Chris Amirault

I have had absolutely successful experiences with every recipe in Saveur Cooks Authentic French, including an amazing daube that I made last week.

I'd go lighter on the salt if it's 24 hours -- especially if you've brined it -- so 1/4 tsp?

I think we'll be packing some lotus leaf rice packs from our last dim sum visit, left over "midnight tagliatelle" from Al Forno (our celebration meal last night), some aged goat cheese with crackers, fruit, Diet Coke (that's for me), and a few other things. Thanks for all the suggestions. During the day Thursday, feel free to send positive thoughts Providence-way!!

Thanks, everyone! Andrea's scheduled to be induced on Thursday, so we'll keep all of your ideas in mind. Methinks that Andrea will have one of the "get that food away from me" labors, but we'll see. Soon thereafter, perhaps we'll be speculating on possible foods to sneak into a newborn's breast milk diet. Can't get her started too early, you know!

Holy cow. This is going great gangbusters! I'm glad that there's a lot of action, since I'm about to go on a brief eGullet hiatus while Andrea brings our daughter Bebe into the world of oral (as opposed to umbilical) pleasures. Induction's set for Thursday, so it might be a week before you hear from me. I'm wonderin' whether crispy fried chicken skin is a good supplement to breast milk for a newborn...!

But that is fried chicken! Make it! Oooh! Please!

Jinmyo's (above) uses panko and corn meal -- fusion fried chicken!

No way you're gettin' kicked off, Patti. I will defend your right to make chicken tenders for your child! And then I'll share my own tasty recipe!

That's because it is. As it also is the duty of anyone from the midwest, Chicago, and just about anywhere else. Report to duty, y'all!

Fascinating thread. Two thoughts: I like meat medium rare, fish just barely cooked, and vegetables done however the thing ought to be done. But what I mostly want is for the chef to prepare the thing the way she wants it prepared. I have found that answering the question, "How do you want it done?" with "As the chef prefers," has lead every single time to a properly prepared piece of meat. Might it be true, oh professional chefs on this thread, that such a request is met with appreciation from the kitchen? Or am I kiddin' myself? (I also buy beer for the back regularly. Really! I do!!) While I'm glad to put my venison in the chef's able hands, there is one item about which I have a set spiel concerning doneness. Here is what I say whenever I want toast: "I'd like white toast cooked dark. I don't mean beige dark; I mean dark brown dark. You can't toast it too dark. I won't send it back. I promise." I think that this is the only way to get toast toasted -- at least in the joints I frequent!

Two more: Gourmet Cookbook and the new McGee On Food and Cooking, which should be required reading for eGullet. What an amazing book!

That seals the deal for me! Who knows what the secret is about, but if Aunt Minnie has shared it with Fifi, then I want it! Next up as eGullet Recipe Cook-Off V: fried chicken, bay-bee!! (Linda, do you really have an Aunt Minnie? Or is this just keen electioneering? Either way, it worked! )

Every now and then since December 2004, a good number of us have been getting together at the eGullet Recipe Cook-Off. Click here for the Cook-Off index. For our fifth Cook-Off, we're moving away from gumbos, curries, and other stews (sorry, Jason, mole poblano is on the way, as is tagine, Smithy!) and, thanks to a substantial campaign, we'll be firing up the stove for fried chicken. Like gumbo, fried chicken inspires some heated debates, so we'll likely have quite a few different approaches. Bring 'em on! I'll start with a confession. Though I have figured out a fool-proof fried chicken recipe that I'll post soon, that recipe was borne not only out of convenience and family preference but also out of shame and failure. Yes, my recipe is for deep-fried chunks of skinless, boneless breast meat chicken (don't you dare call them nuggets!). I fry chicken in this manner both because we like it that way and because I have yet to figure out how to cook whole pieces of chicken to crunchy, juicy perfection. However, if I could bring one food to a desert island, it may well be fried chicken skin from a breast or thigh that's just been pulled out of the oil (I guess I'd need a Fry Baby, too, huh?). So I'm ready to come clean about my fried chicken problem and begin my reeducation pronto. Incredibly important matters to consider include: -- skillet or deep frying: Check out the debate on this thread. There are also some tips on pan frying here. -- coatings: Do you soak? Dredge? Batter? Nothin'? -- fat: What works? What doesn't? Do you have any consideration whatsoever for your arterial health, or are you a bacon fat and crisco kind of gal or guy? -- seasonings: Salt 'n' pepper purist? Lots of cayenne? A secret blend of herbs and spices, Colonel? -- regional affiliation: Where's your receipt from, exactly? -- accompaniments: Here's a consideration of "healthy" sides. (Stop sniggering.) And, last but certainly not least, Jinmyo's "perfect" fried chicken: the debate. So get our your cast iron skillets or deep fryers, digital cameras, grease splatter screens, a bird or two, flour, buttermilk, and way, way more fat, grease, and/or oil than you should consume in a month -- and start fryin'!

