Behind the scenes of Culinary Word of the Day. Jenn and Alicia discuss wok hei, broiling, frying, and deep frying.
In this edition, Jenn and Alicia discuss wok hei, what you need in the kitchen to broil, cooking mistakes, restaurant industry terms, and delicious fried items.
Esculentè is a behind-the-scenes conversation podcast hosted by Jenn de la Vega and research producer Alicia Book. For every three culinary words, Jenn and Alicia discuss material from the cutting room floor in a series of bonus episodes. They answer listener questions and dive deep into the words as well as the humanity behind them.
Hosted by Jenn de la Vega and Alicia Book.
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Jenn: Hello everybody, it's me. Jenn de la Vega your host of culinary word of the day coming to you from a sunny fall Brooklyn.
Alicia: And this is Alicia book coming from an equally Sunny Long Island. It's actually a beautiful day out. I you know, this is gonna air later but I would suggest I'm hoping everyone gets outside today because it's beautiful.
Jenn: Maybe it'll be a lovely reminder and memory of what used to be nice outside.
AliciaThat's true. It's true listen back and remember this beautiful day.
Jenn: Yeah. Hey, we're we're live. We're preserving these feelings. This is what we're here for. We're preserving knowledge and emotion and feelings of a moment in time a moment in time.
Alicia: I could get really corny right now and say like isn't that what a good meal is? Oh moment of time with friends and family
Jenn: goodness there Alicia's on a roll already honor roll. on a dinner roll
Alicia: Oh, that was yeah. That was yeah.
Jenn: All right, welcome back everybody to our behind the scenes podcast of culinary word of the day where we round up a little bit more deeper history deeper context and answer your cooking questions. And to be honest. Mostly Alicia's cooking questions, as we research all of these words. It's a very big job
Alicia: It's a beautiful job. I love it.
Jenn: Oh, look at you. You're really just coming in there with the supporting commentary.
Alicia: I'm in it today. I'm in it really
Jenn: in the pocket.
Alicia: I'm excited.
Jenn: So since our last episode we realized that we didn't cover something. That was very important. To the word stir fry I guess, you know we got carried away.
Tossed away tossing away in a pan very excited to talk about stir frying in general, but there was a principle that we sort of overlooked we mentioned it in the definition of stir fry but we didn't really discuss it at length and that is the concept of wok hei.
Alicia: And actually and this was the first time I'd heard about stir fry before, you know, we started doing our you know started working on all this but I had never heard of walk 8 before so I got really interested in what this term meant and how was applicable and when I talked to Eugene about it, you you know what it was. So would you it always makes me excited when I think I'm learning something new and just like of course, I knew that Alicia.
Jenn: No, that's not how I say that how it goes.
Alicia: It's never like that. But it but it's exactly she's more exciting when I bring her a word and she gets into it with me. So
Jenn: yeah, I had a really wonderful privilege of growing up in California where there is a very diverse Chinese community and I would say that I grew up with a majority of Cantonese style cooking and this is where a lot of the stir frying and walk. Hay originates. I I think in New York City. We we have also a very diverse combination of Chinese cultures, but we also I feel like is very trendy right now to eat a lot of Szechuan, which is very spicy. It has the Szechuan peppercorn which has a buzzy feeling in your mouth. And yeah, it's it's not it also has a bunch of stir-frying but Cantonese cooking is the one that really hones in on what is walk. Hey and Is that term mean? It means breath of the Walk? It's very like Poetic, isn't it?
Alicia: I mean, yeah, but that's like that's sort of since the beauty of it. I think there's a little bit when I read more about stir frying and Cantonese like cooking a little bit which I didn't really know anything about, you know, I was only really exposed to americanize Chinese food. Um, so the style of how to cook it was is still kind of new to me, but there is a way people talk about stir frying using the wok the language which a lot of chefs use did sound sort of poetic like it wasn't just like the throwing stuff into a pan and making sure it gets cooked. So the way it was cooked the order in which was put in how it was just and and that's what actually really caught my attention was that it wasn't just Chefs talking about food. It was really like the way in which they wrote about it. Spoke about it and talked about it, which I thought was very cool.
Jenn: There is an art to Stir-frying. We we spoke about the technicalities of it in the last episode where cutting things to uniform size so that they cook evenly is important stir frying doesn't take very long. But in that very short interval, this is where the walk hey magic happens because the the walk is at a very high temperature and creates a very specific Smoky Essence. And this is this is what we're referring to the walk. Hey, is this very unique
Kind of yeah, the flavor the smokiness and it's not burnt. It's moving at such a high rate that and it's moving. So so quickly in the pan that it creates this whole other atmosphere, which is so cool. And I pulled up an extra article here from The New York Times by Jay Kenji lopez-alt the elements of walk. Hay and how to capture them at home The elusive Smokey flavors and Aromas of stir fry can be achieved in your home kitchen and I'll make sure to put this link in our show notes. But let's see, here it is. “What is the flavor? Where does it come from? What's so different about cooking in a restaurant” and in his testing in his work as a recipe developer at Cook's Illustrated. He did this series of blind taste tests stir frying noodles beef vegetables in western style Skillets versus a non-stick walk and a whale seasoned carbon steel walk which is pretty interesting land lamb has written in more recent article from Cook's Illustrated. This has to do with the chemical interactions between the food and the layers of polymerized oils on the surface of a seasoned walk. Geez, so complex. It's also tied to the unique action of stir frying in a wok. You'll see it in Cantonese restaurants. It's it's more of like a wrist flicking toss. So the food kind of runs up, side of the curved walk and then kind of flies backward into the center of the walk so it's like kind of like juggling almost
Alicia: good way to describe it.
Jenn: Yeah, so continuing in the article it then drops back down onto the hot surface of the Walk where the surface moisture is revaporized and the cycle repeats. And so the walk is allowing you to constantly toss the food in its own Vapors, and that's why it's so unique and uniform pretty cool.
