Some days, things just fall into place.
This week, a coworker and I headed to the Lincoln Square Farmers’ Market before beginning our day at The Chopping Block. We soon found ourselves captivated by a vendor with the most unique assortment of cheeses I have seen in a while including a cheddar blue cheese that was pretty fantastic. After sampling several, I settled on some smoked Gouda and fresh curds.
A few hours later, I was reminded of a new recipe one of our chefs had recently created for tempura-fried cheese curds. I knew right then that I had the perfect snack to share with some lucky members of my team. I quickly gathered the ingredients needed for both the tempura batter and the accompanying ranch dipping sauce – including some fresh chives grown on our back patio by one of my green-thumbed coworkers!
The set-up was pretty simple. Here you can see the curds, some flour for dredging, and the tempura batter.
On the stove, you can see that I have a wire rack set on a cooking sheet. This was an awesome way to cool the freshly fried curds; it allowed any excess oil to drip off, leaving the curds crispy and light.
It’s important to ensure your oil is hot enough before attempting to deep fry – a candy or deep-fry thermometer was the most essential tool I had in this culinary adventure!
This wire spider was another nifty tool – the large openings let me scoop out the curds, leaving the oil in the pot for the next batch.
This was my first attempt at deep frying cheese curds, and I learned two valuable lessons:
Yum!
Interested in finding out what you can do with goodies from a Farmers’ Market? Join us for our Lincoln Square Farmers’ Market Tour and Cooking Class next Thursday.