Telly chef Gregg Wallace goes to war with Bake Off star Mary Berry over fried food
The TV presenter was outraged to hear Bake Off's leading lady Mary Berry wants to outlaw the deep fat fryer
BAKE Off queen Mary Berry, 81, has no time for the deep fat fryer, telling Good Housekeeping magazine this week: “I don’t think any household should have one.”
Here, MasterChef’s GREGG WALLACE exclusively tells S2 why she is wrong.
Nothing beat that welcoming smell of fried food wafting into the hallway from the kitchen as I walked in from school as a kid.
Every household down my road in Peckham, south-east London stunk of deep fat frying and I’m sure every working class home around the country was the same.
How would you have done chips and spam fritters without a deep-fat fryer? It really does beggar belief.
Our nation was built on chips and spam fritters. It’s nostalgic. I was born in 1964 and growing up, it was my tea on a regular basis.
Just thinking about it takes me back to happy times when what we call dinner now was known as ‘tea’ and we ate it around five o’clock. Dinner was what you had at school at midday.
The smell of deep fat frying was universal back then, wasn’t it? It brought families and friends together.
To suggest getting rid of it isn’t just an assault on the deep-fat fryer but on the traditional British psyche.
I love Mary dearly but this is an attack on our British way of life.
We fry things, that’s what we do. It’s like banning the wok in China or outlawing the pizza oven in Italy.
It’s ludicrous.
In fairness to Mary, we probably did use the fryer a little bit too much in the good old days.
In my childhood home, the chip pan was always on the go.
Even though I have a warm, nostalgic view of spam fritters, if you gave them to me now, I would probably find them absolutely disgusting.
But that’s not the point, is it? I’m not going to preach to people — let them make their own minds up.
We all know now that having deep fat fried food every night is not healthy and of course, it would wreak havoc on the old waistline.
I’ve lost three stone over the past couple of years so I know all about it.
The main thing to remember is that things like deep fat fried foods, or the delicious sugary buttery cakes like Mary Berry bakes, are treats.
They can’t be your daily diet but that’s common sense isn’t it?
When you go out for a good meal, chances are that there will be a deep fat fryer in the kitchen. Every Michelin star restaurant will have one.
DEEP FRIED TEQUILA SHOTS
YOU NEED:
1 Battenberg cake
Tequila
METHOD
Slice the cake to make small, bite-sized cubes.
Next, pour some tequila into a bowl and dip each cube into the alcohol.
Gently place the cubes into 176C oil in the deep fat fryer, and follow fryer instructions.
Fry until golden and let each piece of cake cool down on a paper towel before eating.
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DEEP-FRIED COLA BALLS
YOU NEED:
3 eggs
480ml Coca-Cola
50g sugar
360g flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
METHOD
Beat the eggs in a bowl, add Cola and sugar. Sift in 240g of flour, baking powder and salt.
Mix while adding another 120g of flour until the batter is smooth. Heat deep fat fryer according to instructions to 190C. Roll the batter in your hands to make a two-inch dough ball.
Cook for two to three minutes until golden. Remove with slotted spoon and soak off excess fat with a paper towel.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. It’s a must-have appliance in any professional kitchen.
Think of all the dishes that are deep fried — croquettes, crab cakes, tempura prawns, and the Italian speciality of fritto misto or mixed fry. The list is endless.
Unless we are going to stop people from cooking fried chips, Scotch eggs, prawn balls, prawn crackers or battered fish at home, how can we get rid of the fryer?
It would be impossible to make all those tasty treats. The deep fat fryer is at the heart of a proper British kitchen and that’s where it should remain.”
If you agree with Gregg, then why not try the naughty but nice treat recipes on this page?.