Alicia: It is pretty cool and it's worth watching some of the chefs also you perform the action of it, too. Because it's impressive to sort of constantly watch you the motion and everything stain in the pan and just the movement itself.
Jenn: It's really special. It's really cool to watch. I believe there are also visual examples on there's a Netflix show. I think it's called street food Asia and there are a few people who who use walk hey or even blowtorches to to augment this this environment because you cannot achieve walk. Hey outside of a walk. You can't do it in a flat flat bottomed Skillet or cast iron because you don't have that unique curvature to toss the food back.
Pretty cool widget.
Alicia: Yeah, it's just such a cool concept. Yeah.
Jenn: Well, thank you Alicia for bringing that up again. I'm so sad. We we had missed it last time but hey, we have the opportunity to cover things that we miss in the next episode.
Alicia: That's a beautiful part of the behind the scenes. Yes. It's a we get to do what we want a little bit.
Jenn: Okay. It was fun the independence. It feels great for this episode though. We are going to focus now on three new words that we've made episodes about they are broiling.
Frying and deep frying these are all wonderful cooking methods and Incredibly complex.
in the case of the latter two, I don't know if broiling is very complex, but
Alicia: See, I would somewhat disagree with that one.
Jenn: Oh, okay, please. What do you tell
Alicia: once again the non Chef here, but I have make I've made many a mistakes while Brolly. I mean it generally All Leads down to like the main basic mistake, which is leaving it broiling for too long. But I do find that time is of the essence with broiling and I never seem to get that timing correct. So I think it is a tricky thing to do. I think it I think frying and deep frying or their own, you know beast let's say yeah, making sure you stay safe while you do those actions, but broiling I think is a little bit it can be tricky. Especially if new ovens like you got a brand new oven you're using new stuff different foods. You know what you're trying to go. I think there is there's like a lot of elements broiling that can make a little tricky.
Jenn: Sure. Okay, I'll take it back, right?
Alicia: Okay, depending on your level depending on your level of course.
Jenn: Yeah. Yeah. The key thing to remember about broiling is that the heat element is coming from the top and you know versus the baking aspect in an oven which comes from the bottom of the oven and you'll see this in different models, or maybe tell me if you you've experienced this but sometimes the broiler is not at the top of the oven.
So broiling happens from above but if you have a broiler drawer, which is separate, it uses the bottom heating element and there's a drawer underneath the main oven.
Have you seen that?
Alicia: I don't know
Jenn: a lot of people keep their spare baking sheets and cookie sheets in that drawer, but actually a broiler. Imagine with me my okay, how do I describe this sea level? Let's talk about this in terms of sea level. Sea level is the oven the main oven some models of oven have the baking element Under the Sea. That's the sea floor. Mm-hmm.
uh and some of its have another heating element at the top. Which is in the mountains, but that's your broiler sometimes and so what you would do to broil foods is to put a baking rat to baking rack toward the top there. But earlier what I'm referring to though is some models of oven have just the the under the sea heating element and under that is another drawer.
what and so if you're using the oven
The heating is coming from the bottom. But if you're using the broiler drawer, the heating is coming from above. So it's using that same heating element. Okay, so either go up or down.
Alicia: But either way, it'll still make your food crispy on top.
Jenn: Yes. So again broiling is from above and it's only one side of the food. So if you would like to cook the difference or the other side, it must be flipped after the first side has been broiled and typically broiling is a short amount of time depending on how thick or big the food object is so vegetables I would say are on the shorter end of broiling.
Alicia: Mm-hmm
Jenn: Meats depending how thick they are. If it's thinly cut very very short if it's a steak or something thicker inch or two inches then yeah, it's going to take a little bit longer because the surface area is much bigger, and it's depth is much bigger, but the key things to remember with broiling. Don't leave it alone,
Alicia: be that's sometimes people some people think you can put something in oven walk away for a minute or two not the case with broiling
Jenn: baking sure if something is baking at a lower temperature, it's lower risk, but broiling because it's such a high heat situation. You do not want to walk away to where the other side of the house.
Alicia: Right
Jenn: so things you should do or keep in mind if you have an oven light keep it on so that you can see into the oven. But if you cannot you can give it a peek without disrupting the heating process, but be careful it is high heat so you could steam yourself in the face.
Alicia: Oh, that's good to know.
Jenn: Watch out watch out. Yeah, and you just want to keep an eye on it because you're going to create your you know, bringing about the my yard reaction faster in the boiling process. Son, yeah,
Alicia: so I have a question though, if during this process at all can your food ever catch on fire in the oven?
Jenn: Yes, because the heating element is directly above the food and sometimes you do want to do that. I mean, sometimes you want to recreate grilling or barbecue if you do not have the opportunity to barbecue or grill in your home.
Alicia: Interesting. Would you have to cook the meat separately first and then would you sort of broil it quickly to kind of get that jar on top or
Jenn: finish, Yes, right. I would want to get that meat to a safe temperature depending on what it is. You can look up food thermometer episode to talk about done this and but yeah broiling is usually a finishing move.
Alicia: Great. This is good to know. I do have another question though. Is there any food that are sort of interesting to broil like I wouldn't think about it but like might be delicious to throw in there to get a little bit of caramelization like burning sugar or anything like that that you know, you can do Chromebook. Is there anything else that might be sort of tasty? That's out of the realm of thinking
Jenn: haha. You've touched on something that is a great food tip. If you do not have a food torch, you can use a broiler to achieve not quite the same because of food torch is targeted and you can control like what areas are caramelized but broiling will get you pretty close to that. So yeah criminal is a great example. Um, you can really so many other things like fruit you could put a layer of sugar on some fruit and broil that and it will create a glassy layer on top. Yeah, pretty cool things that you don't know that you probably have been broiling this whole time or when you get in a restaurant you you're like
How do they get that cool color on it? Lasagna?
