How To Crisply Frazzle Your Food Scraps & Make them Delicious
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I was prompted to write this post on crisply frying food scraps by a couple of experiments I once did in the pub kitchen where I worked – firstly we sliced a Chantenay carrot lengthways and crisply fried it. Drained, cooled and salted the slices were both pretty and delicious.
Please see here, the BBC, for how to crisply fry food scraps. When you remove the fried goods from the oil set aside on some kitchen towel to drain off excess oil and crispen up.
Other Food Scraps I have Frazzled
Here are the ones I have tried so far.
Apple Peel
When peeling apples to make apple crumble or other apple dishes try deep frying some of the peelings. They are crisp and lovely with caster sugar and a pinch of cinnamon.
Sweet Potatoes
To frazzle these first peel the sweet potato and then using the potato continue peeling until I have a pile of sweet potato ribbons. More ideas for delicious sweet potatoes here.
Leeks
These make a lovely crunchy garnish for creamy leek dishes (see a few great ideas for leeks here). Cut a leek into long thin strips, rub a little cornflour (aka corn starch in the US) through them to help them go crips and deep fry for a few minutes till golden. Lift out of the oil with a skimmer and drain on kitchen roll. Sprinkle with a little crunchy sea salt.
Sage and Parsley
Just drop clean and dry sage leaves or parsley sprigs into hot fat for literally a few seconds, 2 or 3 will probably do it. Drain on kitchen roll and sprinkle with sea salt. Bacon and pork, savoury apple dishes, onions, butternut squash and blue cheese will all benefit from a sage garnish, and the parsley is a great garnish for fish dishes in particular and most other savoury dishes too.
Thinly Sliced Onions
I usually call this Onion Grass on menus.
This is a quicker, easier and in my opinion nicer alternative to making onion rings.
Chorizo
Fry coarsely chopped, julienned or shredded (or any other shape) chorizo in a little olive oil till crisp. Remove from the oil and set aside on paper towel to cool and crisp. Sprinkle on salads, soups, pasta dishes, fish and anything else that takes your fancy.
DON’T throw the oil away it will be infused with chorizo and great for drizzling on things such as soup or fried eggs, for instance. See here for lots more things to do with chorizo including purpose made chorizo oil.
Prosciutto
Pretty well the same as above goes for Prosciutto – see here for lots more ideas for proscitto scraps.
Chicken and Duck Skin – Grattons and Gribenes
These are delicious crispy morsels made from duck or chicken skin. See here for how to make grattons and gribenes and use them to garnish soups, salads, pâtés and general duck dishes or just nibble on them.
Pancakes
Leftover pancakes are great cut into strips, fried till crisp and used to garnish whatever you fancy.
OK – that’s all for now, enjoy the sunshine! Let me know if you think of anything else that could do with a damn good frazzling!
Suzy Bowler
Having been a somewhat itinerant chef for over 30 years I was amazed, on my return to the UK, at the blatant food waste that now seems to be rife in the country; amazed and irritated. So much so that I decided to start a blog about spontaneous cooking from leftovers to show people that there are great alternatives to throwing food away.
One Comment
Sue
I'm glad your computer is better 😉