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Are those fresh chili's or the dried variety?

So if you want to deep fry chicken, do you do anything different? I mean do you change the recipe in any way or do you just follow the normal steps, but just drop in into a deep fryer?

No it doesn't. The only liquid is fish sauce. The weird thing is, she says that traditional Pad Thai has dried shrimp, pickled radish, palm sugar, tamarind etc...then proceeds to give a recipe without any of it. So much for "real Thai" Luckily that just cut down the number of recipes I want to try. The recipe just contains garlic, shrimp, egg, fish sauce, sugar, sprouts, green onions and peanuts.

So I was looking through a few of my Thai cookbooks yesterday in preparation for this cook-off, and I came across a weird recipe. The books I have are Simply Thai by Wandee Young, Real Thai, by Nancie MacDermott, and Thai Food by David Thompson. I just got Thai Food the other day so I was looking forward to cooking from that, and it will be nice to compare it with the Simply Thai, recipe that I've done before. The weird recipe came from Real Thai...it had no Tamarind paste? Which seemed weird. The sauce seemed to only come from fish sauce, and there wasn't even much of that. Has anyone seen, or tried, a recipe without Tamarind? It just doesn't seem like Pad Thai without it. Anyway, I think I'm going to try both Wandee's and David's recipe's and see which is better. It would be nice to nail down a final Pad Thai recipe. After that maybe I'll compare it to mamster's and see what I like. Man this is going to be a heck of a lot of Pad Thai.

I was originally just going to throw the onions out, but it seemed like a waste. I'm glad I changed my mind because those suckers were tasty as hell. No stomach problems yet, so I think I'm all good. I'm just glad I could contribute something to this thread.

I always bring a good knife and a pot or two (usually a skillet). Honestly though I bring as much as I can, since my friends are mostly students they have nothing. Once I was cooking dinner over at a friends place and was making claufoti. I had make the crust ahead of time, and was going to finish it at my friends. I went to sweeten the creme freshe (which I also had to make from scratch since you can't find it in town), my friend informed me she had no sugar in the house. NO FUCKING SUGAR! Who doesn't have sugar?

First off I just wanted to thank everyone on this thread for finally getting me to try to make fried chicken. I've been wanting to do it for the first time for awhile now, and this thread finally got me off my ass. Now for the results... I used a combination of Alton's GoodEats recipe (luckily I have the episode on DVD), Gourmet's recipe, and a little Martha Stewart. This was also the first time I've ever cut up my own chicken, and it went OK, but I screwed up the thigh part, so they were a little small. I know where I went wrong though, so the mistake won't happen again. Thighs are two tasty to waste. The first thing I did was heavily salt the chicken for an hour. This was from The Gourmet Cookbook (which you can see in the background) After that the chicken was rinced, and then soaked in Buttermilk for about 20 hours. The Gourmet recipe also has you put chopped up onions into the bowl, why I have no idea, but I love onions so why not. They also led to an unexpected bonus at the end, which I'll tell you about later. I also added Tabasco and Sambal as per the Martha Stewart recipe (I ran out of hot sauce, thats why I used the sambal...and really why wouldn't you use sambal, it's too good). After the buttermilk soak, the chicken was drained, and then seasoned liberally (I seasoned more the next batch, since even though I'm Canadian I apparently wasn't liberal enough the fist time). The seasoning was from Alton, but changed a bit. It was a mix of Sweet Hungarian Paprika, Hot Hungarian Paprika, Kosher Salt, Chipotle Powder, Cayenne, and roasted garlic powder (I didn't have any regular garlic powder). I then shaked in non-seasoned flour (well a little salt was added), and then let it sit for only a minute or two on a rack, since I didn't want the crust turning into glue. I fried the chicken in regular Crisco, and this is when the first problem occurred. I have a electric range (a small one at that...but I'm a student so my kitchen itself is microscopic), and the heat was hard to control. It started off well; but the oil got a bit too hot, so the chicken was a little charred I chicken came out a little burned, but was tasty as hell. The Tostones I made also came out well, but I've had a lot more experience cooking tostones then fried chicken. The pan roasted Asparagus was pretty tasty tool still had some chicken left, so later that night I fried some more. I figured If I had two burners going, one lower one higher, then I'd be able to control the heat better. This turned out really well, except that I should have changed the Crisco. I think re-using the oil that I burned the previous batch in wass a mistake, and left the chicken darker then it should have been. The results were good though, and this time I also seasoned a bit more so the flavour was much better. Now the question was what to do with all those left over onions from the buttermilk marinade. Well I figured that when I make onion rings I soak those in hot sauce and buttermilk too. So after the chicken I just fried those suckers up, and they turned out awesome. Sure the onions were sitting in raw chicken for a day, but then so was the chicken, and I ate that. Maybe it was a little stupid, but I don't mind being stupid if it tastes good. So again, thanks everyone for all the suggestions and motivation. This is definitely something I'd do again.

So this thread has finally gotten me off my ass, and I'm going to try making Fried Chicken for the first time very soon (hopefully later in the week). I have a question about cooking material. I know you all recommend vegetable shortening (maybe with some bacon fat added), but is lard better? At the grocery store right next to the blocks of Crisco there are similarly packaged blocks of lard, would this be better or worse. I've heard that some packaged lard is crap, and usually off-tasting, but I have no idea where I read that or if it's right. Any ideas?