Alicia: Really?
Jenn: Yes, so you can bake lasagna with the foil on top for however long it Cooks, but then you take the foil off move it to the top of the oven and broil that for another minute or two and you're gonna get that cool. Like, you know, Bernie bubbly like molten loveliness on top. Yeah
Alicia: interesting.
Jenn: Yeah, and then process wise you can broil eggplants. Uh, so this is a step in the beginning of cooking or making baba ganoush. Have you had baba ganoush?
Alicia: I have yes.
Jenn: Yeah. It's an eggplant dip and what you do to create that soft eggplant texture is to broil the eggplant for like an hour. You're like really charring it. So yeah, you you broil the eggplant a lot. I'm talking about a large like a large eggplant you're boiling it for maybe 30 minutes.
And then you flip it over broil the other side for another 30 minutes and it's charged a heck. It's gonna be charged a heck but we want that because we peel off that skin and the interior is super soft. And then you can blend it up into the dip.
Alicia: Wow, I would have. I can't say I ever looked into making it myself but that is very interesting. I would have never thought I do have lotion if you're trying is that end of smoking or not really?
Jenn: Sometimes depending on the size of the eggplant and how Bernie it's going to be. It might smoke but generally in my experience it has not you might smell it happening, right?
But it's totally okay. Just right with a big eggplant big eggplant.
Alicia: Okay. Is there anything else a smoked eggplant can do for us?
Jenn: It can be great as like a Caprese salad with tomato. Mozzarella and basil.
Alicia: Mmm,
Jenn: You can broil eggplants peel off the skin and then use that flesh. Any which way you want. You can eat it like in a salad after that or have it as a cold side dish. You can also make what is it called papanotta, you can make caponata with with broiled eggplant and you'll notice the huge texture difference from a raw egg plant to the broiled eggplant. It gets super just really luxurious.
Alicia: The yes, there is the one that work comes out with who talk screen. They also do you need anything else like in order to broil certain stuff? Like is there any other tools you need in the kitchen that are like kind of very specific to this?
Jenn: Uh-huh? Yes. So a beginner cook could get away with a pan that is oven safe like a cast iron or a skillet that doesn't have like a rubber or plastic handle. Those things can get you through some small boiling projects, but in the end, you're probably really want to invest in some sheet pans of varying sizes. So I use a lot of quarter sheet because I live alone and let's really good for individual portions, but most households will have half sheet pans and this is different from cookie sheets because cookie sheets are just flat. They don't have any guardrails. So yeah, so sheet pans have a lip. So that liquids will not Escape in case there are liquids in the cooking process. So a sheet pan is a great investment. Number two mitts,
kitchen mitts or dry cooking towels so that you can remove the hot thing from the oven is very important. I always say dry dry cooking towels or kitchen towels because have you ever tried to grab anything with a wet towel?
Alicia: Yes
Jenn: ouch. Yes. Yep.
Alicia: I was gonna say it's not fun. I mean the good part about I think the season one is like I can just talk about all the mistakes I've made. How can we correct them if anyone's listening and they're they're sort of getting into cooking for the first time. I'll tell you all the mistakes and like really don't ever pick up that wet towel and go do it. Don't do it. Don't do it.
Jenn: Oh, yes be very careful when working with any kind of kitchen towel. Make sure it's absolutely try or you might burn yourself. It's a very surprising thing that happens sometimes even to me because I'm not looking or I'm not paying attention. Additionally you need somewhere to put the hot object. So what if you're you're cooking a lot of other things your whole stove is taken up space like there's pots and pans already there. Where are you gonna put the hot broiling pan? You need a landing spot and so for that you don't want to put it directly on your kitchen table because you might burn it. So invest in some trivets or fold up more of those dry kitchen towels and at least do two layers A folded towel so that you don't create like a burn mark, which I have done on many tables.
Alicia: I think that's actually good advice for apartment living because also equally like I've pulled stuff out of the oven. Like I've where do I put it nowhere like everything's going in the sink. This is going to sink.
Jenn: It's very unique problems in New York. Very unique problem.
Alicia: Always plan ahead wear those hot fans going. Where's the next move going?
Jenn: Yes, that is generally good advice when you're working with food for the first time or cooking for the first time. Where are you gonna put it? Yeah, you're gonna be holding a hot pan for like 10 minutes like oh man.
Alicia: Yeah. What do I do?
Jenn: Like what what it because we often thought.
Alicia: Yeah, you put it back in it's gonna burn, you know burn if you had an allocated amount of time and it's up like It's gotta go somewhere.
Jenn: Oh no, um, but yes plan ahead folks if you're getting into cooking.
Alicia: So we talked about like the smoking element a little bit with the eggplants. But what was your advice actually be if you're in an apartment and you have to put that thing let's say back in the oven and it burns and it's broiling and it gets smokey eye. It doesn't get more Smokey than other things that the usual sort of amount of smoke. Is there a difference?
JennL Oh man really can. Talk a little bit some healthy smoke is okay, but if it's looking like a cloud you are burning it. And so turn on your vents open your windows. If you have a space to bring the dish outside it any opportunity that usually helps in an apartment building. It's not easy because you go into the hallway and there's another fire alarm out there. I'm sure you're panicking by this point because your fire alarm is going off and then you set off the building fire alarm Okay, so Windows important if you're going to start broiling open the windows turn on the vent in case of emergency if you can rush outside with a hot thing make sure you're saying the word hot in case you see other people.
Alicia: These are such great tips actually,
Jenn: but you can avoid all this by simply paying attention to the food and removing it when it's time to remove it.
Alicia: Yes.
JennL Hahaha,
Alicia: thank you birds of wise words to Alicia 10 years ago
Jenn: This is A restaurant industry thing too. So you know how You probably have heard.
