Deep-fry

When we serve fried ribs at the restaurant, the reaction is always the same: “Fried ribs, we’ve never heard of those!” Well, they really are very good. We all love fried pork chops, so why wouldn’t we love fried ribs?

To make this dish, you’ll need a mandoline, which is a hand-operated slicing appliance with assorted blades for thick to thin slicing. A metal kitchen utensil known as a spider, which vaguely resembles a spider web with a long handle, is handy when frying because it lets you quickly remove hot food from the oil without removing much of the oil. It’s inexpensive and sold in most kitchenware shops. Soaking the julienned potatoes before cooking them removes some of the starch and yields a crisp shoestring effect.

Fried oysters are essential in a Hangtown Fry, which also includes eggs and fried bacon. The dish is thought to have been created during the California gold rush in a camp called Hangtown, near Sutter’s Mill in the Coloma Valley. The town acquired its gruesome name because of frequent hangings, often carried out by vigilantes. For this recipe, you can either shuck the oysters yourself or buy fresh shucked oysters from your fishmonger.

Small squashes deep-fry particularly well, offering a refreshing, almost juicy contrast to the ethereally crisp batter. This is one of those recipes—pancakes are another—that I tend to make when there are just two of us, and we can eat our sizzling fritters at the stove while the next one cooks. I find I get a much crisper result if I don’t overcrowd the pan.

Fried oysters are a staple of izakaya, the eating pubs that can be found in every Japanese neighborhood. These kinds of establishments are much more popular than bars, because we typically like to nibble on something while we enjoy a drink. In fact, this dish is one of my favorite complements to a frosty mug of draught beer. You’ll see that I don’t season the cabbage slaw in this recipe. In Japan, we typically create our own impromptu dressing with the two sauces for the oysters.

These irresistible ribs are an import from China that have been adopted—and adapted—by Japanese cooks. I like to prepare them with classic Chinese five-spice seasoning, because I love the rich fragrance and flavors of this mixture of cinnamon, anise seed, star anise, cloves, and ginger. But many cooks in Japan prefer to make the spareribs with simply sansho pepper or freshly ground black pepper and salt (use 1 teaspoon of either pepper with 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt). Try these different spice combinations to see which ones you like best!

America’s Deep South isn’t the only place that loves fried chicken: tatsuta-age is Japan’s own delicious version, which my family and I are addicted to! Our fried chicken is marinated with traditional Japanese aromatic flavorings and served with a refreshing and savory slaw. You can enjoy this versatile dish hot and crispy, or pack it for a picnic and eat it at room temperature—it travels extremely well. Tatsuta-age is also a perfect leftover food. It keeps in the fridge for several days without losing its flavor, and you can turn the boneless chunks into a delicious sandwich. When I was a kid, my mother often included this fried chicken in my lunchbox, a treat I happily share with my own school-age children today. Don’t use the breast for this dish—the legs and thighs have much more flavor. Be sure to keep the skin on, too.

Kaki-age is a kind of tempura where a variety of ingredients are mixed with batter and deep-fried. The result is a delicious tempura patty that is paired here with soba and hot broth for a wonderful play of flavors and textures. You’ll experience a progression of tastes as you enjoy this dish: a crispy and crunchy patty at first, then the broth infusing it more and more, all the while, the tasty tempura crumbs enhancing the broth.

A fish fry would not be complete without hushpuppies, yet another dish Southerners prepare with corn. Meme always added grated onion to the meal leftover from frying the fish, and then added an egg and enough buttermilk until the consistency looked about right. My late father-in-law used to host fish fries, cooking up what they’d caught over the weekend at Lake Lanier. Now, I never actually had one of his hushpuppies, but I’ve spent fifteen years trying to replicate one, based on what his family describes. He used beer instead of buttermilk and, it seems, lots of onion. It doesn’t matter how much onion I add, there’s never enough onion. I have a sneaking suspicion that a special food memory created on a sunny summer afternoon has bypassed reality and it’s actually not about the onion. No worries, I’ll keep trying. There are impossible quests that produce far worse results.

