recipe: deep fried pickle slices

I promised a couple people (Rod, Susan, I mean you) that I would share my recipe for deep fried pickle slices. So here it is. That said, I should preface this by noting that this is not particularly complicated, and it's not as if a have a recipe with a big R. It's something I tried doing based on my genmeralized knowledge of cooking (on Ethan's willingness to answer a few basic questions. So this is a sort-of step-by-step guide, and pretty informal and not very linear.

The required ingredients are as follows:

• pickle slices: I used dill slices, though I imagine you can use other kinds. Part of me wants to try this with an assortment of pickle types, and have a batch of assorted.
• all-purpose flour: I know what they say about all-purpose flour; it's adequate for all purposes, but good for none. Go ahead and pick a better flour. Let me know how it works.
• eggs
• bread crumbs: I used unflavored panko. If you prefer another kind, go for it. I also hear the corn flakes work.
• oil: I prefer avocado oil. It doesn't have a strong flavor, and it does have a high smoke point.

Essentially, there are four steps. I'll first list them individually, then provide commentary.

• Coat the pickle slices in flour.
• Dip them in egg
• Coat them in bread crumbs
• Deep fry them

The easiest way to flour-coat the slices (at least for me) is to put flour in a zip-lock bag, then pour in the pickle slices (after draining the excess liquid from the jar) and shake. After that, I do the egg-dip and crumb-coat for each slice in turn. Meaning, I take a bread-coated slice, dip it in egg and then cover it with bread crumbs. This is as opposed to dipping all of them in the egg and the covering all of them in bread crumbs. This is sort of a culinary equivalent of the sock-sock-shoe-shoe vs. sock-shoe-sock-shoe debate from All in the Family (video below) except that there are three steps instead of two. Think of it as if you have to put on socks, shoes and galoshes. So the proper sequence is sock-sock-shoe-galosh-shoe-galosh.

It's worth noting that, in my experience, the flour and egg kind of resist adhering to each other. So the egg-dipping part requires more than just an instantaneous contact.

Anyway, once the pickle slices are all triple-coated, they have to be deep-fried. I do not have a deep-frier, so I use a sauce-pan. I put oil in the sauce-pan until it's a few inches deep, and then heat over a high flame until the oil is somewhere in the neighborhood of 325-350 degrees Fahrenheit. Remember I mentioned that I like avocado oil in part because of its high smoke point? According to Wikipedia, avocado oil has a smoke point of 520 degrees, so targeting 325-350 leaves me with plenty of wiggle room. When the oil is in that desired temperature range, I turn down the flame so it doesn't get too hot. That said, I don't go completely nutsoid over temperature-monitoring. I generally don't start the oil heating until after all the pickle slices are dipped and ready. It may be a few minutes quicker to start it sooner, but I don't want to risk it burning if I'm distracted, and I just don't want to have a saucepan of oil that I'm keeping hot for an extended  period while I'm off tending to something else.

Anyway, I put the pickle slices in the hot oil until they turn golden brown. That takes a few minutes. Unless you're cooking very few pickle slices or using a very wide saucepan, this has to be done in shifts. They float at the surface of the oil, and I put enough to fill out one layer. When they're done, I take them out, put them on a paper towel to soak up the excess oil, and then put the next bunch in the oil.

Enjoy.

Oh yeah...I use a slotted spoon (see ad below) to remove the chips from the oil. I like the wholes because that way I'm not pulling an extra ton of oil out of the pan.