A TV shows you say behind when you're behind somebody. Well, there are modifiers to that. So if you're passing behind anyone in the kitchen to you know, you're it's you're trying to be safe. You say behind and you move past them or they'll move, you know a way so that you can pass the modifier for that is behind sharp in case you're holding a knife. Mm-hmm. They never hold a knife out toward other people always hold it toward yourself and just say sharp behind or you can say hot behind. Which is always a joke at every restaurant. I work at because you're like up behind mmm.
Alicia: He's gonna wild in the kitchen
Jenn: or you can reverse it for a less sexy version behind hot or hot hot.
And then another common one is Corner because sometimes there are blind Corners in restaurants if you're coming up the stairs and there's a corner and you can't see anybody. You just say Corner ahead of you so that anyone that's rushing in the doorway will stop.
Alicia: That's so cool. I mean no. Yeah, if this will get to know if you're you know, interesting you're trying to find a bathroom or something and you hear like someone yelling out like to pay attention to see if somebody is carrying hot plates or something like that. They may be yelling up to their other servers. But if you happen to wander into some place, you're not really,
Jenn: you know back up against the wall
Alicia: exactly like get out of the way page into your surroundings because you don't want soup all over you
Jenn: it's pretty funny. I think that restaurant people like they definitely like game recognize game like they know that when I'm walking to the bathroom and I see a server coming toward me I I turn my body so that I'm kind of almost standing against the wall and I put my hands behind my back like I'm just like I don't want to cause anyone to drop anything. And so they notice that I'm a food industry person sometimes when I'm walking around the space, even if
Alicia: I'm just thrill hidden secrets here too now. So you guys want to see him like you're really in the know when you go to the restaurant now, you know what to do
Jenn: just be really aware of your surroundings be conscious of servers. Like I think a lot of older Generations treat servers as like servants, you know, but there's a there's a certain level of respect you need to like give back to the restaurant industry. And this is like one way is like learning the ways of it so that you can navigate the space.
Alicia: It's pretty good. I mean that's good to know. It's it's important to be respectful about kind of thing. Especially we're having a little bit of a drought in the service industry because
Jenn: oh my God
Alicia: the lack of respect.
Jenn: Yeah, there's a huge lack of respect. There are people out there who demand you know, I want my food now now I want it this way. I want it that way, you know without increasing the rates of the food or the labor costs like come on. Yeah, we're going through a revolution right now. I think I think a lot of restaurant groups and people individuals are really taking it into their own hands to remodel and rethink the way that we operate.
Alicia: That's pretty cool. I hope you get to touch upon that a couple times a little bit more as we talk about these different words because I think it's something that people don't always appreciate or fully understand and I think a lot people want to understand that but they don't
I think it's hard if you've never worked in the industry, you know, and I'm speaking for someone who I have never worked in the industry. You know, I you know, I'm learning from some osmosis from you just like here you could have talked about different things that you do and I'm like wow, like that's really tough. Like it's a tough. It's a tough industry to be in it's a tough job and it's one that I don't think people can really see all the different layers and things you guys have to go through so many insights behind what's going on and the changes that may be happening. I think will be helpful or they're helpful to me. Anyway.
Jenn: Okay, that was a good amount of information about broiling.
Alicia: Yes. I thought a little bit more than anything. We I anticipated in a good way.
Jenn: It's always happens to us. We get so excited,
Alicia: you know, but I feel like it's good. I feel like keeping that energy going though is like good. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. It doesn't get it doesn't get dry. Then at least you know, or I hope it's not getting dry now if you put it in the broiler probably.
Jenn: Alright, the next word we're going to tackle is a big one considerably which is frying.
Alicia: Tasty one
Jenn: tasty so tasty, you know where she went well and this episode and some tasty concept. So fine.
Jenn: I know I can't wait. So hit me with it what about frying do you have questions about so many
Alicia: so many but I do want to start this one's actually not bothered me, but I've been interested in a while is if I want to start frying if I use different oils, is it going to taste differently or you know, if I take a different fat I want to say oil first because I feel like oil is the first thing I'm gonna reach for in a kitchen you to do and like Is there a best oil to use is there the best flavor but not the best one to use universally like what's going on there with the flavor there?
Jenn: There is a subtle difference between the frying oils and there are some restrictions but the key thing to remember about any oil that you fry with is that it's neutral oil neutral. Why is it neutral because it doesn't have a lot of flavor to impart itself.
So there are subtle differences but there is canola vegetable peanut oil safflower oil. Those are generally the big ones that people fry with at home and they do not have a lot of flavor.
On their own but what you'll find is that they have kind of different viscosity and in part different kinds of just Essences when when they are fried like they augment Foods in different ways and the one that I like a lot personally, but I cannot use a lot is peanut oil.
Because it is a really dangerous allergen for a lot of people that I cook for so if it's just for me.
I would like to use peanut oil more often, but because it's an oil and it can stick to things there is a high chance of cross-contamination. I like peanut oil because it has it's all nuttiness. Is
Alicia: there a specific foods that call for peanut oil? To be or is it could be anything, you know, you can be anything and it's really great places.
Jenn: He's french fries. Yes, exactly. It's french fries. He delicious but it's a really big allergen. So people have been shying away from it
Alicia: understandably. So yeah, yeah, because now that yeah. Wow, okay. I lost that's what he's doing my mind. Actually, that's good job, Jen,
Jenn: you know, there are some there are some that are extracted from the peanut itself. But as you know when you crush up peanuts what happens in making peanut butter and peanut butter.
Alicia: Yeah, because it's deliciousness.
Jenn: So the extraction process, um varies I need to look look into it more.
Alicia: It sounds I'm getting hungry. I won't like there's a hunger element. That's creepy into my life right now on that note though. Like what is the best food in your opinion to fry in its own fat?
Jenn: I would say duck,
Alicia: Really
Jenn: but this is um, that's that's sort of different duck is more of a comfy situation because it's a low temperature preservation method, which is not exactly frying because it doesn't get up to a frying temperature but duck fried in its own fat is fantastic potatoes fried and duck fat fantastic chicken fat or Schmaltz is not really common for cooking itself. But what a lot of people use to Fried Chicken is lard,
Okay, because there is a higher volume of it from processing pork.