Dede always grew okra, and I usually have a few plants every summer. Once, I grew them in container boxes on the roof of my apartment in New Jersey, framed by the Manhattan skyline. Guests were astonished at the sight when we would go out on the deck. The plants are beautiful, sometimes growing to five feet tall with pale yellow blossoms similar to hibiscus. When I was working in France for Anne Willan, we once needed okra for a recipe test. It was nowhere to be found in the local markets, so we ordered a case from Rungis, the French wholesale market on the outskirts of Paris, only to use less than a pound! The gumbo was a disappointment, falling short of Anne’s strict standards. Since we had almost a full case to use, I made this fried okra, which Anne called “popcorn fried okra.” It was a huge hit. I can pretty much guarantee that this was the only time in history fried okra was enjoyed as a snack with apéritifs before dinner. I called Meme every week to tell her about my work and what I had learned. When I told her about the “popcorn fried okra,” she giggled like a schoolgirl.

For an over-the-top po’ boy, try these crabs in a French loaf dressed with shredded lettuce and sliced tomato, or serve them on a bed of heart-healthy Classic Cole Slaw (page 35) for a new Southern twist on an old favorite.

Po’ boy sandwiches are found all along the Gulf Coast and are a New Orleans tradition. There are various tales about the origin of the name: that it’s a slang version of “poor boy” and the sandwich used to be an inexpensive, yet filling meal; that the sandwich was given out to streetcar workers on strike, who were essentially poor boys; or that it is a bastardized version of the French “pour boire.” This last theory holds that the sandwich was a sort of olive branch that men would bring home after a night of drinking and carousing around town. Whatever the name’s origin, it is an excellent sandwich. Although one can find roast beef and gravy po’ boys or fried potato and gravy po’ boys, possibly the most popular version of this iconic Louisiana treat is fried seafood po’ boys made with shrimp and oysters from the Gulf. The key to light and crispy fried food is to use the right oil. Peanut oil is a great choice for frying: it has a mild, pleasant flavor; does not take on the tastes of foods as readily as other oils do; and has a smoke point of about 450°F, meaning you can safely heat it to a very high temperature.

Cakey, spongy, and deliriously delicious gulab jamun is one of India’s great contributions to the world of sweets. Shaped as small spheres that are fried and then soaked in a fragrant sugar syrup, the rich brown dumplings are frequently on restaurant menus and are enjoyed during special occasions such as Diwali, the autumn festival of lights, which is also known as the festival of sweets. The dumplings, traditionally made from khoya (milk that has been cooked down), are named for their resemblance to juicy, purple-brown jamun fruit. Cardamom is typically part of the sugar syrup, but you can add saffron and/or rose flower water, too; gulab means “rose” in Hindi. Cooking down milk is labor intensive, and many modern Indian cooks instead use nonfat dry milk to great success. The whipping cream lends richness and enhances the milk sugars, which you can smell while making the dough and frying the dumplings. For the rose flower water, I use rose-scented distilled water from France, which is sold in small blue bottles and often found at well-stocked liquor stores. If you are using rose essence, use just a few drops; it is very strong.

One of the most beloved Asian sweet dumplings is crisp-chewy fried sesame seed balls. A Chinese New Year specialty that may have originated during the Tang Dynasty as palace food, they have been adopted by cooks of countless cultures to be enjoyed year-around. At Cantonese dim sum houses, this treat is called jin deui and usually contains sweetened red bean paste. In Vietnam, the filling typically features buttery mung beans. Ground peanuts are a quick and tasty filling option; if you select the peanut filling, use an electric mini-chopper to grind the nuts, sugar, and salt, and aim for a sandy texture. Sesame balls can be made without a filling, though I find those to be a tad lacking. The sugar used in the rice dough makes for a golden brown skin that slightly shatters with the first bite. Slab brown candy, called peen tong in Cantonese and sold at Chinese markets, looks like pieces of parquet flooring. It has a complex flavor not unlike maple sugar and lends a glorious rich brown color to the finished dumplings. When it is unavailable, light brown sugar is a fine substitute. Pressing on the balls during frying is the trick to getting them to expand, resulting in their signature hollow center.

Stuffed with intriguing spice-laden fillings, curry puffs are a very popular snack in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. In food-crazy Singapore, there are even plastic curry puff molds available for cooks to make perfect-looking puffs. The filling varies, but the most popular ones feature potato or sardines, both of which are lifted from their humble origins with a heavy dose of fragrant spices and/or chile heat. The dough depends on the cook, who may prepare French-style puff pastry with margarine and bake the results, stick with simple flaky pastry (page 113) to produce old-fashioned crisp fried puffs, or employ Chinese flaky pastry to yield puffs whose shape resembles magnificent clam shells. For a spectacular treat, I prepare curry puffs with Chinese flaky pastry. These deep-fried wonders are out of this world. For old-fashioned puffs, substitute either of the curry puff fillings for the one in the Vietnamese Shrimp, Pork and Jicama Turnover recipe (page 118). See the Lazy Day Tip below for making puffs with commercial puff pastry. Anyone who has made empanadas (page 111) will be a whiz at filling these.

