K+ADFS presents Daytime Nights: Oktoberfest Frybeque!

Welcome to the first webisode of Kurt + Amy Deep Fry Shit: Daytime Nights, our new spin-off show, which is identical to traditional K+ADFS, save for being recorded before the sun goes down. So if you're a fan of Kurt and Amy doing all the things we normally do AND day drinking, then this is the show for you!

For the inaugural webisode we decided on a German theme, but eschewed the potato pancakes (don't worry, they're coming soon!) to focus on pretzels instead. And a fine decision that was as the pretzels surely would have been as guilty of stealing the spotlight as Sally Field in Smokey and the Bandit... but I digress. Check it out and see for yourself.

Quick disclaimer: this video contains embarrassingly lame sexual innuendo and foot-long dough ropes.

We thank Smitten Kitchen for the immensely successful pretzel recipe that held up to the DeLonghi better than our wildest dreams. We'd also like to thank Lena, Isaac, and Paul for making that snappy new intro possible.

Polenta Three Ways, or Three Mitigated Disasters

For tonight's episode we thought we'd bring you polenta three ways: polenta sticks, a polenta "pipe bomb" (store-bought polenta tube stuffed with a mozzarella stick), and sweet polenta bread. This amounted to a menu equally ambitious and untested, and flying, recipe-less, by the seats of our pants resulted in more than one fail. So we're saving most of the footage for the blooper reel (which you'll find on the extra features disc of our DVD box set).

Nonetheless we emerged from this cornmeal mire with two successful ventures. First, the polenta-wrapped mozzarella was achieved by salvaging some of the stove-top polenta we made for the polenta sticks, letting it set up a bit, and then coating it generously around a mozzarella string cheese stick. The end result strongly resembled a Twinkie, but was far more delicious. Second, we dug deep into the K+ADFS archives to salvage the sweet polenta bread. Just as we did to resuscitate our fried Christmas cookie endeavor, we had to coat this dough in oats to prevent it from disintegrating in the oil.

Super Bowl XLV Frytacular

Well another first weekend in February came and went, and another Super Bowl party is in the books. I considered this one my finest to date, and Amy was sporting enough to drop by with the HD Flip. She caught the first 3 quarters of a great game, and captured what turned out to be the highlight of the evening and a Kurt & Amy premiere: Deep Fried Brie.

Good lord my hair was long. The menu also included such classic fry party fare as frickles, frites, and mac & cheese (2011. Mixed Media on Children of the World Plate)

To editorialize once again, the question was posed: why should I buy a deep fryer? Actually it was posed twice since we took this video, once by Il Buono Dottore, and once by Mrs. Amy's Mom herself. I pointed out that both of them should be reading my blog, but I'll indulge the rest of you.

1) It takes up less counter space than a toaster
2) Most deep fryers have a spigot for easy oil storage
3) Cleanup is a snap
4) Accurate Temperature control means less fat in your food
5) A good deep fryer doesn't cost as much as you think

Just look at all these satisfied customers.

Jamaican Patties

OK, so the pace has slowed considerably at Kitchen Studio, most recently due to the premature death of Kurt's fryer. The fryer was lain in state so that all of our fans could pay their last respects, but it wasn't until Christmas morning that a new one took its place. So we welcomed in the new year with a new fryer and an indescribably delicious batch of Jamaican [pork and] veggie patties.

Though we used a pastry dough recipe for Jamaican beef patties, the filling was comprised simply of leftover roasted vegetables and pork, which we sauteed in butter with some vegetable broth, bread crumbs, and curry powder. The result will go down in Kurt + Amy Deep Fry Shit history, and may even give the legendary Jamaican beef patties of Troy, NY a run for their money. The trifecta of butter, shortening, and fry oil made this our greasiest, if not our tastiest, venture to date.

Speaking of money, in this economy who's a former pageant winner with physical therapy training, a keen understanding of subprime mortgages, and a white running back husband gotta sleep with to get her son on a flag football team? This question and many more inane ones can only be answered in Lifetime's The Client List, starring Golden Globe nominee Jennifer Love Hewitt, which provided the evening's entertainment. Of course, since the taping of this episode, we have learned that Claire Danes took the award*, practically stealing it right out from under J. Lo-Hew, whose dedication to her role was so fierce she didn't even remove her fake eyelashes when she went to sleep.



*Editor's note: This is horseshit.

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!

Shepherd's Pie

Well this month (err, last month), Amy and I found ourselves victims to the Irish Curse: too much footage.

This resulted in some rare restraint by our creative director in chopping out a couple of zingers from the opening few minutes. Stay tuned for the deleted scenes in the season 1 DVD box set. Anyway this happened so long ago (sorry guys) that I'm just going to give a quick running diary and provide my reactions:

00:01: New take on the intro: having inaudible comments over the finished product.

