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

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Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Okay, so we had a real salad too. 9:28:48 PM    comment []

Wrapped up there in the back are French fries, drying out after a long soak in ice water. After they dried off, I tossed them with some cornstarch and Aleppo pepper, to seal them in the dryer and give ‘em just a bit of color. The chickens are coated with salt, pepper, more Herbs de Provence and then they sat in the fridge for the skin to dry out before the were mercilessly immersed in 400° oil – I mean lard. I didn’t take a picture but they came out okay. Leftovers were good too. Liz had a sandwich today from Bird #2 and says “it didn’t need anything,” though she did add mayo and tomato.   8:58:49 PM    comment []

That stuff in the flask, it was an inspired accident. I like to use an acid/oil mixture to shoot up roasting birds and I had decided on lemon juice for the acid. When I got to the store, however, lemons were 4 bucks a bag and tangerines were only 2 bucks. This, I deduced, was God’s way of telling me to use tangerine juice. He works in mysterious ways like that, they say, sometimes using the invisible hand of Adam Smith to nudge us into doing the right thing. End result: one cup of tangerine juice.   Now this whole exercise was supposed to be a dry run for a deep-fried Thanksgiving turkey, so I really did two chickens, just to get a feel for how the fryer behaves. Since deep-fried turkey says “Cajun,” I decided to use Tabasco sauce too. A little white pepper and Herbs de Provence went in there too, and then my second inspiration to use two sticks of melted butter for the “oil.” That all spun in the blender long enough to make sure this cocktail would squirt through the needle.   I shot up the chickens along the major bones of the leg and thigh, did the same along the wing bones, hit the clavicles, along both sides of the breastbone, and an extra squirt into the backbone at both ends. Shooting along the bones makes sure there are no unappetizing pockets of herbs in any cut of meat. Pinch off the needle insertion and massage the marinade in before you let go. I managed to work a cup on the marinade into each chicken and hardly a drop squirted out.   8:40:27 PM    comment []

I broke it in with pork rinds, fried up from pellets. This I called “salad.”   8:14:58 PM    comment []

Yeah, I bought a turkey fryer at Linens ‘N’ Things, on a weekend where they had an internet coupon for 25% off your whole derned order. The fryer cost 75 bucks. Then I went to Cliff’s here in Carrboro and bought a 25-pound bucket of lard. Time for a trans-fatty weekend retreat.                 8:05:27 PM    comment []

…and here’s the bread pudding, plenty rich even before the sauce: 8 whole eggs and 2 cups heavy cream, 4 more of milk, and a nice touch I wish I’d thought ofL grated ginger. With all that fat (it also has a stick of butter), I cab see why chef Julian Medina named this “Day of the Dead” bread pudding.  Recipes here. Oh, and the "bread" is brioche.       7:13:13 PM    comment []

Here’s the sauce for the bread pudding, containing (among other things) 6 egg yolks and 3 cups heavy cream.     6:50:28 PM    comment []

I got to use one of my newer toys for the shrimp pozole – the “shrimp butler,” which slices along the vein, getting most of it out, and leaves the shell split and easy to remove. This is the only thing that delivers on the promise of cleaning shrimp. Oh, it mangles a few and sometimes one gets stuck inside, but it’s not too bad and easy to clean, just snap it apart and put it in the dishwasher. I did manage to slice my finger on the razor-sharp blade inside, trying to get out a piece of shell, but I really had to get stupid and work at it.   6:30:54 PM    comment []

Lots of prep work for this meal, but my corn zipper and new set of melamine bowls eased the pain. Ready to fire up the burners here…   6:10:19 PM    comment []