My Deep-frying Journey, and Gluten-free Breading Issues

[KingDuckford]

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. 

 

 

[blue_dolphin]

You might want to check out @Dave the Cook's method for a batter using rice flour along with your KA all purpose substitute.  
There's a fairly long discussion that starts around here and continues on an off for some time.  
 

 

Edited April 29, 2023 by blue_dolphin
Clarification (log)

[blue_dolphin]

I'll add that the nicest breading I've gotten on fish is with Vivian Howard's rice-crusted catfish recipe from her book Deep Run Roots.  She submerges the fish in buttermilk for a hour to overnight in the fridge.  Her breading is 1/2 cup long grain rice, ground in a spice mill to the texture of coarse cornmeal, plus 1/2 cup cornmeal, seasoned with salt, cayenne and paprika.  After  draining and dredging the fish and knocking off the excess, she puts the filets on a rack in the fridge for at least an hour. 
 

She contends that the ground rice behaves differently from rice flour. Maybe does something similar to the potato flakes you are using. I dunno but the result is shatteringly crisp and not heavy at all. 
 

 

Edited April 29, 2023 by blue_dolphin
Typo (log)

[ColinDunklin]

  

On 4/29/2023 at 1:44 AM, KingDuckford said:

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. 




 

 

 

Thanks for the advice. Is there any video of her or a YouTube link?

 

Edit: Thanks for the YouTube link.

Edited August 11, 2023 by ColinDunklin (log)

[blue_dolphin]

8 hours ago, ColinDunklin said:

Thanks for the advice. Is there any video of her or a YouTube link?

 

If you are looking for videos of Vivian Howard, you can find 5 seasons of her PBS TV series A Chef's Life here and six episodes of her second series, Somewhere South, here. 

 

If you want a YouTube link to someone else making Vivian's rice-crusted catfish recipe that I mentioned, you can find one, with the recipe here.