Anyone here use one of these? Looks like they might work well, but the ones I’ve seen seem ridiculously expensive for not much more than a modified tupperware container.
I do a number of bite-sized stuff that are marinated and then coated in cornstarch and/or flour, but the coating needs to be light. I can coat them in a regular tupperware container or a ziploc bag, but removing the excess (which I normally do on paper towels over a cutting board) has always been a bit of a mess.
You mean something like this?
I think you can approximate this by shaking the items to be breaded in a tupperware and then shaking the excess out with a colander or strainer over a large bowl. I think if I saw one at Dollar Tree for $5 I might consider buying one though.
Seems like a salad spinner would work pretty well.
Corn starch and flour are not things I want to go down the drain… which is why my current method is to shake/tap them on paper towels placed on a cutting board. Then I can just roll them up and trash them.
While I think the above two tools would work, I kinda feel they would require me to rinse to clean.
And a “breader” would not?
I use a soup plate on the counter next to the wok or other cooking vessel. I roll the item, shake off any excess right over the soup plate, and put it in to cook. It does require one to work quickly.
Not from what I’ve seen so far. The food shelf has very large openings (in fact the model @iluvcookies linked to has about a 1cm grid). So after your food is out, tap the thing firmly on your counter and all your cornstarch/flour will be in the bottom of the bowl that can then be emptied into the trash.
A salad spinner would work exactly the same way. Since it also has a bowl.
This is the typical solution in search of a problem.
It’s three more large things to clean… plus my spinner has a very fine plastic mesh which would trap even very small clumps of the batter.
Look, you wanna buy this new item, go ahead. But you’re getting a lot of advice about why it’s unnecessary.
I get it… but so far the advice actually increases the clean up process, which I was looking to minimize.
How do you figure that ?
This is a bowl with a strainer and a lid. A salad spinner is a bowl with a strainer. A mixing bowl with a strainer on top is also… a bowl with a strainer.
If anything, this has 1 extra thing to clean — the lid.
Personally I use a half Sheet and a Cooling Rack.
Works for excess Breading and for draining after frying.
And is not a one trick Pony.
“And I helped…”
Couldn’t help but think of that. Isn’t this really the OG for breading of all sorts? Just use a bag.
Cooling rack and sheet pan as well. The plus is then you can let the breaded food sit for a bit to dry before frying.
When I need to coat a relatively small quantity of food, I use a small mixing bowl (I would guess it’s about a 2-cup capacity). Put some starch in the bowl, add a few bits of whatever I’m coating, toss in the bowl either by hand, by chopsticks, or flipping the bowl carefully, in batches if necessary. I’ll park coated items on a plate to rest for a bit to let the starch hydrate.
I’ve seen the breading bowls of which you speak - they look like a Tupperware marinating box, but with a center piece with holes in it. I think if you fried large things a LOT, it’d be worth it, but otherwise just another uni-tasker that eats up a lot of storage real estate.
ISTR my mom used one of those oddly shaped ham cans that had a lid. It lived in the fridge, and she never dumped out the breading mixture. I think she fished out any clumps, but that’s the extent of her food safety WRT breading. When the quantity of breading ran low, she’d add more starch, herbs, and spices. Just another instance of Sam’s Magic House, I guess, because none of us ever got sick from it that we recall.
