Saturday Supper Wasn’t A Big Hit

Since Bev and her sister were headed off to a flea market, I was left in charge of Saturday night’s dinner and it just happened I’d found a recipe for the entrée on another blog that sounded promising and I wanted to try. And, since we had the oil in the pot from Saturday’s chicken fried steak, we decided to have deep-fried asparagus for the second time in six weeks (an Alex favorite) using the same recipe as previously.

Ingredients:
½ cup Cornstarch
¾ cup Flour
1 tsp Salt
¼ tsp Black pepper
½ tsp White pepper
½ tsp Celery salt
½ tsp Baking soda
1 tsp Baking powder
2 ea Egg whites
2/3 cup Cold flat beer
3# Asparagus

Mix the first 10 ingredients with a wire wisk until well blended, dip the asparagus one at a time and deep fry at 350* for 2-3 minutes until golden brown. This is the second time we’ve made these and it is definitely a favorite. While this is a good way to turn a healthy veggie into something fattening, it is delicious this way – Beverly said it was her new favorite way to eat it.

While we had the oil hot, Bev also decided she’d also like some onion rings. I soaked them in buttermilk for a couple of hours, then into flour seasoned with Cajun Power Seasoning, and fried at 350*. I was very disappointed as they were way too salty. It irritates me that so many spice mixes contain so much salt. I make my own chili powder and it contains no salt as it can be added to taste, but I guess the spice makers can make a lot more money if they add lots of inexpensive salt to their blend – I tossed this spice in the trash and will order no more.

And finally, we made some oven fries (another Alex favorite) drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with dry ranch dressing mix, a little of my chili powder and baked along with the entree. They were very good.

Since they entrée did not suit our taste, I won’t describe it, but here’s a shot of my plate - the flash made it look greasier than it was.


The potatoes and asparagus are definitely keepers, but the onion ring spice mix and entrée will go by the wayside. I’m a great believer in - you have to try it to see if you like it – so I’ll try most thinks once. Notice I didn’t say all things as I’m not Andrew Zimmerman from Bizarre Foods and I found very few things I’d even consider eating at the Wangfujing Night Market in Beijing where you can get a vast assortment of critters (most of which I didn’t recognize) deep fried on a stick – Chinese snack food. We spent 4 days in Beijing while visiting iur Korean based kids in 2008. I’m glad we went to the market right after dinner so I wasn’t tempted to try the silkworms, scorpions, etc. - the Chinese just consider them another source of protein. Title pic is seahorses on a stick.

Have a great day.

Larry