Tess

I'm all in favor if the crust on the seared ahi! It stops the outer 2/3 of the fish from getting cooked. Nothing worse than the "seared" fish which is mostly cooked.

Last night we grilled skinless, boneless chicken breasts injected with margaritas, basically. Compared with simply marinating the chicken, it did come out somewhat moister and more flavorful. (Admittedly it's a dumb recipe to begin with-- like something you get at Applebee's or something-- but some lowfat cooked chicken comes in handy for salads and stuff when everyone in the house is on a diet.) It's a subtle difference but I'm not going to say it's not worth the time, since if you have the equipment it really takes no time. I also look forward to trying that cream-saffron-spice idea. I'm thinking that, as someone mentioned upthread, the best use for these gizmos is when you have a big piece of meat that you can't conveniently marinate. I got mine to inject the turkey breasts that I use to make homemade cold cuts, and it's great for that.

I think the Coke Zero bottle looks really ugly. I may try it but suspect my default will remain regular Diet Coke with lime flavor. I wonder if they are trying to take a page from the candy companies' book. I've read that the candy companies have managed to market special edition candies in a way that doesn't take away from market shares of the original. (I never usually buy Hershey's but I am now hoarding their limited edition Double Chocolate bar.)

From Episure in the grilled chicken breast thread: This sounds *so* good to me. But in honor of this thread I'm going to first do something I've cooked before-- margarita chicken, which is chicken allowed to sit in margaritas-- and see if injecting some of the margarita right before cooking improves them. Got the chicken, dusted off the injector, going to try it tomorrow.

You can sometimes have good luck with this kind of thing by asking your server. They won't usually spell out the whole recipe but they will often tell you what the trick is.

Ah, but we kill people in war; we execute people. Some people think that's just fine. I think that's very far from being a category on which we can all agree. I don't think abandoning moral absolutes or even complete consistency necessarily means that you've cast rational thought aside.

Why is that a problem? Many people are seemingly inconsistent even in their views of whether or not it's all right to kill people. People draw lines in different places. It's not necessarily *logically* inconsistent although it may seem arbitrary to some.

Ditto. From looking at the previous thread, it's clear you've been incredibly conscientious. That's why you caught this problem in time. Keep it up! All best to both of you.

Corinna, I think "relations with horses" sounds different in American. Anyway, I had a little laugh over it. I'd like to see an injector thread too. So far all I've injected has been turkey breast, with a citrus marinade. That was OK.

I completely agree. The only caveat I would add is-- if you're a restaurant and you're doing a variation of a classic dish like this, please make a note on the menu so that when the dish arrives people will not think you have made a mistake. Quite recently I was served a "ceviche" consisting of raw fish in no dressing of any kind. I realize ceviche is a fairly elastic recipe, but this should have been called sashimi. (And it was not the type of fish for sashimi.)

Oh, yeah-- I like white vermouth on the rocks with a lemon twist.

That Hildebeer thing looks good. Like cassis, Chambord might be too close, but it would be my first thought. (I always pour it over dishes of mixed berries.)

I just googled this up. I wouldn't mind a bottle of it. I'll skip the martini with oil in it, though.

I confess to chugging balsamic vinegar sometimes.

I like San Pellegrino Aranciata Amara, which I think is not only less sweet than the regular Aranciata but also flavored with some other citrus. I used to get it out of pop machines in Italy; by far my favorite soda.

I like aperitivos before dinner. I feel as if they really do stimulate the appetite and I don't think they dull my taste buds, despite the strong taste some of them have. I don't recall (and often was not told) the names of ones I've had in Europe, but I keep Cynar and Campari at home. I can't have much of a cocktail before a nice dinner just because my stomach is usually empty (by design) and even a small one would make me drunk. I have to save my alcohol allowance for the wine.

Thanks, Mabelline! All noted. I had worried about clogging the needle.

Mabelline, what do you inject with? (Sorry; that sounds bad.) We got an injector but haven't gotten around to doing much with it.

We recently made some grilled "margarita" chicken and shrimp. Basically, you marinate them in margaritas-- tequila, lime juice and triple sec. Only I put the lime juice in right near the end, and less than it called for, because I find that lime juice makes things too mushy. Spices were my fajita mix from Spice House amd I sprinkled on coarse Hawaiian salt. I basted with reduced tequils, a little more lime juice and some butter. (This can be as low-fat a dish as you care to make it.) There are recipes for this all over the place-- some with cilantro, some topped with salsa-- so if you're interested I'd say google until you find one you like. Do marinate in the tequila all day or overnight.

I agree. Address it on every front. Turning certain specific foods into the enemy is going to be less effective than looking at overall food, activity and other health choices.

When I see "simply" this much it makes me antsy. Surely nothing (economic or otherwise) is that simple. Certainly, there's no one-way street between "consumer demand" and what stores in any given area stock. They stock what they find profitable to stock, which may well not be what the customers would ask for in an ideal world.

I've eaten the better canned fish products here and in Europe-- lived in Italy. They're better, but not perfect if you have this problem. Quite likely, if you start with the real bad stuff you get sensitive.

Not speaking for the original poster, but I have very rarely had a canned fish product that didn't have what I consider a strikingly unpleasant taste. I won't say exactly what it tastes like to me, for fear of injecting a turn-off into a recipe thread. (If you look at the recent thread on ordinary foods people hate, canned fish turns up a fair amount.) And yes, I have had the superior products; they all suffer from the same problem to some degree as far as I'm concerned. I find it irritating because I would love to enjoy things like salade Nicoise. This thread is giving me an idea, though, for a quasi-Nicoise salad with cubed raw tuna that they sell at the Japanese market, marinated for a little while in the usual Nicoise dressing. Or maybe sear and marinate.

I, for one, am not ignoring Busboy's points; I just don't buy what seems to me to be the sum of his arguments. Yes, countering ignorance about food is important-- at all socioeconomic levels, I think. (I can't believe what many middle-class people think they should do to lose weight, for example.) And I agree that blaming "society" tends not to be very effective. But there's a lead-a-horse-to-water argument here that seems to presuppose that the water is there. I think improving the food options people have in poor communities is as important as education on an individual level. Probably neither will work without the other.

What do you mean by a "parallel argument"? Junk food will still be cheaper and easier to procure and carry, require no storage or preparation. ← And cheaper for the customer to purchase than high-quality fresh fruit and vegetables, in general, right? Which would be a relevant point. ← Absolutely.