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United States, North Carolina, Carrboro, English, Paul, Male, 56-60, All Music, All Food.

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Friday, November 05, 2004

Today’s beef broth is being made the really old-fashioned way – it’s being simmered slowly on the stove top instead of being done the presto 60-minute way in a pressure cooker. The comforting aroma in the air, as we go into our first autumn evening with a frost warning (remind me to bring in the pineapple plants), will linger longer when it’s done this way. The cap in my firing pistol for broth was detonated when I found oxtail marked way down at the Food Lion. Those, some beef ribs, and the essential root vegetables were browned under the oven broiler as prelude to the simmer.   5:15:38 PM    comment []

Home Depot has this electric turkey fryer for $100, $50 less than the Turk’N’Surf one that I blogged about a couple of weeks ago. The brand name on this one is Charmglow, but when you read the specs it turns out to be manufactured by Masterbuilt – the same people who make the Turk’N’Surf. The Masterbuilt website I linked in the previous article is now defunct, so I suspect they’ve been assimilated by Charmglow (a manufacturer whose website is a bizarre amalgam of gas grills, car rentals, financial services, and health care, among others – but no turkey fryer!).   The manual with the fryer I saw at Home Depot mentioned that some models have a spigot for draining them and some do not, then tells you to look at the box it came in to see which one you got. David Rosengarten preferred the spigot model, but Eastman (probably not the Kodak guys) makes a pump that allows you to filter the oil and those work pretty good, so that’s not a real issue. This one did have an adjustable thermostat and that’s a big plus.   So we return to the original question: Is $100 too much for a bulky appliance that you’ll only use once or twice a year? For me, it probably is.     4:28:24 PM    comment []

Just made a loaf using ascorbic acid that came in the mail from King Arthut Flour. The yeast loved it. Trust me, this stuff, basically vitamin C, does for bread dough what they say Viagra does for Mister Happy! 6:25:17 AM    comment []

Still Life November 5, 2004 4:23am EST   4:41:19 AM    comment []

Thinking aloud: Earlier this week I humbly agreed to be the Thanksgiving cook for Liz & Sons. This will be an honor and a joy for me, even though I know that only a mother’s loving hands can prepare the best Thanksgiving meals.   If I were to do another turducken,  a lot of preparation has to be scheduled. Here’s my plan for that option: Debone the “inner birds” (the chicken and the duck) starting today, seal them up in FoodSaver bags, and freeze them in a butterflied state until the day before T-Day. The smaller birds are paradoxically the more difficult to debone and this gets the frustrating work done well in advance. The turkey “wrapper” can be done two days ahead of time, preferably after brining and left skin-side up for a day in the fridge so it dehydrates just enough to give it a delectably crispy skin. The day before, the dressing can be prepared, final assembly completed with the thawed birds, and then stitch ‘em up.   The only other time I made a turducken I learned that it can require a lot more oven time than the recipe suggests. Since the stuffing and overall thickness require you to work with a very low heat for even cooking, it might take over 12 hours to bring the mass to the final temperature. The end point can vary wildly and that’s dangerous when people want to eat at precisely 4 o’clock. Fortunately, this huge mass of meat will obey the laws of physics and also cool as slowly as it heats, so you can safely err on the side of early. A little burst of high temperature should finish the crispy skin – or maybe, to commemorate the passing of Julia Child, a ceremonial blow torch at the table.   The other alternative is a deep-fried turkey. Fast and easy, but also uninspiring to the imagination. I think you can tell which way I’m leaning.     4:10:43 AM    comment []