Jewish Cook Book - Frying

This is the Frying section of this book

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Prepared bread crumbs for frying
All scraps of bread should be saved for crumbs, the crusts being separated from the white part, then dried, rolled, and sifted, and put away until needed in a covered glass jar.

The brown crumbs are good for the first coating, the white ones for the outside, as they give better color. Cracker crumbs give a smooth surface, but for most things bread crumbs are preferable.

For meats a little salt and pepper, and for sweet articles, a little sugar, should be mixed with the crumbs. Crumbs left on the board should be dried, sifted, and kept to be used again.

Frying
Frying is cooking in very hot fat or oil, and the secret of success is to have the fat hot enough to harden the outer surface of the article to be fried immediately and deep enough to cover these articles of food. As the fat or oil can be saved and used many times, the use of a large quantity is not extravagant.

To fry easily one must have, in addition to the deep, straight-sided frying-pan, a frying-basket, made from galvanized wire, with a side handle. The bale handles are apt to become heated, and in looking for something to lift them, the foods are over-fried. The frying-pan must be at least six inches deep with a flat bottom; iron, granite ware or copper may be used, the first two are preferable. There must be sufficient fat to wholly cover the articles fried, but the pan must not be too full, or there is danger of overflow when heavy articles are put in. After each frying, drain the fat or oil, put it into a receptacle kept for the purpose, and use it over and over again as long as it lasts. As the quantity begins to lessen, add sufficient fresh fat or oil to keep up the amount.

Always put the fat or oil in the frying-pan before you stand it over the fire.

Wait until it is properly heated before putting in the articles to be fried.

Fry a few articles at a time. Too many will cool the fat or oil below the point of proper frying and they will absorb grease and be unpalatable.

Put articles to be fried in the wire frying-basket and lower into the boiling hot fat or oil. Test the fat by lowering a piece of stale bread into it, if the bread browns in thirty seconds the fat is sufficiently hot.

Fry croquettes a light brown; drain over the fat, lift the frying-basket from the hot fat to a round plate, remove the articles from the basket quickly to brown paper, drain a moment and serve.

When frying fish or any food that is to be used at a milk meal, use oil. Olive oil is the best, but is very expensive for general use. Any other good vegetable oil or nut oil will do as substitute.

When the food is intended for a meat meal; fat may be prepared according to the following directions and used in the same manner as oil.

To render goose, duck or beef fat
Cut the fat into small pieces. Put in a deep, iron kettle and cover with cold water. Place on the stove uncovered; when the water has nearly all evaporated, set the kettle back and let the fat try out slowly. When the fat is still and scraps are shriveled and crisp at the bottom of the kettle, strain the fat through a cloth into a stone crock, cover and set it away in a cool place. The water may be omitted and the scraps slowly tried out on back of stove or in moderate oven. When fat is tried out, pour in crock.

Several slices of raw potato put with the fat will aid in the clarifying.

All kinds of fats are good for drippings except mutton fat, turkey fat and fat from smoked meats which has too strong a flavor to be used for frying, but save it with other fat that may be unsuitable for frying, and when six pounds are collected make it into hard soap.

To make white hard soap
Save every scrap of fat each day; try out all that has accumulated; however small the quantity. This is done by placing the scraps in a frying-pan on the back of the range. If the heat is low, and the grease is not allowed to get hot enough to smoke or burn, there will be no odor from it. Turn the melted grease into tin pails and keep them covered. When six pounds of fat have been obtained, turn it into a dish-pan; add a generous amount of hot water, and stand it on the range until the grease is entirely melted. Stir it well together; then stand it aside to cool. This is clarifying the grease. The clean grease will rise to the top, and when it has cooled can be taken off in a cake, and such impurities as have not settled in the water can be scraped off the bottom of the cake of fat.

Put the clean grease into the dish-pan and melt it. Put a can of Babbitt's lye in a tin pail; add to it a quart of cold water, and stir it with a stick or wooden spoon until it is dissolved. It will get hot when the water is added; let it stand until it cools. Remove the melted grease from the fire, and pour in the lye slowly, stirring all the time. Add two tablespoons of ammonia. Stir the mixture constantly for twenty minutes or half an hour, or until the soap begins to set.

Let it stand until perfectly hard; then cut it into square cakes. This makes a very good, white hard soap which will float on water.