ridiculous hungry: DEEPLY FRIED - How Guy Fieri Influences My Eating Habits...

While I find other avenues to keep abreast of pop culture, I don't watch much television. The limited tv I do watch usually has something to do with food and/or travel.

But I must cop to watching the occasional episode of The Real Housewives Of New York because I find myself often educated and enlightened by that countess gal who's always showing us poor people how to be classy - like talking about yourself in the third person, referring to all your friends as *daahling* in the most condescending manner possible, hanging on to your countess title when your count husband has left you for another woman, and also calling yourself classy. That last one is especially effective, I think.

This is deeply fried and therefore deeply delicious...

But most days, if it's food related, it's Top Chef, Chopped, Iron Chef - that is, shows that have at least as much to do with cooking as with drama or personality schtick. Most recently The Next Food Network Star mainly because the whole family can get into it, and, a perennial favorite of the Man and the Monsters - Diners, Drive-ins & Dives.

While I'm not much for greasy spoon and truck stop grub, the show covers a lot of smaller mom and pop type eateries that serve some really delicious looking food I often find myself salivating over. Last night, they showcased a little place on Route 66 where they serve fry bread tacos that looked pretty *money* to me, so I went to bed with visions of fry bread fairies dancing in my head.

And then when I woke up this morning to an empty belly, not much left in the fridge (Saturdays are usually our grocery shopping days), frying oil left on the stove from last night's Monster-requested midnight snack of fresh potato chips (which were also pretty money, btw), and fry bread fairies still lurking somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind, it made perfect sense to make these Funnel Cake-ish Fry Breads with a little dusting of powdered sugar and the occasional teaspoonful of strawberry plum jam to go with my hot, lightly sugared, and black (because we're S.hit O.utta M.ilk) coffee.

To make these fry breads more of a sweet than savory deal, I took a fairly standard fry bread recipe and added some sugar, melted butter, and a dash of distilled white vinegar to tenderize the flour, which resulted in a tender in the middle, crisp around the edges fry bread that tastes a lot like funnel cake if funnel cake came in one, big piece rather than all squigglylike as funnel cake tends to be...

FUNNEL CAKE FRY BREAD
Makes 4 fry breads the size of a grown man's face, but I could see making 5 or 6 smaller ones from the same amount of dough

- 1 cup plus 1 Tablespoon all purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 Tablespoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 Tablespoon butter, melted
- 1/2 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
- 1/2 cup water

- extra bench flour for working with the dough

- about 3 cups of oil for frying (or enough to have about 1.5 inches of oil in the pan). I like corn and/or soybean oil (which is often labeled *vegetable oil* here in the US) best for deep frying.

- powdered sugar for dusting and a little jam for spreading if you'd like

1) Preheat your oil over medium high heat until it reaches 375F (if you have a thermometer). I check my oil by throwing a pinch of flour in to see if it sizzles immediately. If the oil starts smoking, it's too hot, and the heat needs to be turned down. But if the bread doesn't bubble and sizzle as soon as it hits the oil, it's not hot enough.

At this point, you might also want to prep your serving plate/platter with a couple layers of paper towel to absorb the excess oil. I hate when I forget to prep the dish and I'm scrambling to find a plate while my food is fixin to burn...

2) Put all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and give them 7 to 10 good whisks to aerate and evenly distribute them.

3) Then add the butter, vinegar and water and stir with a fork until everything is just incorporated. You don't want to overwork the gluten in the flour, because if you do, your dough will get tough and chewy.

4) Once all the ingredients are incorporated, give the dough a light sprinkling of flour, dust your hands with a little bit of flour, and work the dough just until it forms a ball. It's tempting to keep working the dough and turn the ball into something prettier than it is, but don't.

5) If you want large fry breads, separate the dough into 4 equal segments. 5 or 6 for smaller ones the size of an adult hand. Add a little flour as you go if needed to keep the dough from sticking.

5) You can use the palms of your hands to form the dough into roughly 5 to 7 inch diameter patties. Because I've tenderized this dough with vinegar and butter, what I found easier was to flour the bottom of the mixing bowl and just gently pat and press until you have a nice, round 5 to 7 inch disc.

palm method - not so pretty

bowl method - much bettah...

6) Gently shake or dust off the excess flour and fry the discs, one at a time, 3 to 4 minutes per side until golden brown. Again, make sure the dough bubbles and sizzles as soon as it hits the oil. If it's not hot enough, give it another minute or so to come up to temp.

This is a really tender and somewhat moist dough, so if you find that it overlaps as you put it in the oil, not to worry - just take a pair of tongs or a fork and unfold the flap.