00:50: This intro sequence is still the best thing we’ve ever done.

01:15: God I wish I had improv skills. Note to Amy: don’t put me on the spot.

01:45: Veering dangerously toward montage status. Glad we averted that.

03:40: No, you’re not a biologist Kurt. Or talented.

03:52: Taking those lamb chunks out of that plastic sleeve looked like Alien Autopsy. But with the grainy blogger video compression, it could've just been special effects.

05:13: Even I’m nodding off at this point

05:22: I’m saved from losing interest by yet more terrible improv. “Other types of sodabread” indeed.

06:15: Nice extended torso shot of Amy.

07:10: Spinoff alert: Kurt & Amy Pan Sautee Shit coming in 2011.

07:50: Cap’N’Trade deserves an explanation, but unfortunately you’re not going to get one here.

08:30: Fry science is being dropped. Look for our article “Nature’s Delicious Jacuzzi” in next month’s Scientific American

09:12: Way to start a joke you can’t finish Kurt. Amy, way to not edit that out. You know what? I'm going to swear off analogies. If they're not good enough for the SATs anymore, they have no place in K&ADFS

09:55: We hand-selected our gallery this week to be underwhelmed by whatever was put in front of them, and they did not disappoint.

10:55: “I would add salt to it.” A fitting way to end the episode. Thanks for coming Lili!

Japanese Pub Food

K+ADFS and Friends Say "Why Hello There!" to 2010! Er....

...Apologies for the time lag on posting this scrumptious feast of Japanese Pub Food which we enjoyed back in January. 'Twas a cold winter's evening when we descended upon M2M for such Japanese culinary provisions as tofu, fish roe and Sapporo before firing up the fryer. The night's menu consisted of:
Tempura shrimp and shishito peppers
Potato and Japanese yam frites served with fish roe mayo*
Agedashi tofu*

So, this post thus proves that Yes You CAN put together a delicious and healthy-ish dinner entirely in the comfort of your own deep fryer. The world is your squid! (Is that right?)

Like any good night of frying, we took a short break from toiling away in the kitchen in order to once again watch a few of our favorite Schoolbreak Specials and really, faithful audience, we can't recommend these highly enough. Our commentary on "Two Loves for Jenny [Susan]" has been edited from the above video due to content that some of our readers may find offensive.


*Recipes at the end of the video

Happy Holidays!

Yes, it's that time of year again, when halls are decked, stockings are hung and, most importantly, treats are frying. An early poll in the field informed us that this year the people wanted something completely new: Deep Fried Egg Nog.

A Google search confirmed that we were once again in uncharted culinary waters, but Kurt's ever-steady hand steered us towards a funnel cake recipe that would easily incorporate egg nog and we were like a couple of wise men discovering the baby Jesus. Due to the high concentration of eggs in nog -- hence the name! -- we were able to simply substitute about a cup of nog for the eggs in Alton Brown's funnel cake recipe. To really maintain the integrity of our beloved liquid nog, we added some nutmeg to the powdered sugar sprinkled atop the funnel cake. The results were sweet, crispy, delicious. Just ask our studio audience.

And just to amp up the holiday spirit, that night found Brooklyn encased in snow thanks to the Great Blizzard of 2009.

Finally, some of you may be commenting on Kurt's shabby outward appearance, mindless repetition of the recipe, and general inability to form cogent points. The official press release from Kurt & Amy Studios states that he is suffering from "exhaustion" due to K&ADFS's busy shooting schedule, and not (repeat: not) because of over-consumption of holiday nog during the filming of this webisode.

Happy Holidays!

K+ADFS: Now with 200% More Corgi!

Just in case the "Fry Event of the Year" isn't enough to get excited about, this year welcomed the company of two furry guests: corgis Duke and Gus (courtesy of their indulgent parents Amy and Wing -- thanks again, guys!). It wouldn't be a stretch to proclaim these waddling cuties the hit of the party, but coming in a close second (by a snout, if you will) was Kurt's extensive menu, which featured the debut of deep fried pb&j, hailed by party-goers as an "instant classic." The pb&j was prepared on Wonderbread and dipped in a French toast-style batter enhanced with evaporated milk.

Of the foods that I didn't alert Amy that I was making (sorry Amy!), the frites in particular came out really nice (and one of these days, we're going to get those pumpkin pie bites right). We cut them about 6" long by 1/2" wide/deep, soaked them in cold water for 10-15 minutes, then dried them and fried them in 300 degree oil for 6 minutes. Once they cooled to room temperature, we put them in for another 2 minutes at 350. Another one of those foods that can't really be replicated without a deep fryer. Since one of my friends questioned the practicality of of owning one, I'll reiterate that if you want to eat fried foods every once in awhile (anything from eggplant parm to falafel to any of the treats you've read about on this blog) there is no easier, cheaper, or healthier way to do it than with a deep fryer. Plus under what other pretense could you get a pair of welsh corgies to your apartment?


