{"id":236,"date":"2011-01-29T12:00:22","date_gmt":"2011-01-29T16:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/?p=236"},"modified":"2011-01-29T12:15:03","modified_gmt":"2011-01-29T16:15:03","slug":"poker-and-cooking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/?p=236","title":{"rendered":"Poker and Cooking"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The Beautiful Machine<\/p><\/div>\n

Among the many things I love about my new apartment (ok, new as of last August) is that I have the space to actually spread out and take on some cooking projects that just seemed painful, if not dangerous, in my old apartment.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m talking most about deep-frying of course.<\/p>\n

Meg got me the deep fryer for my birthday two summers ago but I could never bring myself to break it out in my old apartment.\u00c2\u00a0 For one thing, it stored nicely in the box on a shelf in the shared hallway.\u00c2\u00a0 I had serious concerns about where I would put the thing once it was actually broken in.\u00c2\u00a0 Plus, the limited counter space meant that a gallon or two of 300 degree peanut oil would be precariously placed somewhere.<\/p>\n

But with a longer train ride has come a large kitchen.\u00c2\u00a0 With plenty of counter and storage space it was time to fry!\u00c2\u00a0 I actually first broke in the deepfyer a few months ago for a poker game.\u00c2\u00a0 So this last time wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the virgin run, but it was the first time I thought about taking some pictures and writing about it.<\/p>\n

The deep frying plan came together as part of a larger scheme.\u00c2\u00a0 Stu\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s girlfriend Chin was planning a surprise birthday visit.\u00c2\u00a0 To keep Stu from running off to Atlantic City for the weekend to try her luck at the poker table, I decided to bring the action to Park Slope and get a game together for Friday.\u00c2\u00a0 Coincidentally, it was also my friend Dave\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s birthday and I was excited to get some party time in with him, as well.<\/p>\n

Preparing\u00c2\u00a0for this event was one of those times where I miss having a car in New York.\u00c2\u00a0 In order to deep fry you need peanut oil\u00e2\u20ac\u201dheavy, heavy peanut oil.\u00c2\u00a0 Plus, while deep frying is great, we need a few other things, some chips, the making of a spinach dip, the makings of chilli, etc.\u00c2\u00a0 So Meg and I grabbed the little red push cart headed out for the half-mile walk through the snowy Park Slope\u00c2\u00a0streets to Key Food (for those in MN, think a supermarket between \u00c2\u00bc and \u00c2\u00bd the size of Rainbow or Cub Foods).\u00c2\u00a0 After loading the card to the brim, we headed for the now much more difficult trek back.\u00c2\u00a0 We made it, but in some snow bank or another the weight of all the food in the cart managed to bend one of the wheels to about a 30 degree angle.<\/p>\n

Once back it was time to get the cooking thing rolling.\u00c2\u00a0 As Meg started in on the cup cakes from scratch\u00c2\u00a0(a must for Dave and Stu\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \"\"<\/a>b-day celebration) I started in on the spinach dip.\u00c2\u00a0 See the recipe here.\u00c2\u00a0 Something that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done before, it comes together very quickly in a food processor. \u00c2\u00a0The recipe calls for \u00c2\u00bd to 1 cup of mayo and to keep the Mayo flavor down I stayed on the lower end.\u00c2\u00a0 A new addition was some cherry tomatoes.\u00c2\u00a0 After trying to mix some in using the food processor and seeing them shredded into a million little pieces I decided to slice them in half and mix them in by hand.\u00c2\u00a0 The dip was a great snack to have around as people arrived and I set-up the deep fryer.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Mushrooms<\/p><\/div>\n

The first things to fry were some crimini mushrooms.\u00c2\u00a0 In a little experimentation, half of the package got a standard egg wash and a cover of some seasoned flour (including some paprika, garlic salt, and a dash of white pepper) and half got that flour mix turned into a beer batter (aka I pour some beer into the flour mix until it was a paste).\u00c2\u00a0 Even before the deep frying, the color of the beer batter was noticeably enticing: the paprika turned the mixture a beautiful bright orangish red.\u00c2\u00a0 When the beer batter mushrooms were deep fried they came out with a nice orange colored crust. \u00c2\u00a0While both sets of mushrooms were good, the beer battered batch was the clear winner.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only did they have a great color, the orange compared to a duller gray brown, but they were more moist, while still retaining a nice crunch on the outside.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Sweet Potato Fries<\/p><\/div>\n

Next up was the fries, both regular and sweet potato.\u00c2\u00a0 The regular fries turned out well, but not as crispy as I had hoped.\u00c2\u00a0 I think that I might have under-timed the first fry of the double frying process. \u00c2\u00a0(In order to get fries nice and crispy on the outside and soft on the inside you first fry at 325, take them out for a few minutes, and then fry them at 375.)\u00c2\u00a0 Still, even though they were less crispy then I would have personally liked, they were well-loved.\u00c2\u00a0 The sweet potato fries presented a whole other problem in the second step of the double-fry process.\u00c2\u00a0 The sweet potatoes’ high sugar conten\u00c2\u00a0started to caramelize and almost burn at the high temp on the second fry.\u00c2\u00a0 The result was a little ugly, but was really tasty\u00e2\u20ac\u201da little sugar, a little caramel, and some starch.<\/p>\n

After the fries, the final deep-fry act was jalape\u00c3\u00b1os in the beer batter.\u00c2\u00a0 Not unseeded these little guys packed a mean but delicious punch.\u00c2\u00a0 (The heat of all pepper resides with the pepper\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s oil which is mainly found in the seeds.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Some of the Spread<\/p><\/div>\n

There were grand plans for onion rings and Meg\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s idea to turn string cheese and breadcrumbs\u00c2\u00a0into fried mozarela sticks\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 but alas the night was getting on, there was poker to play, and bellies were full from the first rounds of deep frying.<\/p>\n

At some point in the poker game Meg broke out the chilli that she started along with the deep frying.\u00c2\u00a0 Coming about 4 hours and countless beers after the end of the deep frying and that start of poker it was a welcome warm treat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Among the many things I love about my new apartment (ok, new as of last August) is that I have the space to actually spread out and take on some cooking projects that just seemed painful, if not dangerous, in my old apartment.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m talking most about deep-frying of course. Meg got me the deep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[57,33],"class_list":["post-236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cooking","tag-deep-fry","tag-dip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}