WHAT'S your weakness? Maybe you love perfect thin-sliced onion rings, those seriously flavored, crisp-coated tangles. Maybe you're a tempura fan, delighting in the tender, buttery texture of a thin, lightly fried slice of winter squash in its delicate golden brown wrapping.
Delicious stuff, we grant you, but one crunchy classic is pulling ahead of the pack these days. L.A. chefs have lately been going head over heels for fritto misto -- "mixed fry" in Italian. You might think the ethereal combos would be tough to replicate at home, but they're surprisingly doable.
Today's fritto misto tends to be lighter then the traditional Italian preparation, and chefs are using a wider range of seasonal ingredients, tossing together flavors and textures with a free hand.
In his remarkably forgiving recipe, Chris Kidder of Literati II first dips blanched baby carrots, green beans, celery root, acorn squash, portabello mushrooms and even clusters of Concord grapes in buttermilk. "It adds a nice sour tang," he says, "and helps keep the crust crisper than regular milk."
He then dredges the ingredients in a combination of flour and semolina, a technique he learned from Judy Rodgers, with whom he worked at Zuni Cafe. The semolina gives the fritto a wonderful crispness that doesn't dissipate as it cools -- a real plus for the home cook who can't be sure of perfect timing the way a restaurant staff can.
At Hungry Cat in Hollywood, David Lentz also uses buttermilk for dipping, but only for seafood, which he then dredges in Wondra flour. The Wondra, he says, makes for a crisper crust. Vegetables are dredged directly in Wondra, then dipped in beer batter before frying.
"We try to change our assortment throughout the season, and we look for differenttextured things, different shapes," Kidder says. That's the key to a great contemporary fritto misto: improvisation.
Paper-thin slices of lemon as well as parsley leaves and smelt are among the surprises Lentz tucks into a mixed seafood fry that also incorporates squid, prawns, zucchini and eggplant.
Fritto misto, in many ways the Italian equivalent of fish and chips, also appears at Palmeri in Brentwood, where the combination of calamari, shrimp and scallops is the perfect nibble with an aperitivo.
It has even made an appearance at Valentino in Santa Monica, where owner Piero Selvaggio has offered bite-size tidbits of shrimp, scallops, zucchini, mushrooms and calamari in paper cones during cocktail receptions at special events.