No corgis were hurt, mocked, or excessively fed in the making of the video. So lay off, PETA.

Campfire to Kitchen

OK, folks. This is it. Time to go pro. Kurt + Amy have achieved the culinary equivalent of splitting the atom and it goes by the name of Deep Fried S'mores. No, no need to drop to your knees and kiss our feet; these treats are as simple as they are delicious and if it weren't for the fact that no one reads this blog we'd almost hesistate to publish such a fact. But you will need nothing more than marshmallows, chocolate pieces to stuff inside the aforementioned marshmallows, egg, crumbled graham crackers, and a little conviction to repeat what you're about to see in all its gooey glory. (And a little aural assistance from the Super Furry Animals never hurt anybody.) So sit back as we break in the new Kitchen Studio with your favorite campfire confection.

We'll save any fact-checkers out there 15 seconds of work: contrary to Eric's estimate, a Google search for "deep fried s'mores" yields a whopping 55,000 results.

A Fond Farewell to 36 Clark

That's right, Kurt has moved into a new apartment, taking our production studio with him. What follows is a very special, final webisode of K+ADFS at 36 Clark Street, and a tearful one it is. So grab your Kleenex and join us as we bid goodbye to the apartment that made us an overnight internet sensation (it'll happen any day now...).

Kurt adapted Giada's Zeppole Recipe, adding ricotta and walnuts, but we'll definitely throw in some lemon zest the next time we whip up a batch of these. Of course, trying our hand at traditional festa fare, we really let the ethnic stereotyping fly here, but all in good fun: we're so very proud of our people's remarkable advances in the field of fried desserts!

Spoiler alert: Kurt's new apartment ultimately had ample space for the kitchen island and it, too, made the big move to Boerum Hill last month. So our melodramatic Goodbye in Two Parts was arguably a bit reactionary, but we make no apologies for uproarious programming! Stay tuned for our inaugural webisode live from the new kitchen... coming soon!

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.)

We all screamed

Holy fucking sweet ass intro sequence! Featuring fucking Starship! Kudos Amy, kudos. Let'em say we're crazy --- I don't care about that. I feel like we're legit now, that this has permanence, traction, everything a lauded and award-winning blogger would need. Put your arms around me, baby, don't ever look back.

And beyond that, I'd like to say we're doing something no other deep frying vlogger is doing right now. And that's pushing the envelope. Yeah, I just started a sentence with a conjunction, what're you going to do about it? We deep fried Ice(d) Cream, I think this is the right time to say what what's been kicking around here for awhile behind the scenes at K&A Studios: we're bigger than Jesus. Any two-bit conjurer can take a stroll on a sand bar; deep frying a frozen food is sublime.*

Anyway, despite what the intro claims, I'm not sure this entry is "starring" anybody, least of all the pile of used tissues and empty Sudafed boxes that substituted in for Marina this week. In case anyone needs to know what our ethos is, it can be summed up by not having an ice cream scoop. his isn't the sort of show where the right utensil magically appears in the hands (or first basemans mitts as it were) of the hostess, or the sort of show where we get things right the first time. But damnit we fried haagen dazs.

*Physics joke!

'Tis the Season for Man Boobs

Please indulge me as I veer briefly off the topic of deep frying in order to share with you the following video. With the Fabio party right around the corner, I thought I would take advantage of our blog forum to share in advance the vaunted "Fabio movie" also known as "A Time for Romance." I hope this inspires you to costume yourself in a romantically appropriate fashion for the party, invites to which are on the way. I hope to see you there, but until then feast your eyes on the mini-movie.

My sincere apologies for the teeny weeny screen size. Technical difficulties necessitated taping the movie off my old school TV/VCR combo and besides, if you don't mind my saying, you should know better than to look a gift horse in the mouth...

Superbowl Leftovers

Kurt's Superbowl party yielded such a surplus of food that his guests, so full of homemade empanadas and wings -- served in copious quantities despite warnings from Stephen Colbert -- were unable to consume it all. Luckily, our dear friend Lena was available to emerge from the comfort of her Snuggie(TM) and help us out in tackling the leftover jalapeno poppers, goat cheese balls, and ravioli.

