KingDuckford

Did not notice that until you mentioned it. I'll give that a lookover, thanks! Never thought about cheese powder. Always a purist when it comes to cheese, so never considered a dry mix to work with. I guess I should be more open to that. But, I feel some mixing with regular cheese should be able to get me where I want to go eventually. The texture of the cheese desired would be close to that of what a commercial fried ham and cheese ball would be at serving temperature, so I guess I have some work with the double boiler ahead of me to get there.

Made a few feeble attempts to inject cheese into a few types of fried food, and never had much luck using things like common cheddar. I gave up with several failed, albeit not that diligently pursued efforts. With a new passion for deep frying, and a nearly finished cook station in the basement, I'm looking into a more serious attempt this time. One of the technical problems has been cheese coagulation in the syringe as the cheese cools through the syringe. Even with keeping the plastic syringes in hot water and attempting to keep everything hot, the problem was hard to overcome with the medium cheddar I wanted to use. I've run into some glass syringes, which will handle higher water temperatures for better effect, and am thinking about a stainless steel food syringe to help. Still, I have reservations about how successful this will be... Since I am going to take a more serious attempt, I'd like to ask any advice or suggestions on what cheeses (for flavor and injection purposes) I should consider, what is the best way to thin down a cheese and keep it thin enough for injection, but not so runny it simply dumps itself back into the hot oil? Any insight would be highly appreciated. I've also run into large voids in my home made turkey nuggets, where the raw ground turkey is moist enough, and the oil hot enough, that it leads to steam explosions inside the nugget that leaves hollows. I was thinking this could be turned into an opportunity, and would take any suggestions for cheese or sauces that could be injected into these voids that would potentially compliment the dish. I'll be posting some of my finished work in the Dinner thread at some point when I can find time. Thanks in advance.

Currently redoing my basement cook station setup, will start to take some pictures when I get to some projects.

Always lived here. I like quiet rural life. Still settled on the land the family originally settled on in the 1880's.

This is correct. On the long path of deep frying, you realize the biggest problem is oil that is too cool, or more commonly, oil temperature dips even if your initial temperature was good. Thick batters become mush, food comes out greasy and outright oily. Tried commercial ham and cheese balls before I knew I had Celiac, and they came out as a giant mush ball. It becomes a quick learning curve, and you realize why a lot of people hate home deep frying. When frying in the 5 quart dutch oven on a NuWave, I had results with chicken that were acceptable to good. But, the oil never rotted out, because so much of it was constantly lost on the colder, soggier results that replacement oil to keep it level made sure it stayed fresh! Poorer, colder frying leads to greasier food, and you can guess how good your fry session was by looking at the oil level when finished. It is a direct correlation between how little oil came out with the food and how well it fried. That's why I've been so pleased with the new commercial fryer. Put chicken legs on a rack over a pizza pan, and I could scarcely believe just how dry the pizza pan was, as there was virtually no drip. French fries thrown on paper towels on plate remain almost totally dry, as what little oil remains on the fries, well, just sticks to the fries and doesn't drip. 20+ frying sessions and I realized that my usual chore of refilling the oil level periodically was now over, because so little oil comes out with the food that it never seems to go down. Poorer frying methods can certainly make for greasy food. But, proper temperature control yields incredibly non-greasy food. Even if certain vegetable oils aren't the healthiest, proper frying methods reduce exposure more than you might think.

I know I'm new here, but I would like to get to a topic I am interested in. I've been deep frying on and off for the last 15 years, with everything from my initial purchase, a cheap 120 volt low capacity fryer (nearly useless), to stove top sauce pan filled with lard and resultant brilliant fire when frozen fries sent the fat over the sides of the pan, to eventually learning more about successful frying using a large and well built 120 volt fryer, 9 quart dutch oven over 50,000 BTU outdoor cooker, and smaller dutch oven on induction cook top. The current leg of the journey has been buying a 240 volt 5,500 watt commercial 15 pound electric fryer, which has been a real change in my learning curve. For most of the years I fried, it was on and off, frustration and difficulty always making it a rare occasion, and with an expectation of "if it isn't soggy, I'll take it as a win" rather than trying to make better or great food. As I learned and got better equipment, I started to improve and started to put some focus on the breading and seasoning of my food. Suffering form Celiac, I have to use gluten free flour. Luckily, in "dry" breading applications, the rice flour and other flours tend to actually have naturally good effect. Making a few changes, adding a few things, I had a good dry breading mix and application. But, I never really put ANY effort into egg/milk or complex breading, as virtually all focus was on the dread of the frying process and timing, and not wanting a heavy breading to sit too long with slow warm up times, and often poor oil heat recovery times. When I finally got the new small commercial fryer, and the process of actually cooking things became simple and easy, did I finally focus on the food itself, and start to improve actual recipe. I finally started to develop a thick breading with egg and multiple layers, and have run into problems. My old standard personal mix is King Arthur general purpose gluten free flour, with some fine corn meal and a small addition of potato flakes, which adds to fluffiness in the dry breading mix. When using this as the second layer on top of egg on chicken legs, the results were poor. Body and texture were poor, and the breading had small black specs on it. Analyzing the results and ingredients, I surmised that perhaps the corn meal may be too rich in the mixture for desired texture with the gluten free flour, and the possibility that the potato flakes were causing black "sugar burn" to cause the spots, along with the fact that the new cooker has very little temperature drop, and my other cooking methods often had far, far, far greater temperature drop, which could lead to potential breading overcook at high temperature? Remixed a new batch of the breading mixture with less cornbread and almost no potato flakes. Results improved somewhat, both body and texture were better, and the black spotchy exterior mostly disappeared. A large improvement, but in all truth, the results are still not desirable. It holds more oil than it should, the flavor is certainly lacking, the breading is hollow and certainly does not have a taste near what wheat flour can do (I know I can't get the same, but anything somewhat close would be nice). Toying with the food and flour mixture a bit, I felt it would be best to seek counsel on the issue. The dry mix works well enough on chicken, and works extremely well on "tacky" and "wet" food like ground turkey for turkey nuggets or fried fish like cod or pollock. But, I want something closer to KFC for chicken, and I can't get it to build properly. The breading is generally "hollow" with a harder grainier texture that lacks flavor when used with egg. Is it too high of a cook temperature, which seems to range from 375 F to 390 F towards the bottom of the pot (below the cooking basket area)? Then again, if the dry single layer breading works in the same temperature and cooker, would temperature be the problem? Is gluten really necessary for that good deep breading? Any insight would be appreciated, any ingredient mixes or additives to what I'm using would be great.

I'm a semi serious home cook, preferring simple dishes in the old Nordic style I've been around. A lot of quick, minamalist food fried in butter, lard, beef fat, and of course a little olive oil, and a lot of this also coming from working in construction many years and wanting something good, but quick after a long day. A do enjoy a little oven work, foundant being an absolute favorite, roast chicken parts like how my grandmother did it, and making a good stew here and there. I have Celiac disease, and cannot have anything with gluten, which has made trying new recipes a nightmare, and gradually made the horizon far shorter. It has helped corral me into my simple dish habits, and has discouraged me to some extent over the years. I finally figured that reaching out is probably the better way forward, rather than simply falling back on what I already know. I've also gotten into deep frying as of late, which has been an interesting challenge in its own right. After encountering a few challenges, I finally figured it was the right time to join a forum and start getting back into learning. Thanks for letting me in!