K+ADFS Season 3 World Premiere

That's right, folks, Kurt + Amy are back, dispelling rumors that we perished tragically in a horrible hot oil accident, and ready to entertain the viewers who so loyally stood by our side during our 6-month hiatus (or did we decide on "sabbatical"?).

We hereby bring you back into to our warm, surprisingly not-greasy embrace with a good ol' fashioned fish fry, the perfect meal for a head-on encounter with the relentless Hurricane Earl. The meal included fried clams and classic fish and chips, using a beer batter recipe courtesy of Alton Brown. Of course, our stormy fry fest would have been incomplete without a viewing of one of the many cinematic treats offered up by Netflix's Deadly Disasters genre. And while "Killer Wave" certainly looked tempting, the siren's song of pubescent nipples on stunning display in "White Squall," the film a veritable who's who of Tiger Beat circa 1995, ultimately won
us over.

New this season: food glamor shots!

Like two kids in a candy store

After a dinner at Caracas Arepa Bar and some beers at the most ironic bar west of the Williamsburg Bridge (whose jukebox, we concede, made up for the hipster overload -- those metallic loafers were ironic, no?) we found ourselves stricken with a fever that only two things could cure. And one of those things was deep-fried candy. So we grabbed some childhood favorites - Reese's cups, Snickers, Twix - and put our leftover breakfast to use. As Kurt mentions, the key to successful battering is to make sure your batter is at room temperature when it hits the oil and, as we learned here, keep the oil between 325 and 350 for optimal frying.

In the preceding video you heard us claim that Kurt + Amy's cuisine is no more unhealthy than what Paula Deen whips up every week. And while there's no pressing need to back up such a statement with just one single piece of hard evidence, I encourage you to take a peek at Paula's Candy Snack Cake which consists of a chocolate cake slathered in frosting made from confectioners' sugar, three Snickers bars, and a stick of butter. Paula then outdoes herself by jamming a final chocolatey nail into each triple-bypass-provoked coffin: an additional Snickers bar in each slice of cake. I gained two pounds just watching that episode. (I suspect that its absence from youtube is by FDA decree.)

Mac & Cheese

Part of our mission in creating a deep fry blog is to offer creative options for reheating your leftovers, and to that end we bring you deep fried mac and cheese. We know what you're thinking: mac and cheese is already so delicious and decadent in its natural state, why deep fry it? Well, for one thing deep frying is exponentially better than microwaving your leftovers. We used Paula Deen's recipe for The Lady's Mac & Cheese (her words, for the love of god, her words; not ours), but substituted the more robust cavatappi pasta for elbow macaroni. We sliced our leftover mac and cheese into squares and coated them in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs: the deepfryer's holy trinity. The end result is a crispy, creamy, cheesy delight.

I have to give even madder props to Amy. I'm blown away by the even sweeter title sequence. Someone's getting comfortable with iMovie. Sorry for the lame and pointy intro in the video. I was really...um, punchy. I'd like to go over a few more points from the video that I wish I could've expressed a little more cogently. First, the appropriate recipe. Don't feel you need to recreate Ms. Deen's concoction, but disregard anything made by the Kraft Corporation, and kindly unhand the Velveeta. I've never tried deep frying either of these types of Mac & Squeeze, but I would presume that they goop up real good and have a hard time staying together. Thanks to our dedicated Italy Consultant Marina for the interesting (and inaudible) tidbit on Cavatappi. And 349 is not in fact a multiple of 7 (unless the thermostat starts at -1). Luckily there isn't a math prerequisite for deep frying. I don't in fact know what system of numbers leads my deep fryer to think 347 degrees is an appropriate increment. I think it's a Fibonacci Sequence or the digits of pi.

Finally, let me address my controversial plea for America to buy deep fryers with sincere apologies. What is in that glass? But in all seriousness, people say to me "I would weigh 300 pounds if I had one of those," but it's not necessarily true. First, as I said, some healthy recipes just call for poaching or frying in oil. You can of course try this in a pan and guess as to the proper temperature with unpredictable results, then throw away that expensive oil when you're done. It's far more economical, however, to use an instrument that takes the guesswork out and allows you to reuse your frying medium. And let's face it, unless you're running an international Ponzi scheme, you probably don't need to be spending a small fortune on oils. And if you're worried about gaining weight, just don't use it too often. I only use it for a regular meal a few times a month (but when I do need it, nothing else will do), and only for late night snacking every few weeks or so.