It is interesting how ideas and techniques become bonded to certain applications. For instance, we bread eggplant for frying in advance so the crumbs stick, but we don’t think about flouring soft-shell crabs in advance. Instead, we remove them from their marinade and dredge them to order. This is pretty stupid. It slows down cooking, makes our hands all gummy in starch, and doesn’t produce a better result. Actually, we found that flouring soft-shell crabs and fried chicken in advance allows the starches to hydrate. Then, when we fry, the starches gelatinize and crisp up wonderfully. We found the pre-floured softies to be as crispy as their a la minute floured counterparts. Made to order is not always better; sometimes it’s better to work through the whole process and see what’s happening and discover what is possible.
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