I'm not sure where they get it, but I think it was local. They used to have it readily available but switched to the special orders a year or so ago (I don't think there was much of a demand for it). Growing up in Switzerland we used horse all the time. Now we usually get it if we're going to do a meat fondue, and the taste is better then beef for fondue.

If you want to try to at home Whitehouse meats in St Lawrence Market will get it for you if you special order it. If you've never had it, it's definitely worth it. Horse meat is awesome.

I love horse meat. Growing up in Switzerland, we saw a lot of horse on the menu, and cooked a lot of it at home. Horse meat fondue is still one of my favourites. Oh, and the dried curred horse meat is ten times better the prosciutto.. I can understand why some people don't eat it, but the vehemence which people protest it is shocking (especially if they eat other types of meat). Who the heck am I to judge what people should eat. In Toronto, Whitehouse meats (St Lawrence Market) used to sell horse meat, but now they'll only do it by special order. I've never seen it on the menu here though so thanks for the recommendation Hodge-Podge.

I happened with the original series, but I'm not sure about this one.

I was really surprised that Mario won. The comments from the judges, really seemed to contradict the decision. I wonder if the judges really based their choice on the combatants use of the theme ingredients. If so, then I don't see how Mario could have won. Maybe the same comments were hurled at the competitors, we just never saw it. Thar being said, I'm not disappointed that Mario won. He's a great chef, and really seems to enjoy the show. Flay...I still can't stand.

I too don't really care for the new Chairman, but at least they don't use him very much. I'm assuming they have him as a nod to the original, and have him there for ceremonial purposes. I really feel like Alton controls the show as soon as the Allez cuisine is uttered, and thank god for that. As for Kevin, he does mispronounce things, but I kind of like him. I think he's a good side-kick for Alton. Plus, if they fire him, they might replace him with Sissy Biggers, or worse....Rachel Ray (or even worse....Sandra Lee). I would love if Bourdain was involved in this show somehow. Even a judge spot would be hilarious. imagine the crap he would give Flay, or the ribbing he's give Mario.

The only thing that consoled me last night with Bobby Flay winning, was that at the same time I was watching Bobby Flay get his ass kicked on Celebrity Poker Showdown. God, that man is insufferable. His plating was "prettier" though, so I'm not surprised that he won on appearance.

No, she can't... ← then why are you watchin?? woodburner ← Why do people watch a train wreak? The woman is the culinary equivalent. I consider it more of a comedy show then a cooking show.

Various? Not ALL?!? ← Oh man, I can't stop laughing. I'm in tears over here.

I thought Ready, Set, Cook was an fun show, but Sissy Biggers, can go bite my shiny metal ass. I couldn't stand her.

I used to be pissed with the creation of Food Network Canada, since the shows totally sucked, and I felt that we weren't getting the good US programs anymore. It seemed that every Canadian show was just a poor recreation of an American show. However when I was visiting my Mother over the summer, I could barely watch the Food Network. It was all stupid shows for the most part. It used to be that if nothing was on, on another station I could always just watch FN, it's not the case any more. While FN Canada has gotten better, it still is horrible at times (Cristine Cushing, just isn't the same as Cooking Live, with Sara Molten used to be). Plus, while they do import some good American shows like Good Eats or Everyday Italian, in Little-Big-Heads Kitchen we also get all the unwrapped crap, and that Bobby Rivers guy (honestly how did he get a show?). That's just not the type of show I want to see. FN Canada also used to have really good food documentaries (such as the Road to the Boccuse D'or), but they seem to be shying away from that. I want my food porn back! I think the worst example from the Bobby Rivers Top 5 show was "Top 5 things that taste like Chicken" Guess what #1 was......Chicken! Fascinating

Wow! That looks awesome. I hate being a starving student. All I can do now is look and drool, which is much easier, now that I know what everything is. So did you get all these dishes, or were some given to one and not the other, and some shared? Because it looks like a lot of food.

Just a heads up that AB is going to be on CBC's The Round-up today at 2pm More info here Oh and that's CBC radio one

I got a bit bored tonight so I decided to make the Beef Bourguignon recipe. I was going to make it tomorrow, but since Tony said it tastes better the next day I thought I'd give it a shot. I was a little worried at first because it smelt too much like wine, but after a few hours it mellowed a bit. I gave it a taste as it was cooling, and I have to say it tastes amazing. I included some of the Demi I made using the recipe in the book, and I'm not sure how much it helped, but if it tastes this good today, I can't wait till tomorrow. If I thought I would have extra, I'd be eating a bowl now. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Not quite sure if I'm going to serve it with Tator Tots though....I do have some in the freezer, so it is a possibility.

Cook's is OK, but not great. Definitely the best in Kingston. The guy is really nice, and super helpful, but they just don't have the selection.

I've used Jordash as well, and been pretty happy with the both quality and price. It's a tad sketchy looking on the outside though.

My vote is for Alex Farm as well. They even deliver. They have incredible Swiss chesses, and I got this triple cream Pierre-Robert cheese there awhile ago, that was just awesome. Every time I'm in T.O. I'll go there and stock up, since the cheese selection in Kingston kind of sucks.