Interesting chickens are so small. You can't render tons of fat from it, but it is possible. I mean the existence of Schmaltz proves that you know, it has some fat but not enough to fry things in
Alicia: if you get to that real Really trying level of it
Jenn: and speaking of french fries again. A lot of fast food establishments used to fry their french fries in beef fat.
Alicia: Really?
Jenn: Mhm, but you know, it's not vegetarian so.
Alicia: Interesting. Okay. Yeah see that because if you're vegetarian that might be your only choice if you go to some of these fast food places. Yeah, probably not less. So now the back
Different points in history,
Jenn: it's incredible to me how far fast food has come to be plant-based. Hmm interesting very interesting.
Alicia: It is interesting. I know is it cheaper overall to be more plant-based for fast food chains or is that conversation that we go?
Jenn: I don't know. I have no idea. I want to know
Alicia: that might be something worth looking into for like a leader episode because that it might be I'm like wondering if it's an ethical thing or if it's more of like a commercial thing. Do you know what I mean?
Jenn: Probably commercial?
Alicia: Yeah, you know is vegetable oil just like a lot. I feel like yeah corn or soy or vegetable oils or
Jenn: corn no oil is definitely another one that is used a lot because we make so much corn in the United States. You do believe me.
Alicia: We're gonna talk about that one day too.
Jenn: Yes corn is coming corn is a big one corn is a gigantic entry. I would say corn industry
Alicia: It's just I we did that word sort of recently and I didn't realize I was getting myself into when we started with one word of corn. I was like, oh, like maybe we'll cover a couple different things. I'd eat it how to make it. I was like, oh no. No, this is a monster. So we're not
Alicia: We're not gonna get attracted from frying right now talking about corn frying we're talking about frying now we're talking about frying right now.
so I actually have we'll sort of like you might prep corn for eating sometimes do you actually is there anything before you fry something that's worth prepping like my question is sort of does it burn like I think of putting stuff in frying oil and like it's so hot and it's gonna cook really quickly and sort of not burn but
I can't I'm trying to picture like do spices stay on. Is there anything I would do to help with the flavor? It doesn't burn off during cooking.
Jenn: So there are things you can do to proteins before frying them. So one is brining. So that is soaking a chicken or a turkey in a salute a salty solution and that helps it stay moist and you don't have to season it with salt beforehand, but there's also just seasoning it with salt and pepper beforehand. There's also marinating and dry rubs. Um, but you'd want to strain off any excess marinade so that it doesn't pop back at you in the oil and then
Alicia: I think that's what I think about. Sometimes is if you put some of that stuff in if it has too much stuff it comes right back out.
Jenn: Yeah, you have to drain it off or Pat it dry with paper towels. So dry rubs would work in this situation and then we're slightly gonna get into this in in deep frying but you can also dredge, dredging is you know pressing or or coding, coding the protein in flour and some seasonings before frying it. So a a low effort frying dish that you would need to dredge is chicken pyard. Have you ever had chicken pyard?
Alicia: I have delicious.
Jenn: Yeah, that is a chicken breast that is pounded thin, um lightly seasoned and then you you toss it on both sides in flower and then fry it and it becomes like a cutlet sort of which is ready to receive a pyard sauce or butter.
Alicia: And I thought for some reason I thought power did not have fFlour on it because I was always told it was sort of like the diet chicken on the menu your name if you want you get the butter sauce on the side and it's like, you know the chicken that doesn't come with any other carbs and it's like that's
Jenn: oh interesting. Um, so it doesn't have outright breading so it doesn't have so dredging is the process of coding a protein but in deep frying there are two more steps in the dredging process, so pyard is just flour and it's not egg and bread crumb. So it doesn't have like the car B carb. I mean it still has some car because it's flower but it is significantly less than a chicken tender.
Alicia: Gotcha. Okay, so now I can continue on my
Jenn: your guilt free. I mean chicken pie art is a great like it's a white meat, but you are still frying it and there's still served with lots of butter. I don't know.
Alicia: You know what? I'm just I may keep like living in my Blissful and like
Jenn: okay just won't pop up the bubble.
Alicia: You know, I I could order the salad. I chose not door to this out. You know what I mean? Like I made a choice so and like maybe even ordered the french fries on the side too. It's like fine so
Jenn: fantastic
Alicia: Won’t talk about that. Is there anything though? So I'm thinking once again like this marinade kind of splashing back my face. What do I need to do with the actual frying like is there anything I need to have on hand to make sure like, I'm ready to put something in pull something out. We're actually it's funny. We're talking a lot about like the prep around some food now which I think is great, you know like to make sure like, what do we have to have on hand to kind of get some of these processes done?
Jenn: So this applies to both frying and deep frying so if you're using a shallow amount of oil or even a large amount of oil there are a few ways to check if the oil is hot enough or ready to fry so you can't just stick a thermometer and be in there. I mean you can if you have one and you have the notation and a recipe that tells you the specific temperature it needs to be at but one easy way without using tools to figure out is if you have any bread around the house like cut a cube of a small cube of bread or cut a few small cubes red and put it in the oil and if you see it simmering and it starts to turn golden brown then your your frying oil is ready. But if the cube doesn't Sizzle your oil is not hot enough and if it sizzles a little too much. Pops and turns black your oil is too hot.
Alicia: And so if it's too hot do you take it off the burner? Do you just lower the heat? What's your next move?
Jenn: If it's smoking try to remove the pot from the heat to an inactive burner as fast but slowly as fast as you can but slowly very carefully
Alicia: don't spill that oil.
Jenn: You just don't want any smoke. But if it's just over cooking and a little too Brown just turn the heat down. Not sure.
