Fried Beer-Battered Pickles
(This is my friend Mike’s first post on He Cooks, She Cooks. Let him know how much you enjoyed it.)
Fried pickles are one of my favorite deep fried foods. They’re kind of a mess, but pretty easy to make. They’re crispy on the outside, a little soft on the inside, and have a nice, mild pickle flavor. And they go great with a good pale ale or bitter brew. They are great plain, or with a spicy dipping sauce.
Fried Beer-Battered Pickles
- 6 or more large pickles
- beer batter (see below)
First, I very thinly slice some pickles. I used around six whole pickles, but had plenty of batter left over, so feel free to cut more. (Or make onion rings, too.) I cut the pickles a bit thinner than 1/16 of inch. Having a mandolin here would be great, but I don’t, so I just used a sharp knife.
After slicing, I laid them on a kitchen towel and pressed with another to dry them out as best I could. Then I tossed them into a bowl filled with my favorite beer batter. Tempura is excellent on these as well.
When my oil was hot, I took a handful of pickles, shook off the excess batter, and carefully dropped them into the hot oil. I tried to avoid big clumps of pickles, but there were a few stuck together, which was fine.
I fried the pickles in multiple batches for a few minutes until golden, while stirring occasionally to keep them from clumping.
Transfer them from the oil to some paper towels to absorb the excess oil. Serve with hot sauce for dipping or plain with maybe some extra salt.
Beer Batter
Adapted from Hubert Keller (He uses it for onion rings here. The addition of cream of tartar stabilizes and increases the volume of the whisked egg whites.)
- 1 ½ cups flour
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- pinch cayenne pepper
- 1 12 oz bottled of a pale or amber beer
- 2 eggs, separated
- 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
Whisk together the flour, paprika, salt, and pepper.
Whisk the egg yolks with the beer and stir into the flour mixture. (This can be made ahead and refrigerated before the egg whites are added.)
Whisk together the egg whites, sugar, and cream of tartar until the whites hold soft peaks. Immediately before frying, fold the egg whites into the batter.
Category: Recipes | Tags: Beer, fried, pickles, snack 10 comments »
February 9th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
I keep hearing about fried pickles everywhere I go recently, or so it seems, and here they are again.
only yours definitely look the most delicious…
February 10th, 2010 at 7:43 am
I love Fried Pickles. They are hands down my favorite fried foods – and now many of my friends claim the same thing. These look delicious! Thanks for sharing.
February 10th, 2010 at 9:37 am
Fried pickles? Really? First time I’ve heard of it but it looks good!
February 10th, 2010 at 10:34 am
I hardly ever eat fried foods, but I love me some fried pickles! I need to have them maybe once a year. In my opinion they’re best dipped in ranch dressing, I know, so classy. The first time I’d heard of fried pickles was when I moved to Oklahoma, so maybe it’s a southern thing.
February 11th, 2010 at 2:11 am
I haven’t had fried pickles in eleven months. They’ve been a long eleven months. (PS, loved the guest post!)
February 11th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Thanks everyone! The first time I had these was they were served with a mix of ranch dressing and salsa. I like them with an equal mix of buttermilk (plain buttermilk, not buttermilk sauce) and Frank’s red hot.
February 12th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Heh — wait until Peef gets a load of these. He’s going to be begging me to drag out the fryer!
So do you fry sweet pickles? Or dill pickles?
I could imagine either being just fantastic – especially with beer batter!
February 12th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
These were dill. I’ve only ever had fried dill pickles. I could imagine sweet being good, but the frying really mellows out the flavor of the pickle. Sweet pickles might be too mild for this.
February 18th, 2010 at 2:17 am
I wanna try!! Looks really good.
February 20th, 2010 at 3:25 am
[...] Cooks” post from my friend Mike, who goes a little more traditional after sharing his Fried Beer-Battered Pickles and Five Spice Squash Soup [...]