December 29, 2011

Adventures (sorta) with a Deep Fryer

Every year I get kitchen equipment and tools for the holidays... which I love!  This year I received a digital deep fryer with a large rectangular basket.  The possibilities seemed endless as I gazed at my new toy, and (feeling slightly overwhelmed) I asked my family for requests to break in my new addition.  Their requests:  cheese sticks and fried Oreos.
I made a typical grocery list for the week and added pre-made, frozen cheese sticks (yes, I know I can make them much better by hand) and Oreos to the list, and picked up a giant bottle of vegetable oil.  As I worked on our entree I heated up the fryer and dropped a few cheese sticks in.  Within a couple of minutes we had perfectly crispy cheese sticks.  I rolled my eyes over the lack of gourmet touch and slight lazy approach I took to this dish, but my husband was amazed and said, "These are so much better than the ones I've made in the oven!"  At least I got that request out of the way.
After dinner, to the delight of my eight year old son, I grabbed a cup and made a simple funnel cake batter.  I used two forks to toss an Oreo in the batter, and carefully dropped it in the fryer.  A minute later I flipped it to reveal a puffy, golden brown doughnut-esque dessert.  Within another minute I had this carnival style confectionery draining on a paper plate lined with paper towels and sprinkled it with a little powdered sugar.  I ended up having to fry up half the pack before everyone was satisfied.
I'm sure I will be able to come up with some amazing foods in my deep fryer without having to give it the shame of carnival and Applebee's fare, but I had a lot of fun breaking it in, and even more fun watching smiles grow on the faces of the people I love most.

No comments:

Post a Comment