Festival Food: Deep Fried Oreos and Other Such Killers

Summer is almost here and the festivals have started to pop up around the region for everything from strawberries to the Renaissance. May the clogging of arteries begin! Personally, I don't feel it's been a complete experience without a big ol' hot sausage sandwich with a ton of mustard and a deep fried snickers bar while the Dev's needs a round of deep fried oreos. Yes, yes we are going to die.

God save the Queen!

When it was just the two of us, the extravagance of paying $4.50 for someone else to kill me slowly was no big deal but now that we have our own little village to support, it seems like a terrible waste of money. So now, we go to the festivals and then come home and do terrible things to our aging bodies for much less money.

The batter I like to use is actually a good one for meats and vegetables as well so if a fried Milky Way isn't your thing, try this on shrimp or zucchini instead. The process is basically the same.

You'll need either a fryer set up according to the manufacturers instructions or a large pot with at least 3-4 inches of vegetable oil (not ever olive oil) or peanut oil heated to 375.

If you are frying candy bars, pop them into a freezer at least an hour before you plan to fry them. Everything else should be at normal temp (chilled if it's meats or shrimp for instance; clean and dry if veggies).

While the fryer heats up, pull out two bowls and mix up the batter. You'll need the following:

In the larger bowl, whisk together

1 cup AP flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup cornstarch

In the second bowl, whisk together

1 cup water

2 Tbs oil

2 Tbs of a beaten egg (this is about 2/3 of an egg that's been whisked)

Now, if you like a really thick batter, just whisk the wet into the dry. If you like a lighter batter-more tempura like, add a couple of tablespoons more of water to the wet ingredients and whisk everything together. Personally, I found the lighter batter to be really great. It would work really well for fish-n-chips too.

Now you have batter and hot oil--go crazy! 

Oreos are simple- just drop in a cookie and coat it, shake it just a bit to lose any drippies (*technical term) and place (don't drop) into the hot oil. When one side looks golden, be sure to flip it over. Remove onto a draining rack that has paper towel under it. Never place fried foods directly onto paper towels; all that happens is you are basically laying a food that is cooling into cooling oil that is trapped and thus just making the food soggy with the oil you are trying to drain away--silly, huh?

aw yeah!

For candy bars, once frozen up, it's about the same process but once you place them into the oil, keep an eye on them. A candy bar doesn't need to stay in the oil very long to cook the batter and you run the risk of the chocolate leaking out into the oil (just make sure you change out that oil before frying onion rings, ok?). I used a thicker batter for the bars and then added a little water to the batter before doing the oreos an that really seemed to do the trick.

3 Musketeer-because they
less fat, you know?

It might not look like much
but your mouth will thank you

I'm not saying this is something we do every weekend but every once in a while it's fun to make the "bad  stuff."  Happy festival-going!