Hush Puppies

Resting dough: the pause that does the work 71 recipes

• It actually rested, covered, for the time stated, not cut short because the rest of the schedule was tight.
• It rolls and shapes without fighting: it stays where it is put, and it does not spring back or shrink on the bench between passes.
• The surface is smooth and supple rather than dry, cracked, or skinned over.
• It is at the temperature the next step needs: cold where the fat must stay solid, cool and relaxed where it must be rolled thin.
• Baked, it holds the dimensions it was shaped to rather than shrinking back from the edges of the tin or the rim of the dish.

Where it goes wrong The rest was skipped or shortened, so the gluten was still tight: the dough fought the pin and sprang back thick and uneven, then shrank down the sides of the tin in the oven.

Draining fried food: a rack, never paper 77 recipes

• The rack was in place before the first thing went into the oil, not fetched afterwards while food waited in a spider over the pot.
• It lands on a rack with air moving underneath it. Anything set down on paper or a flat plate traps its own steam against its base.
• Salted within seconds of landing, while it is still hot enough to take seasoning.
• A minute later the underside is still as crisp as the top: no soft flat patch where it has been sitting.
• Nothing is stacked or piled while hot, however tempting it is to keep it together. A pile steams itself soft from the inside out.

Where it goes wrong It was drained on paper, or piled up to keep warm. Steam leaving the food has nowhere to go but back into the crust, so the underside softens within a minute: the crispness the frying just bought is gone before the plate reaches the table.