Alicia: Yeah, once again, yeah, I've gotten myself into many of these sticky situations. It's really no the appropriate thing to do
Jenn: and if you do not have any bread in the house, you know, what works next what a wooden chopstick.
Alicia: Really
Jenn: you stick it down touch the bottom of the pan and if you see the little bubbles forming if you see bubbles actively Rising off of the Chopstick your fry oil is ready.
Alicia: That's good to know.
Jenn: If you don't see the bubbles, not hot enough and if you see the wood starting to toast, it's not it's too hot question.
Alicia: I'm assuming if you had one of those like really long baking toothpicks. Could you also use that instead of a Chapstick?
Jenn:I haven't tried it myself. So folks want to try it and let me know. I have a feeling it might be too small to see the bubbles.
Alicia: Gotcha.
Jenn: But yeah, you can use a wood Implement to see if there are bubbles Rising off the oil because I think what's what's funny about wood is that it soaks in ambient moisture, but not enough to hurt you. It's not gonna pop pop back at you interesting.
Alicia: Yeah, that's good to know. Yeah, sort of a safe tool in the kitchen, I guess. Talking about do we is there is that something that I guess is that for safer tool is do we need anything like what like what are the best like materials to use when stir fry like you want something metal. Do you want something that helps with the splatter? What are things that are good to happen in the kitchen for this?
Jenn: Oh, yeah you want. A spatula. So if you're you if you're trying to flip a Patty of some sort of Patty or a chicken breast you'll want a frying spatula. There are several kinds of spatulas in the world. So I'm very being very specific about a frying heat safe spatula and my favorite actually to use is a metal fish spatula specifically because it is longer so I don't know when was the last time you made pancakes. A while.
Alicia: Yeah, no actually surprise you make it a lot. Oh, I do. It's actually my eggs mostly going into pancake making it's not great. It's not great, but
Jenn: it's funny. Yeah, but you know a regular spatula might be too small for a large pancake. So I like to use a fish spatula which is longer. We did actually get the fish Bachelor.
Alicia: Okay. We have one we got one of those oversized spatulas.
Didn't fit in the pan. So we had to go back and like run to Target. Like what are we going to use and they had a fit? I think you and I had actually talked about it. Someone recently this is
Jenn: like probably that's why you want to go get it.
Alicia: Yeah, and it's literally that's like that's the essence of what happened is that we were on a pancake Journey it started around last Christmas and didn't end there but you and I had conversations about spatulas ahead of time and I was like we need we should get a fish fascula fish spatula gentle talks about it all the time. That's incorporate this
Jenn: I love them. Another thing to have is a wooden spoon. So if you're not flipping something but you're stirring wood is really great. I prefer that over metal because metal will scratch up certain finishes on cast iron or carbon steel those sorts of things and also hurts your ears. I don't like it myself, tongs really helpful. If you have a big pot or a big pan get longer tongs, so you don't have to reach your hand into it short tongs, you know, you you'd reach the heat Source a little sooner but tongs are great and then something my roommate's introduced to me a couple years ago was a, what is it called a frying a frying guard? Or a lid so you can simply just use a saucepan lid to to kind of block any splattering oil. But you also don't want it to steam because that will sort of soggy up the breading on anything. So you would want to use a lid but not put it all the way on you kind of have it askew or use it kind of like a Captain America shield. But another thing to use is a fry guard or a splatter guard. They come at me either a mesh metal or I've seen now there are silicone models that are heat safe so that you don't hurt yourself, or if there's something is popping a little too much, but you still want it to fry you can use those, optional though.
Alicia: Yeah, those are great for the cleanup too because you're not getting you're getting less splatter eyes one of my aunts. I think introduced me to that kind of early on. She's like, it'll help your cleaning up afterwards. If you're final I think it was this one was younger and like frying where things and I care to admit but she's just like this will be great. You'll appreciate like how much there's not gonna be grease everywhere. I think I was getting it. I don't know I was doing but there's a lot of grease and that kind of very much help the cleanup afterwards. So you're doing like a big frying day. It's very helpful to have one of those.
Yeah, I think how much oil should go into the pan because as we're talking about splattering out that was I think a lesson that I didn't learn quite frankly. So what how much do you know? Like, how much do you put in? How do you know you put it in? What's like, what do you do with that?
Jenn: I generally do a tablespoon of oil per cup or half pound of material and so a lot of stir fries or a lot of like full things that are Gonna Fill the whole pan it can go up to two tablespoons because if you go up even more like the principle is to coat the bottom of the pan evenly. Okay, and it's not making a pool unless you're getting into shallow frying so we just want to coat the bottom of the pan. But once we get into more of like a gathering situation where we're getting a half cup of oil we're getting into the front we're getting into frying and shallow frying.
Alicia: On that note. She do we move in to the deeper end of all, right.
Jenn: Yes, let's go off the deep end. Okay deep frying.
Alicia: The tastier part no, actually Friday and itself is very tasty. So deep fried is very very tasty but frying itself is pretty tasty, but I actually I think we should start this off a little bit with some of the safety concerns of deep frying that's once again, I think we can round it out with the tastiness of it, but I think it is important that we kind of cover, what can kind of go wrong with you frying but also some of the foodborne illnesses with food deep frying because that I actually didn't really know as much about I think we should talk about that for like a second is what can kind of happen with food. If you don't prep it appropriately I guess I'll let you take that one away.
Jenn: Yeah, if you're not checking the internal temperature of your foods, you have a chance of poisoning or poisoning yourself because just because something is browned and beautiful and crispy on the outside. It doesn't necessarily mean to be inside is fully cooked. Especially if you're working with bigger pieces of of meat like a whole chicken breast or a whole turkey turkey is a very complex and dangerous one actually. Um, yeah in food culture, we've seen the popularity rise of deep fried turkeys and I believe it is the number one reason people go to the hospital during Thanksgiving.
