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3 STEP BREADIN G & OVEN FRY ING

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Whats not to love about breaded and fried food? Well, besides how unhealthy it is. How-ever, 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 fordeep fried foods, but with a bit of tweaking, you can have that fried food crunch with much lessfat (and also keep the house from reeking). And your kids will once again be able to eat chickennuggets (if thats something to aspire to?) In fact, this is a cooking project most kids will happilyjoin.

3 step breading

The classic breading technique uses 3 steps: dredging in flour, dipping in liquid, then dipping incrumbs. You can alter these 3 ingredients to suit your taste and food preferencesflours otherthan 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 for-get which hand is which, but set up as below, decide on your wet and dry hand, and lets getstarted.

In French, mise en placemeans everything in placeits a good habit to acquire if you donthave it already: when all your ingredients and implements are in place, you wont have to pausein 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 cleanand 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 shoulddecide on a dry and wet handsounds funny, but itll save you a lot of goop! If you work left toright, I suggest designating the left hand dry and the right hand wet; if you work right to left, theright hand should be designated dry and the left wet. These instructions will be for those workingleft 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 evenlycovered; shake off the excess over the bowl and drop it gently into the bowl of liquidwithout touching the liquid with your hand.

3. With your wet/right hand, gently turn the food in the liquid; let the excess drip off overthe bowl and drop it gently into the bowl of crumbs without touching the crumbs with yourhand.

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4. With your dry/left hand, coat the food thoroughly with crumbs, gently shake off the ex-cess 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 relativelyglop-free. If you mess up and your fingers get gluey, be sure to rinse in cold water, as that willremove 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 decentimitation of deep frying with much less fat. The keys are to use a really hot oven and a bit of fatwith a relatively high smoke point.

1. Preheat the oven to 425F (400F convection) and place a heavy sheet pan or glassbaking 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 Tolive oil) into the pan.

3. When the oven is hot and the butter (if youre using it) is melted, tilt the pan around tocoat it completely with fat, then quickly place the food on it in a single layer and return itto the oven.

4. Keep a close eye on the foodcooking times will vary greatly, but a good estimate forsmall items (vegetables, chicken strips) is 5-10 m on the first side. When the crumbs arenicely 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 cuta 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 6hours 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, itswell worth it to take advantage of the setup, make at least a double batch, and saveyourself the mess next time around!

learning more

Making sure that the excess flour, egg, and crumbs are shaken off the food will keep thefinal 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 inflour 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; eggsticks nicely to flour; and finally crumbs stick better to food that is wet, not just moist.

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