is it allows you to go
into the deep fat fryer, pick out the thing that
you're frying, and it leaves the oil behind, you know
what I'm saying. And then of course you need paper towels,
a good place to land it. That's always important as well,
(05:28):
all right, so we're gonna we're gonna make some fritto
misto nice. You know what is nope, fried seafood. Yeah yeah,
I mean, you know, mixed fried stuff. So we're gonna
do um squid shrimp and some lemon, then slices of lemon.
(05:49):
I'm gonna fry. And this is a dish that we
do with a moufie. It's a really fun appetizer. And uh,
do you want to make the io league? Sure? So mayonnaise,
garlic and lemon. How much? I don't know, Put some
mayonnaise in the bowl. Okay, said enough? Garlic? Yeah, just
(06:16):
chop it up. This is a classic, you know, Italian appetizer.
And the thing about Europe is that they really think
about deep frying as an art. Go to Spain, you
go to Italy. I mean, it's really important to the cuisine.
(06:36):
But it's done in a really exceptional way. Sometimes, like
especially in this country, when we hear deep rying, we
think it's gonna be like fast food or something. But
it doesn't have to be that way. It's actually a
really great way to cook if you do it right. Okay,
so garlic, some lemon, salt and pepper, let's get up.
(07:11):
So I'm gonna make this batter. The basically, it's gonna
take rice flour and some water that's gonna be the
batter with some salt and pepper. Okay, it's gonna thin
it out so it makes it batter. And then we're
(07:36):
gonna take some shrimp and some squid. Make some circles
here as well as we have some of the squid heads,
and we have sumped some of the m hm, the tentacles.
I like the tentacles talk to you better. Oh, I
don't hate them. I don't hate some thin slices of women.
(07:57):
So we're just gonna we're gonna dreg this in some
rice fur its own, and then we're gonna put it
into into the batter, into the oil. Then you have
to decide, like how are you going to batter it.
(08:20):
There's all kinds of batters, and like you know, as
I was saying before, like every culture has its own
version of deep frying. So if you go to Spain,
you like you walk around like places like Barcelona, Madrid,
you're gonna you're gonna see in the windows of these
restaurants like they're deep frying, like all this fish and
you know, you know, squid and cuttle fish and all
these different things and shrimp and all that, and they're
(08:40):
and they're and they're frying them like perfectly. It's just
kind of like what we did here in terms of
like just a very light clothing of batter so that
you can really taste the fish. And I think that
that's really important. And again they serve it with like
little iolies and things like that as well, just very
very simple women, etcetera. Um, So you can make batteries
(09:01):
like just straight flour that you can season, like a
lot of times fried chicken will have it will be
like all purpose flour and we'll have like I don't know,
garlic powder, onion powder, you know, paprika, maybe some kind
of cayenne or something, depending if you wanted spicy, you know,
so received things like that to flavor the flavor the chicken.
One of the things I do for my fried chicken
(09:22):
is I put flour and corn starch in it. And
the corn starch makes it extra crispy, like if you're
eating like Korean fried chicken, there's corn starch in it
because it gets it really glass like crispy. So good. Um.
And then there's like other other kinds of batters, like
rice flower, which is what's something that I use a lot.
It's you know, it has a very it has a
(09:43):
very low obviously low gluten low gluten, so to speak.
And um, I love using rice flour on things like salad, squash, blossoms,
you know, things that are really delicate. I think the
rice flower works really nicely. When we went to Blue Ribbon,
what were they thing for their fried chicken matsa meal.
(10:03):
I've never done that. Um. Yeah, I mean you know
the Bramber brothers. I mean that's obviously from their Jewish upbringing, Like,
you know, it's a cool way to use mats of yeah, definitely. Um.
And it makes it crispy I I use in my
fried chicken, I usually use like seasoned flour and corn
starch and then panco bread crumbs all mixed together, so
(10:24):
it gives it a really great texture. Um. And it's
light as well. Um. And then you know there's things
like then it's tempora, which is a completely different thing.
When I think about your fried chicken, though, I always
think of bar American, right. So it used to be
like you used to only offer it on Mondays or
something when you first did it. One of the best
fried chickens I think I made was a shark, which
(10:45):
is not like only lasted two years because the palms
closed and it was a It was a Yeah. That
fried chicken was killer. It was like red chilies and
lime and honey. And I kind of cheat on fried chicken.
You mean, I have this process where I where I
actually I soaked the chicken in buttermilk first, okay, and
(11:07):
I slowly steam the chicken in the buttermilk in the
oven about three quarters of the way cooked, and then
I let it cool and then I put it back
in buttermilk, and then I double dredge it and then
I fry it. Why do I do that? Because it's
really hard. Frying chicken is a very hard thing to do.
(11:28):
In my opinion, people that make great fried chicken or geniuses.
That's why they're famous for their fried chicken. Because two
things have to happen perfectly and at the exact same time.
It has to be perfectly cooked through, and it has
to be perfectly golden brown and crispy on the outside.