Alicia: Yes, which is a little bit which is a little bit crazy to think about but what happens when deep Furniture goes wrong like why why are people going to the hospital?
Jenn: What's well, there are several things that could go wrong because the oil is at a such a high temperature and if you had not dried your turkey enough, so the way to get really really crispy skin for chicken and turkey is to actually let it air dry in the fridge uncovered. So that it will evaporate a lot of its internal moisture. But because it's such a large bird, iIt has crevices. It has lots of internal meats and I think a huge mistake that people make is when they're they're dropping it in too fast. I don't know. If you've ever seen the video about Alton Brown setting up a deep fryer for a turkey. It was very elaborate and he took every safety precaution. Um, he built a Contraption where it was Outdoors do not do this inside do not deep fry turkey inside because you will catch things on fire if it goes wrong, but he created a pulley system.
I'm sure they sell sets like this now, but he created a pulley system so that he could lower the bird slowly into the oil because I what I think that happens to some people is that they drop it they just drop it in and the shock of that of all that moisture that's hidden inside the turkey hitting the oil the oil boils over.
Alicia: Gotcha,
Jenn: and in some cases can create propulsion. Mm-hmm meaning: a very hot turkey shoots out of the pot which is very dangerous. It creates a projectile
Alicia: and are the 20 or 30 pound turkey. So that's like a very hot things shooting through the sky.
Jenn: Yeah, I mean, well not necessarily through the sky but very close to you in your yard, which is not safe.
Alicia: I like the visual of it just like going above like little kids like watching the turkey go across the sky, but yes, let's stand
Jenn: it's like that's perfect. Perfect football imdry. Yeah, you know, it's like thanks for memory fall. But yeah, it's mostly about controlling moisture and controlling the temperature and administering it safely. So you can do it safely. Just make sure you're reading up on exactly the temperature you need. You have the space to accomplish this and try to keep pets and children out of the area.
Alicia: yes, that's actually I think a very good because I think I've seen some things where kids wandering and people get distracted and I think I've seen people drop the turkey in by accident and I mean, there's all there's just so many turkey accidents. So I think it's good to you know, make sure we talk about that when it comes to don't don't go into deep frying a turkey without doing your research for it first.
Jenn: I would start with deep frying french fries and chicken and then move your way up the ladder as an anecdote though. I have a very small deep fryer that I keep indoors on my on my stove and it's it's electrical and it's really tiny. It's for like frying herbs or like frying like single servings of chicken tenders or whatever. But if you're not diligent about cleaning the oil or paying attention to the oil level, you could actually overflow it. So if it has this like very violent reaction with a wet piece of Turkey, imagine if you have very dirty oil and like cake batter or like funnel cake.
Alicia: Oh gosh,
Jenn: it has overflowed onto my stove before and it is messy and dangerous and it was scary. Oh, yeah, try to keep your oil clean. Your temperature is managed and you know have a fire extinguisher or try to do big projects outside
Alicia: and the apartment living there's it's tough. Yeah, because I have a question with that hot oil. You can't just use water, you know. So I use a fire extinguisher. But then how do you clean it up? Is it
Jenn: ah cleaning it up after it's cooled down. There are lots of things you can do so salt can soak up a lot of this oil. I don't really use paper towels. I use a lot of dish towels and Rags. So I send those to laundry as soon as I have a bag full of dirty raggy oily towels, but flour and other thing that can soak it up on a stovetop. So if you have a pool of oil and you're like, oh man, so you sort of make a slurry with it or it'll absorb and then you can sweep that up and and put it in the trash.
Alicia: That's good to know actually. All right, so maybe we should get some some of the funness of deep frying as well.
Jenn: Yeah, I mean it's a very beloved method of cooking in the United States of America. I've got to say yes, and
Alicia: so when I stumbled across different things, I mean, there's like a ton of stuff out there for deep frying it was like a little bit hard to narrow down. Yes, six scientific stuff the chemistry behind deep frying. But I thought would be more interesting things. We can just talk about it's like briefly I think but like the psychological element of you trying and how the food turns out and I'm kind of curious on what your thoughts on that are. So like what I sort of read was a little bit, about the crispiness what the texture of the food is underneath and I'll kind of let you go from there because I want to know if you have an opinion on this, you know,
Jenn: yes, there is some research online and in Academia about why we love crunchy textures. I believe there was also another NPR piece, but the thing that I'm going to reference a lot now is a food scientist named Charles Spence. This is via Mental Floss and several articles. There's a PDF that I can share in the show notes, but in 2003 Charles Spence decided to investigate the Sonic appeal of chips in a formal setting. He presented research subjects with a few cans of Pringles because Pringles are a uniform shape so you can predict, you know,
Alicia: So interesting.
Jenn: He had them eat 180 Pringles while seated in a soundproof booth in front of a microphone and the sound of their crunching was looped back into a pair of headphones. So after consuming the cans they were asked if they perceived any difference in freshness or crispness from one Pringle to another.
Alicia: A lot of Pringles.
Jenn: Yeah, and so what they didn't know is that Charles Spence had been playing with the feedback in the headphones. So he was Raising and lowering the volume of the crunching. And so that's why the answer is varied. So at loud volumes the chips were reported to be fresher. Chips ingested well listening at low volume. We're thought to have been sitting out longer or stale or seem softer, you know, so the duplicitous sounds resulted in a radical difference in chip perception. So it may have been a small study but it really says a lot about how we perceive food through sound and texture. So noisy Foods correlate with freshness. So the fresher the produce like apples celery or lettuce the vitamins and nutrients are retained and it's telling us what's in the food. So that's kind of the great trick of snack foods the great, you know the Great Prank, they're all pulling on us. Is that the crispr it sounds the more healthy it seems to be for us.
Alicia: That is that's like a magnificent way to think about like deep fried foods like good fair and just feeling give me that deep fried butter the crunchy it is the better this butter is gonna be for me today.
