"fry" news and stories

Here's a bit of odd food-news. In Cumbria, the department of tourism has set up a dedicated telephone line, the Lakes' Escape Line, that is supposed to help people beat the winter blues when it is light out only a few hours each day. Callers will hear "cheerful sounds," including "a reading of Wordsworth's Daffodils [and] the sound of water lapping at Windermere." The sound of sizzling sausages - Cumberland sausages, of course - will also be prominently featured.

Daylight or no, you would think that people would be capable of comforting themselves with sausages at any time of year without calling a phone line to hear them sizzling in a pan. And wouldn't it be better to smell the sausages than to hear them anyway?

I got the impression that the Escape line would be a free-call, but if they charge for the sounds, residents might want to start saving up and stocking their freezers with sausages before winter sets in and they consider calling.

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We saw a woman try to bake cookies in her car, with good success, yesterday. But the gold standard of "natural" cooking would be frying an egg on the sidewalk, though car engine cooking might be a close second. Many people say that this method works.

Egg whites coagulate between 144 and 149F and yolks need an even higher temperature, so the sidewalk would have to retain a significant amount of heat for the experiment to work. Black asphalt can be 10 degrees hotter than lighter pavement, so you may want to work in the street, to increase your odds of success.

There are any number of people who have attempted to fry an egg on the sidewalk, but the problem is that many people live in places where it doesn't get all that hot. The Alberta Egg Board says that the experiment will work when the temperature is over 35C/95F, but I couldn't find any evidence of that working for anyone. The two hottest videos I found were this one, where it reached 106F just outside of San Francisco recently, and a video in Arizona, where it was also 106F. Neither worked.

I don't know if I believe that this will work, but if you've ever tried it, let us know!

Earlier this week, I mentioned that I was doing some frying at breakfast, since I wanted something sweet that didn't involve using the oven. I ended up making beignets. Beignets are made from a yeasted dough that is deep fried and covered, usually, with powdered sugar (although savory versions exist). They are similar to doughnuts, but are almost always cut into small squares and lack the center hole that practically defines a doughnut. New Orleans is famous for its beignets and making them at home is almost as good as hopping on a plane and heading to Cafe du Monde to pick up some fresh ones, served with a cup of coffee with chicory on the side. You can try the recipe yourself, or stick to your summertime diet and just feast on food porn here.

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After making a batch of doughnuts this morning, it struck me that I was getting quite hot as I worked over the stove. Of course, the high humidity played a part, but there was no doubt that much of the heat was radiating out of the 370°F vat of oil. The reason that I took particular notice is that, over the weekend, I had a discussion with a friend who attempted to convince me that frying was a better way [than baking] to cook in the summer, since it didn't heat the house up.

I beg to differ.

The oven has to preheat and bake whatever it is you want to eat, but the oven door is open for very little time during the baking process and releases only a small amount of heat into the room. The oil, on the other hand, is a constant and long-lasting source of heat, not to mention the fact that the cook (me) has to stand over the hot oil and supervise whatever is being cooked.

If you've heard that frying is cooler, do you fry in the summer? Frankly, if I'm worried about heating up the house, I'm more likely to make a salad or a batch of ice cream - neither of which heats up the kitchen in the slightest.