If you want crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, fried chicken, pan-fried fish, air-fried pickle chips, and classic onion rings, they all start with the same simple cooking technique: Dredging. It's a straightforward process. "Dredge" means lightly coating food with a dry ingredient, such as flour, cornmeal, or breadcrumbs. Often, you'll dredge foods before frying.
Note: Many recipes call for food to be dredged, then dipped in a liquid (such as eggs or buttermilk) followed by a seasoned coating. This process is breading—more on that below.
How to Dredge Food
Here's how to dredge chicken or other food.
Spread the coating in a shallow dish, such as a pie plate.
Roll the food around in the coating until the food is coated on all sides. Shake off excess. Continue as directed in your recipe.
IIt's simple to do with kitchen tools you already have on hand, or you can use a flour dredger to help evenly coat your food with flour. Additionally, you can find breading trays to minimize dredging and breading messes.
You dredge chicken or any other food before pan-frying to help give it an enticing brown crust. Food dredged in flour or another coating will also gain flavor and texture and get an extra punch from the oil or butter you use to cook the food.
How to Dredge Vegetables
The basic definition of dredge applies to vegetables, too. For example, before frying, you generally prep the sliced onion with a light dredge in flour and seasonings for crisp-coated onion rings.
"Dredge" versus "Bread"
Breading food takes dredging a couple of steps further. Think of it as dredging 2.0. Like dredging, breading calls for coating food with cornmeal, breadcrumbs, or another dry coating. However, the food is first dredged lightly in flour, then dipped into a liquid (such as milk and/or beaten eggs), and finally dredged a final time in the outer coating.
There are several reasons to bread your food before sautéing or frying:
The coating keeps the food from sticking to the pan while cooking.
The flour and other dry ingredients seal in moisture to prevent the food from becoming tough.
The coating helps to brown the food and provides a crunchy layer.
The seasoning in the coating adds flavor to your food.
How to Bread Food
Follow these simple steps for breading food:
Step 1: Prep the Ingredients
Prepare the coatings for dredging and place them in separate shallow dishes. This allows you to dredge in flour, dip in the liquid mixture, and coat the food with the outer coating in an assembly-line fashion.
Step 2: Dredge in Flour
Dredge meat like chicken or fish in flour first. The flour will help seal in moisture to protect the food from the high cooking heat.
Step 3: Dip in Liquid
Dip both sides of the meat in whatever liquid(s) your recipe calls for. Often this is an egg beaten with milk or water, but it can also be another liquid, such as buttermilk or beer. The liquid provides a sticky surface for the final coating to cling to. To keep your fingers from getting more coating on them than the food, use one hand to dip the food into the liquid and the other to dip into the breading.
Step 4: Dredge in Outer Coating
Create a thicker coating by dredging the meat in seasoned bread crumbs, cornmeal, crushed crackers, or whatever coating your recipe calls for. Use your hands to pat the coating gently onto both sides of the food. Set each finished piece on a platter until you're ready to fry or cook. Remember that perishable food should not be left out for more than 2 hours at room temperature (or 1 hour when the temperature is more than 90°F). Don't return cooked meat to the unwashed platter. Dredged meat is still raw and should be handled accordingly.
A 3-stage breading process for pan-frying or deep-frying, begins by dredging the item in wheat flour, dipping in an egg mixture (known as an eggwash), and coating it with bread crumbs. Rice flour or refined starches like cornstarch can be used instead of wheat flour.
A 3-stage breading process for pan-frying or deep-frying, begins by dredging the item in wheat flour, dipping in an egg mixture (known as an eggwash), and coating it with bread crumbs. Rice flour or refined starches like cornstarch can be used instead of wheat flour.
Michael says that cornstarch or rice flour in combo with flour will give you the crunchiest batter. Even cake four will cook up crunchier than all-purpose flour because it doesn't have a high gluten level. Michael does warn that these alternative coatings will brown less than all-purpose flour.
Cornstarch typically makes for a crispier finish than flour. Cornstarch absorbs moisture from the food and expands, giving deep-fried foods a crispy coating. When the food is fried, the moisture cooks out of the cornstarch, leaving a crackly, puffy coating on the outside.
The standard breading technique involves first dredging the item with flour, dipping it in egg wash, and then finally coating it with breadcrumbs. This works because the flour sticks to the food, the egg sticks to the flour, and the breadcrumbs stick to the egg.
You should always start with a layer of flour. This helps absorb moisture on the surface of the chicken, which would keep the breading from sticking and make a mess in the hot oil. The flour also gives the egg something to cling to—otherwise it would slide right off the chicken.
Dredging means the process of removing accumulated sediment from the bottom or banks of bodies of water, including rivers, lakes or streams. Dredges are specialized pieces of equipment that create a vacuum to suck up and pump out the unwanted sediment and debris.
Interestingly, cornstarch contains 25 to 28 percent amylose, which is higher than the amount in wheat or potato starch (which are 20 to 22 percent amylose), and this is why cornstarch works the best for making crispy coatings on fried foods.
However, there's a trick to warming 2-3 portions without making the chicken soggy. Cover the chicken pieces with a slightly damp paper towel and microwave on low heat for about 30 seconds to 1 minute. This method prevents the coating from getting soggy and helps retain some of the crispy texture.
The chicken is then air-dried for 10 to 12 hours before being flash-fried, then oil-poached. The skin gets its signature crispiness from 10 to 12 minutes of basting with scalding hot oil right before serving.
I got the best results when using a 50-50 blend of potato starch and wheat flour by weight. The wheat flour facilitates browning, while the potato starch provides structure, cohesion, and that all important crunch factor.
It makes sense to keep a “wet hand” and a “dry hand” when breading chicken for frying. However, a little mixing of the two actually makes your fried chicken crispier, says Fontana. Take your wet hand, dip it into your buttermilk and hold it over your flour to let it drip into the mixture.
"When you're breading something, try and keep one hand dry and one hand wet," says Amanda. As she took us through the entire process, a light bulb went off in my head: She dropped the cutlet into the flour with her right hand. She gave a good shake and placed it into the egg with that same hand.
Instead of the egg, Moskowitz recommends a mix of cornstarch and water, which, when stirred together, forms a slurry. It, too, is an effective glue, and you may even notice more crispness to, say, your chicken parm.
Introduction: My name is Barbera Armstrong, I am a lovely, delightful, cooperative, funny, enchanting, vivacious, tender person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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