Jenn: My body thinks that yes going to be good for me. But in my mind, I'm like, well,
Alicia: I'm like I know better but I'm gonna eat this butter instead of the butter I have at home because it's better might be healthier for me. I probably won't eat that better at home because it's bad for me and it's I have to use it's very like
Jenn: I have not been to a state fair in years and I am so curious to see what else now are they deep frying these days. I mean in my day it was a Snickers bar. That was very revolutionary.
Alicia: I have I also haven't been to one in a minute. But I did when I was in college and afterwards go to look actually fair amount of ones because I had friends who found them very very fascinating, but I did look online don't know just to take a look because I hear it.
Um, so Jezebel had an article and I think the funnest ones and take that with a grain of salt I guess was deep fried bubblegum.
JEnn: What?
Alicia: Yeah in Texas Um, and then which and another which seems to be pretty popular throughout the country is deep-fried liquids. Most notably like deep fried beer. Yeah. My dad is how that one. Mm-hmm, which I thought was pretty interesting because it's still stays alcoholic. It's not yeah. It's not cooked long enough to burn the alcohol out. So you have to be 21 and over you have deep fried beer.
Jenn: That is so scary to me.
Alicia: I just thought that was so fascinating and like they have deep fried lemonade. They have deep fried cool Aid which the cooling would actually kind of meet some sense to me. I was like if you look in the plane of deep frying things. I was like Kool-Aid sugary. It's a fun color. Yeah, like let's deep fry it. But the eliminating beer I was like beer is a stretch. I was just like that's somebody really wanted to figure out another way they can make beer more fun.
Jenn: And you there that scares me because what if there's a hole or you know, like I'm sure they've had in the production of this a few mistakes like I think so, so essentially what they do.
Alicia: I had to look it up like this step by step. It's essentially because I had to I was like how else you probably do that because even like stuff like ice cream my head to wrap my head around like get it cold enough to put the batter on and that's right.
Jenn: So Frozen, it's super super Frozen and
Alicia: they had like ice cream covered cheeseburgers, which is the same concept. You have the cheeseburger. It's disgusting ever and everyone talks about that disgusting. It is like no one nobody is on seemingly on the internet. Anyway, if I'm wrong
Jenn: blowing my mind,
Alicia: you know get it getting here with the comments but nobody's been on the cheap the ice cream cheeseburger deep fried ice cream cheese, just because melty ice cream
onto a cheeseburger and that's
Jenn: Okay, but how do they do the beer be it?
Alicia: Right sorry, so they're essentially little pockets of dough and you kind of cut them about ravioli size which is let's say like an inch and a half by an inch and a half some of that you inches and they make them the battery sort of thick enough that you can pour a little bit of beer on you seal it up and then you fryer so it's like probably like two tablespoons of beef.
Jenn: So they're small Okay small they're small. It's not like cans worth a beer. That's scary. Yeah so scary because yeah, like thinking about like a deep fried candy.
Alicia: No so it's like a little ravioli of beer. So I think it's like, you know biteable beer
Jenn: it's beer bites biteable fried beer bites, right?
Alicia: So that's how I always describe. It was like every article I kind of read which is like not that many but it was all said like ravioli size. I was like, okay that makes sense. Look if you can throw some iron sauce on something. I guess you can throw some
beer in yeah. Oh important part was to get it in that fire pretty quickly.
Jenn: I would love to hear from listeners about the things that you've the the weirdest strangest things that you've had deep fried. I would love to hear it. One of my favorite things that I've had deep fried is an egg. Really cool you
Alicia: get yourself or do you
Jenn: this is at restaurant called tempura Matsui, which is a higher end place, but it is an Omakase style tempura restaurant where they deep fry things very like lovingly in front of you.
And tempura is a great practice that that comes from Japan and we we discovered that it originates actually from Portugal during the Lenten season, but it was brought over to Japan in the colonial time and it's a lighter batter. It's it doesn't use any breading versus the American style of frying or batter frying things. So this is a batter but it's made with different kinds of flour and it's lighter. It's very crisp. But what you do to tempura an egg is to soft boil it and then peel it and then put it in the batter and then deep fry it. It's so cool.
Alicia: That is cool.
Jenn: I got a tiny bit of runny yolk. Oh that's by tasty too. That sounds delicious. Lovely.
Alicia: Yeah a lot of different textures going on yum. Final question. I mean, I think what's the weirdest thing we talked with the weird things. What's the funnest thing though? You've ever deep fried. Like have you do try everything for a wedding? That was really great or for a friend?
Jenn: It's say at a wedding we did zeppole. Let's as a final farewell gift for gifts. We fried them and then put them immediately in paper bags with powdered sugar and so they could take them and shake them and eat them which was really cute. Yeah, but me personally the most satisfying thing that I've tried. I love Thanksgiving leftovers. It's my favorite thing to work with I call it my culinary Olympics because I try to figure out new ways to eat leftovers and so
Like I don't know if I had a name for it. Maybe it was like Frank and leg or Frank and Turkey Leg. But what you do is you cut out little slivers of turkey leg so that you create these like divots in it. So that's meat a divot meet a divot and I put mashed potato in the interim and then dredge that and deep fried that and so it was a turkey and mashed potato still attached to the leg.
Alicia: Wow,
Jenn: pretty cool.
Alicia: That is pretty cool. It's very delicious sounding
Jenn: Hello. All right. Well, we'll talk closer things.
Alicia: We'll talk offline closer Thanksgiving.
Jenn: Yeah, but folks if there are things that you enjoy deep frying please sound off on the Twitter account or send us a comment on patreon. We'd love to hear it. We love deep frying. We have a deep love of deep frying apparently that's great starting the episode with donuts and ending it with a crazy Frank and Turkey Leg. Yes delicious. Um, okay folks. Thanks for joining us on episode 5 of Esculenté and we'll be back with more episodes of culinary word of the day.
Alicia: Goodbye.