Kale, Radish and Daikon Radish

[Starmaker]

Hubby almost retched when I told him that people were deep frying kale and eating it like a popcorn type snack. He's a gourmet fine dining chef and in his mind, kale has its place as a garnish but its "not for eating" lol So anyway, it took me months to try it but I finally bought a few bunches of kale, some red radishes, and a daikon radish for making deep fried dollar chips. (Daikon radish is 7 to 12 inches long, looks like a turnip and is white, tastes like regular radish, just easier to cut into silver dollar size circles for deep friying than those puny little red radishes)

Now I don't know how you guys deep fried radishes, cause we cut them thin, used a professional grade deep fryer on highest setting, and all we got was soggy oil soaked limp circles. What did we do wrong? We tried deep frying them longer too. Gross! So THAT was a complete failure. Now the kale, we cut the stalks off, and tossed the whole kale leaves into the fryer. I heard many say it turns golden brown within seconds, ours didn't! Ours stayed green as green can be, it didn't take seconds, but it fried to a crisp delightful crunch. With a little salt it was pretty cool. But they are laying in oil! I've patted them with paper towel, ugh, I just can't see ingesting that much oil. Anyone else find its too oily to eat? And one cup of this is about 7 to 8 grams so I'm not anxious to overeat them anytime soon!

[not2late]

Re: Kale, Radish and Daikon Radish

Hubby almost retched when I told him that people were deep frying kale and eating it like a popcorn type snack. He's a gourmet fine dining chef and in his mind, kale has its place as a garnish but its "not for eating" lol So anyway, it took me months to try it but I finally bought a few bunches of kale, some red radishes, and a daikon radish for making deep fried dollar chips. (Daikon radish is 7 to 12 inches long, looks like a turnip and is white, tastes like regular radish, just easier to cut into silver dollar size circles for deep friying than those puny little red radishes)

Now I don't know how you guys deep fried radishes, cause we cut them thin, used a professional grade deep fryer on highest setting, and all we got was soggy oil soaked limp circles. What did we do wrong? We tried deep frying them longer too. Gross! So THAT was a complete failure. Now the kale, we cut the stalks off, and tossed the whole kale leaves into the fryer. I heard many say it turns golden brown within seconds, ours didn't! Ours stayed green as green can be, it didn't take seconds, but it fried to a crisp delightful crunch. With a little salt it was pretty cool. But they are laying in oil! I've patted them with paper towel, ugh, I just can't see ingesting that much oil. Anyone else find its too oily to eat? And one cup of this is about 7 to 8 grams so I'm not anxious to overeat them anytime soon!

Smack your hubby for me. Kale is a wonderful veggie. I hate it when I'm at a retaurant and the kale is a big raw leaf they use as a "plate" for shrimp or scallops. I eat it "Southern Style" mostly (cooked slowly with salt pork or fatback).

As for deep frying it, I never tried it because I hate deep frying things (the clean up sucks, imo). But I came across a recipe in Mollie Katzen's book, Vegetable Heaven, where the kale is baked until crispy. It's easy, the clean up isn't a bear, and I don't have to stand over a pot of boiling oil

Kale Crunch

http://www.molliekatzen.com/recipes/kale.php

Another way to cook it is like this:
http://www.hippygourmet.com/ (click PBS recipes in the sidebar and scroll down)

I don't know how folks deep fry radishes either because their water content is pretty high. Anyhow, I shred daikon and make them into potato-pancake type things.

But the best frying veggies on the Induction list are celery root (celeriac) and fresh pumpkin (the whole kind you have to eviscerate and peel). Celery root chips and pumpkin chips are yummy (and I don't mind cleaning up the deep frying mess for them because they are worth it). They also make good "French Fries". :yummy

[2big4mysize]

I've seen deep fried cauliflower and turnip fries but not radishes deep fried. you can boil radishes and get them to lose the radsih flavor and sub for potatoes in salad or cut them thin and eat them raw as chips but I haven't heard of deep frying them as chips other then this topic

Deep fried Kale is like Emeril's deep fried spinach if your temp is high enough they get very crispy and you drain them in the basket like fries afterwards. But I'm with Megs I like my Kale cooked southern style http://www.turnersouth.com/tools/rec...,,2522,00.html. I did try it as a raw salad after massaging the leaves as shown on Home Plate but it was too chewy for me.

[not2late]

I've seen deep fried cauliflower and turnip fries but not radishes deep fried. you can boil radishes and get them to lose the radsih flavor and sub for potatoes in salad or cut them thin and eat them raw as chips but I haven't heard of deep frying them as chips other then this topic

Deep fried Kale is like Emeril's deep fried spinach if your temp is high enough they get very crispy and you drain them in the basket like fries afterwards. But I'm with Megs I like my Kale cooked southern style http://www.turnersouth.com/tools/rec...,,2522,00.html. I did try it as a raw salad after massaging the leaves as shown on Home Plate but it was too chewy for me.

Mustard greens work better with that salt massage technique, especially if the mustard greens are young and not so strong in taste.

[Starmaker]

Many thanks all, and yes hubby got a smack! He had it comin anyway. lol