It's hard to accomplish both of those things in a
big vat of oil. People think it's easy. It's not
(11:51):
easy anyway. That's another story we're not talking about. I mean,
we are talking about fried chicken only. I would like
to talk about fried chicken in every show. But but
you know, what about like coconut shrimp? What about it? Like,
(12:25):
how do you make coconut trimp? It's a you know,
it's a batter and then you put flakes in there.
But basically what Yeah, you put coconut flakes in the
batter or you put that, you batter it and then
just dredge it, running through the coconut flakes and put
it in. But you want you want some of the
batter to cover the coconut flakes, so otherwise they're gonna
burn sugar on them. You like cocon love cocon Oh
(12:48):
my god, don't you like cocing a trimp? Yeah? What
kind of dipping sauce? Do you like? That's fried food? Yeah?
What I kind of like a like a sweet and
sour sauce. How about like a icy mango or something
like that. I mean, yeah, that sound sounds great. Something
citrusy or fruity or something like that that's spicy. Though,
you know, you need some like habin arrow or some
(13:10):
kind of chili. The sweet and sour sauce works. But
like my sweet and sour is not spicy. It's sweet
and sour. Yeah, but it's yeah, just checking up on yourself,
all right. So like, you know, look here the things
that we think about frying so friedo misto, which is
what we did today. You know, a bunch of seafood
(13:32):
and um, you know, it's basically mixed fried things. We
put some lemons in there. You can put other things
in there. Something and I um at a mouth. We
we also use muscles, We do squad, We do squid
muscles and and shrimp and lemons. So good. Um. Of course,
fried calamari. You can serve that with your friend, your
(13:53):
favorite spicy Italian tomato sauce. Um. Of course, fried shrimp.
And that could be you know, it could be corn
meal shrimp. It could be just you know, like it
could be like a fried chicken batter kind of thing. Um.
Bobby Flay steak in Atlantic City, one of our most famous,
one of the most famous, one of our most popular
(14:14):
appetizer dishes was a crispy lobster and squid salad. So
we cooked lobster steamed it, took the meat out, chopped
it up, and then put it in a rice flour also,
and the squid was raw. So we had the squid
and the lobster we'd fried together and it would be
like this actually a sweet and spicy sauce and some
fresh mint and it was really really good. Salad um
(14:38):
fried clams, like if you go to like a clamshack,
so good, my favorite, so good. I like to cook
this around we are six degrees something like that. And
basically the key to this not over battering it, because
(15:02):
I want to taste the seafood and I want to
see the seafood if you just if you just cover
it in batter and all you're doing is eating fried batter.
Well oil is that that's canoa oil. And this is
a spider m hm. You know this is a good
thing to have. So so basically what we're doing is
we're just gonna cook this until the batter gets nice
(15:22):
and crispy. Yeah, I see that, and the and the
seafood cooks. I also I'm also frying some lemons. Yeah,
you're delicious. It smells good already. But the key the
keating heat, the deep frying is something we're going to
talk about. Is you know, there's temperature is really important.
(15:45):
Temperature of the oil, temperature of the batter um, like
you know, like a temperture of the battery. Like Noble
has this, like you know, his thing. He does like
this this temp you know, he does at temp poor
about on a couple of decision his restaurant, and he's
like the water and the flower and they do a
(16:05):
tempo about it. So it has egg in it. Um,
we'll talk about that. But he's like they almost all
three of those things have to be the same temperature.
Oh that's so interesting. Did you take the temperature? We're no,
you're better. That's a tempore a better looking good. I
like that. You fry the lemons too. We also fry
(16:35):
a lot of vegetables in this world. You know. One
of the things that I'm that I'm loving seeing is well,
first of all, zucchini. So there's fried zucchini, which is
classic usually their batton nets, but like I like fried
zucchini chips. Those are really really really really good. Or
eggplant chips those are those are good as well. Um,
fried cauliflower popular, I know, and people are like doing
(16:57):
that like buffalo cauliflower. And then fried Brussels sprouts so good,
slice them up, fry, oh my god, so good. Mix
them with like some parmesan cheese and so good. We
have those from Katsuya. Oh they're so good. I mean
I make them. Oh right, Michael Simon and I make Um.
(17:17):
We did something together. We fried some Brussels sprots. I
think it was like an Iron Chef or something. It
was like I think we did like a Thanksgiving holiday
special on Iron Chef and we and we were teammates
and we fried some Brussels sprouts. Um. Michael's never seen
her deep fried doesn't like Um, that's his Midwest upbringing.
And then green tomatoes, fried green tomato, so good, lots
(17:39):
of I like to put. I like to put cor
meals and I make like free. I like fried green
tomato salads, fried green tomatoes with goat cheese, fried green
tomatoes sandwiches. Yeah, I would like one of those soon.
Here's a here's a trivia quiz for you. I'm always
bad when you quiz me. Yeah yeah, okay, go ahead.