The ravioli are easy enough; simply coat in egg, roll in breadcrumbs, and place in basket. For the jalapeno poppers, we halved and seeded the peppers, then filled them with a mixture of cream cheese and monterrey jack, then egged and breaded them. Finally, the goat cheese balls are simply egged and breadcrumbed as well, but with panko (japanese breadcrumbs). They're all fried together at 350, but the ravioli are going to cook first, and they float so make sure you turn them manually after about 30 seconds. What could be easier.

Anyone with a penchant for inscrutable After School Specials will be tickled by clips of Ace Hits the Big Time (1985). This classic tale of a boy with a stye, whose therapeutic eye patch looks so tough that it gets him tapped by the Purple Falcons who are in a heated gang war with the rival Piranhas, and subsequently by a big-time movie director, and his unwavering conviction that cake triumphs over hate.

Finally, to answer Kurt's question about the career trajectory of Horace "Ace" Hobart portrayer Rob Stone...
It turns out his superbly nuanced interpretation of the role of Ace landed him a sweet spot on the cast of the beloved series Mr. Belvedere (1985-90). Looks like that fictional talent scout in Ace spotted a very real rising star!

Rice Balls

Well I'd like to be the first to challenge my own proclamation that the holiday episode was a "rollicking success," both on grammatical and factual grounds. Anyway onto the episode, the rice balls came out really, really well, and it seems like a nice way to take some leftovers that are probably too meager to use otherwise, and resuscitate them into a late-night snack. Amy dined on some leftover vegetable curry that I had hanging around in the fridge, and I took some hoisin sauce, soy sauce, onions, and frozen shrimp, and sauteed it up rather quickly. The point is though, that you could really put anything in there (ground beef? Chicken? Chocolate???) and it'll turn out nicely.

As for the unnecessary apology at the beginning of the video, we know that there was nobody calling us out on the state of our oil, but it was pretty reprehensible. We have since found some religion on the subject and would like to proffer the following websites as sources for good deep fryer (and oil) maintenance:

American Heart Association Guide on Deep Frying

Easy and Informative Best Practices from some website named "stop the clog."

I plan on posting one (or a series) of entries regarding deep-fryer maintenance, but for now, here's a quick link on how to properly dispose of your used oil. This applies not only to deep frying, but any kind of oil used in cooking.

I would also like to take a moment to correct myself and state that the solution should not have a 90%/1% ratio. These are the hazards of the semi-live vlogosphere. And I'll take a second here to apologize to Sir Isaac Newton for uttering the phrase "the Law of Continuity of Matter."

The key for these rice balls was, as usual, temperature. The rice was too cold and dry to work into a ball at first, but the more we worked with it, getting the heat from our hands into the mixture, the more cohesive and moldable it was.

Anyway, as you can tell, Amy and I are not huge fans of Aida and her Tech whelp Noah. To date, no response has come to our email, but we’ll keep you, our faithful viewers, posted.

To back up our libelous rhetoric, here’s her wikipedia page, which details her background, which is decidedly light on actual cooking experience. And even though she could most likely cook circles around Amy and myself (though the straight-faced inclusion of "scrambled eggs" on her show might suggest otherwise), the premise of her show is still ridiculous. To have viewers ask questions and have them answered is one thing; to have them utilize the internet, in some cases even taking the time to send videos(!!!) to ask questions that they could just fucking google is patently absurd. It's as if you required your viewers to write their questions in the margins of the encyclopaedia page on which the information is found, and then mail it to you. And obviously having a "tech guru" on board whose job it is to simply check email is laughable.

Kurt + Amy's Very Special Holiday Deep Fry Christmas Special

Nothing says Christmas quite like warm, homemade cookies fresh out of the... deep fryer? Join us on our bold journey to create a deep-fried Christmas cookie. Will we revolutionize the world of holiday baking? Or fall face first in a dough of our own making? There's only one way to find out. Special guest stars Marina and Charlie Brown lend a hand!

The Doughnuts and Friends Show

A recent deep fry party provided the perfect opportunity to debut homemade doughnuts. Doughnuts (or Olde Tymey Doff-Ghnouts, as we've created) aren't the kind of things you just stumble home drunk one night and fall into. It's the sort of thing you plan well in advance to get drunk and do. Believe it or not, this was our first attempt at doughnuts, and they came out pretty f'ing great. The key is the oil temp (375) and not over-mixing the batter. Other than that it's just a matter of getting the batter off your fingers and into the oil in a usable shape, which you can practice time after delicious time.

Props to Amy on the title sequence. And the Communist Party t-shirt. Next up: theme song. Reader submissions will promptly be thrown away. This post is kind of a complete shit show, I think half the video is me looking for baking soda. Spoiler alert: I found it. I'm going to put a poll up later to see who enjoyed the glamor shot of me eating raw doughnut batter off of my fingers.

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.