When I first tasted this Shanghai specialty in Vancouver a few years ago, I wondered how it could have escaped me so long. The stupendous filling is remarkably simple, with a mild bite from the raw daikon radish, smokiness from the ham, and richness from the sesame oil. The pastries can be shaped as rounds with an arty spiral pattern of layers or as oblongs with a handsome linear pattern of layers. They are a classic Chinese banquet morsel, but there’s no need to wait for a special occasion. Enjoy them as a snack, accompanied by other dumplings or a clear soup.

Many Asian cooks have incorporated Chinese spring rolls into their repertoires, but those of Filipino descent have embraced the rolls with the most zeal and flair. Derived from lūnpiá, a term from the Fujian (Hokkien) Chinese dialect, lumpia are one of the quintessential foods of the Philippines. In fact, I’ve seldom been to a Filipino celebration where there isn’t a platter of crisp lumpia, whether it be large ones like these or the diminutive finger-size lumpia Shanghai, which is obviously named after its Chinese parent. Banana-filled lumpia is a deliciously popular sweet snack called turon (page 194). Unfried lumpia sariwa are made by rolling up a lettuce leaf and filling of vegetables and meat in a spring roll skin. Fillings for fried lumpia vary from cook to cook, but they often have trademark Filipino touches, such as lots of fried garlic and onion. Simply seasoned, the meat (pork, chicken, or beef), shrimp, and vegetable mixture is precooked but not bound by cornstarch. Thinly sliced green beans are particularly pretty in the rolls and a touch of patis (fish sauce) adds another Filipino note. Vinegar is a favorite seasoning in the Philippines, so it’s apropos to dip the finished rolls in a tangy soy and garlic sauce. But if you’d like extra tropical flair, dunk the rolls in the Sweet and Sour Sauce on page 217 made with pineapple juice, ginger, and chile.

The Chinese repertoire has many kinds of rolls—savory, sweet, thin, fat, fried, and unfried—and they’re all hard to pass up. The Cantonese fried version is bigger than its Shanghai kin, and it is encased in a large version of a wonton skin. Cantonese spring rolls, also known as egg rolls, have gotten a bad rap in America because they’re often greasy, overly doughy, and bland. However, when made from thin skins and a savory-sweet mixture of fresh vegetables and meat, Cantonese spring rolls reveal their worth as a splendid snack. Resembling gold bars and symbolizing wealth, prosperity, and good fortune, spring rolls are savored during the Lunar New Year, which is called the Spring Festival in Chinese. Cantonese spring rolls often combine pork and shrimp, but I prefer to keep the focus on tasty roast pork, which is best when homemade. Finely chopping and shredding the ingredients is time consuming, but you want the filling to be compact so that it fills out the long shape of the roll. Lighten your workload by making the filling and skins in advance.

Channeling my inner George Washington, I cannot tell a lie: These peppers are hot. even the cheese and oil from deep-frying can’t help you here. Every bite is delicious, and somehow enjoyably torturous. These may actually be some sort of entryway into masochism. If you want even more heat, use pepper Jack cheese in place of the Monterey Jack.

Once you’ve made these for friends or family, plan on making them regularly. Even without a football game on TV, somebody will always have a craving for these and won’t let up until you make them again. Serve alongside celery and carrot sticks with blue cheese or ranch dressing for dipping. If you need even more heat, serve with a side of SriRANCHa dressing (page 20).

Despite the Burmese name, crab rangoons were more likely a clever invention of the Bay Area tiki palace Trader Vic’s rather than some exotic tropical import. Premade wonton wrappers, which can be found in the frozen or refrigerated section of Asian markets and some supermarkets, make these an easy fix no matter where you—or the rangoons—call home.

Fried chicken is a Southern staple, and to be a good Southern cook you better know how to make it. I do. I like to use small fresh chickens for frying because the flavor of the meat is better. And speaking of flavor, I like to fry my chicken in pure pork lard, which gives it a richness and down-home essence that vegetable oil just can’t replicate. You can buy good high-quality lard—and I’m not talking about the soapy-looking white blocks sold in some supermarkets—from any reputable butcher. What makes my fried chicken special is the mixture of spices I use—note that both chili powder and sugar are involved—and the tangy richness that buttermilk lends.