You're you're representing the audience. They're listening for you. It's
(18:03):
a fried dish. That's made out of chickpeas. Fried dish
that's made out of chickpeas, fried chickpeas. It's Middle Eastern.
I'm sure I know it and can't think of it,
but oh my god, I love flawful delicious. You know
(18:24):
these are all deep fried vegetables. Okay, you go to Rome,
go to the Jewish ghetto. What are you gonna have?
What's the numb waring dish? There? Fried artichokes, Oh, oh
my god, I love fried artichokes so good. And then
of course there's onion rings. Dull, you make such a
good onion ring. Thank you, the bodymls rings and Bobby
(18:46):
Burgers come and get it. And then like listen, I
mean we were kind of um talking about the disasters
of a deep fried turkey. Now that's said, it can
be fantastic. Have you ever done it? Have you had one? No?
Have you ever made one? Yes? I did it. I
never at home. I did it in the restaurant a
(19:07):
couple of times, just to try it. But I also
have a fryer, so I took the baskets out and
I dropped the turkey in there, and like literally it
cooked in like eighteen minutes. It's crazy. I mean I'm exaggerating.
It cooks very fast compared to compared to roasting it
because you have direct heat on this thing. And it's spectacular. Yeah,
but I mean it's like it's just you know, it's
(19:28):
very juicy from olive oil that's become part of the turkey,
and it's you know, it gets really crispy on the outside.
I mean it's like it's fried turkey. I mean, let's
face it, so good, but also like fried. You know,
chicken wings are fried to Oh my god, yeah, and
I love a chicken wing. Um. Do you know the
process for for for chicken wings? Is it similar to
like what we just did. No, not at all. So
(19:48):
you take chicken wings, no batter, throw them in the fryer,
and they get crispy because of the skin on them,
take them out, put him in a mixing bowl, and
you mix them with hot sauce and butter. Oh that's it, okay,
and then you serve it with you know, blue cheese ranch. Great. Wait,
then that is kind of similar to what we just did.
No we batter these. Oh there's no batter. No, there's
(20:12):
no bad got it? So are they unhealthy for you?
Then depends on the sauce. Um, they are healthy for you.
I'm not going to say they're diet cuisine. Listen, everything
in moderation. That that That's my whole point of this thing,
which is like, don't sleep on deep frying food because
it could be really delicious if it's done properly and
(20:33):
you don't have to eat it every single night. No obviously, um,
but of so much of it is fun, all right,
(20:56):
So oh nice, okay, nice and crispy now yeah, but
but light at the same time. Yeah, definitely, so you're
still you still tastey. There's lemons and you can still
see the color exactly the shrimp and a little ali
(21:18):
on top tip. Oh my good. She is like, it's
like what the fight glass, you know, m hm, it's
so good. I don't realize how easy it was to
make an ali too. The thing I like about, you know,
(21:45):
cooking like this is that it's fried, but you can
see the seafood right through the batter. It's almost stealth.
Like that's the key. Don't sleep on deep frying food
because it could be really delicious if it's done properly
and you don't have to eat it everything all night. No, obviously, um,
but some of so much of it is fun, I mean,
(22:05):
and then you know, getting to desserts, like you know,
what do you think of Well, no, I'm not into that.
I mean, like all those things. That's one thing I'm
not into. Dough come on, well with little powdered sugar. Zep's.
I mean, so I was gonna say, donuts are fried
(22:27):
benye's you know the deep the New Orleans exactly beautiful
with a cup of chickeny coffee. Only a big donut person,
you're not how about turos? Yep, sign me up. So
churos are a donnat it's it's it's it's a donut
recipe that is um piped out of a pastry bag.
(22:49):
Would they with the star tip on it? So it
has those ridges and then when they come out of
the when they come out of the oil, they're nice
and crispy you roll them and sugar and cinnamon so good.
Oh they're insane. That's that's a really good way to
end the meal, and it might be a good way
for us to end this podcast. We I really have
to ask you have you experimented at all with an
(23:12):
air fryer? No, and I have to say, I feel
like I'm missing out because everybody tells me they're awesome.
Have you done it? But I think maybe I'll get
you one. Okay, do you know which one to get? Yeah?
I know, if you, But I'm like curious to see
what you would do with an air fryer. What can
(23:32):
you do in them? Like people are making everything in them,
like sweet potato fries to like salmon, Like it's crazy.
So I'm gonna this, This is to be continued. I
gotta get you an air frier and see what let's
do an air fi podcast. We should because everybody tells
me the remaining Yeah, all right, and I believe it same, Okay, Okay,
(23:53):
I'll see in the air frire I bed, bathroom beyond it.
Always Hungry is created by Bobby Flay and Sophie Flay.
Our executive producer is Christopher Hasiotis. Always Hungry is produced, edited,
and mixed by Jonathan Howks Stressler. Always Hungry is engineered
by Sophie Flay. For more podcast from My Heart Radio,
(24:14):
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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