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It’s 8:30 on a Sunday and I’m cooking.  That’s how much I wanted this.

This recipe uses one of my favorite kitchen toys.  In fact, I’d hazard to say that if someone gets diagnosed with celiac, they need this right after you get an extra toaster.  What is it?  A breadmaker?  No….it’s cheaper (and better) to buy storebought Udis after you buy all the ingredients–and homemade gluten free bread, unless you’re making something dense like Irish soda bread, is better left to the pros.

Rice cooker?  No.  All you need for that is a pot and a burner.

This, THIS is a Rival deep fat fryer.  Hear tell the Scots use things like this to make fried Mars Bars that approach the interior temperatures of the hottest sun, but that’s not what I’m up to here–it’s something more crucial to human existence:  fried chicken.*

Ingredients:

1 cup rice flour (Buy Koda farms Kokuho Rose in bulk–it’s about $2.00 a box and will keep in the back of the refrigerator for a year or more.)

1/4 cup extra flour for dredging

1 egg

1 cup very cold water

1 package (about 1 lb) thawed chicken breast tenders

2 cups canola oil

Optional:  Stubb’s Barbecue Sauce, which is gluten free, for dipping.

Kitchen apparati:

Rival deep fryer, the smallest and cheapest they make, which goes for about $20.00 on sale

Tongs or large heat resistant serving spoons to take the chicken into and out of the deep fat fryer.

Kitchen timer, small whisk, mixing bowl, small egg beating bowl.

Three plates:  one for dredging, one for battered chicken, and one for cooked chicken

If your chicken tenders are frozen, take them out of the freezer the day before and leave them in the refrigerator for twenty-four hours in a plastic baggie around the original packaging.  If your chicken is straight from the refrigerator, just proceed.

Pour the canola oil to the fill line in the deep fat fryer.

Beat the egg in a small bowl with a whisk.  Pour one cup cold (it must be cold for this to work) water into a larger mixing bowl. Mix the egg and the water, and add the flour.  Whisk rapidly.

Pour extra rice flour for dredging onto a plate.

Take the chicken out of the package.  For food safety reasons, do not touch anything other than the chicken with your hands.  Dredge the chicken in the flour and then in the batter.  Cover the chicken well.   Put the chicken on a plate, covered in batter.

The oil should be hot enough to cook, now. Using a metal or plastic heat resistant strainer or tongs, put half the chicken in the deep fat fryer.  Set the kitchen timer to 15 minutes.  After fifteen minutes, carefully remove with a different set of tongs or large heat resistant implement like a strainer or a metal spoon.  Put on a plate to drain.  Put in the second batch.

While the second batch is cooking, wash the mixing bowls and plates, and wash your hands carefully.  (If you wash the chicken or handle it otherwise, you’re just spreading bad bacteria.)

Remove the chicken from the deep fat fryer.  Unplug the fryer and let the chicken cool for at least twenty minutes. Yum.

* Why you need a deep fat fryer–it’s self-contained and temperature controlled.  No kitchen fires and no mess.  You can’t even open it without being able to read well enough to push the not-obvious open button, although I would keep it away from the edge of the counter if you have curious toddlers or large dogs.

Cleanup consists of letting the deep fryer cool for an hour, pouring out the oil into the trash, and then wiping out the interior with a paper towel.  You should probably not save the oil–the New York Times says that the frying oil turns to acrylamides (plastics) with the first use.

Actual cost:  About $10 for five people, which includes the price of the deep fat fryer, assuming you make this ten times a year.

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