You folks are great! Thanks for lots of swell ideas. (Andrea agrees, though at the moment she's back to sleep after waking both of us up -- it's 5 am!) I think I need to have a courier on-call to get dim sum from a place about 15 minutes away from the hospital. I love my partner and don't want her first post-birth meal to be cold char siu bao, eh? Pain au chocolat, a BLT, and a few other things here would probably travel even better.

Yeesh! Lots of feelings are being expressed, as I used to say as a counselor. I have lots of opinions, most of which have been expressed. BUT I have a great story that I want to share on this subject. Twenty years ago, I ordered salt and pepper squid at a Boston Chinatown restaurant, and it arrived utterly cold. I mean, frigid, friends. I pointed this out to the waiter, who brought the owner/chef. The following exchange transpired: Me: "Hi, my squid is cold." Chef: "No, it's not." Me [Perplexed]: "Hmm, uhm, well, yes, it is." Chef: "No, that's simply impossible." Me: [Holding up a ring of chilly squid with chopsticks] "Actually, sir, it's very cold." Chef [inserting a finger into the center of the squid ring, looking perturbed]: "No, see? It's warm. You're wrong." [Walks away brusquely] I was left astonished, holding the now-fingered squid ring aloft.

Ok, eGulleteers, wrap your collective brains around this one. My partner Andrea is fast approaching active labor, and we've packed up her labor bag with many things, but no food. In fact, we're at a loss as to what we should be preparing for labor. Conventional wisdom is that you don't want to be eating anything with much bulk, so clear liquids, juices, and hard candies (sugar is good -- energy boost) are considered the norm. Andrea's omnivorous and would appreciate just about anything; of course, once active labor starts, all bets are off anyway, so a selection is needed. Ideas? Suggestions? Feel free to suggest things that need cooking or freezing. Thanks in advance -- I might not have time to be so polite later! edited to clarify a couple of things -- ca

This is one of the things that I love about eGullet: Wendy calls this a "casual dinner"! You go! After a crazy week (four 12-hour days, meetings every evening, Andrea starting contractions in her 38th week of pregnancy), I finally got a chance to cook tonight, and I made an old stand-by: scallops coated with kosher salt and cracked white pepper cooked in scaldingly hot brown butter over very high heat until brown, placed on mesclun, minced shallots and the fond cooked up with a bit of lemon sprinkled on the scallops, squeeze of lemon, spash of EVOO, bread, cheap chardonnay (Yellow Tail -- gift from a guest), baguette. Heaven in fifteen minutes tops.

Another great saga unfolds on eGullet! Thanks for the photos; I join the others who await the photos. (The drawings are tough for me to read, I'm afraid.) I'm also intrigued by your Wolf -- lots of folks seem to install those without the proper precautions for heat intensity and ventilation, so I'm eager to learn what you did. edited to add: Where in Park Slope? In the late 1980s I lived on 4th St just off 7th Ave, so I hadda ask.

Not much action here lately, so.... Shall we move on to the next cookoff? Past suggestions have included paella and pho. Smithy is making the case for a tagine, which I would certainly support. One thing to consider, based on PMs I've received: let's remember our wrist-tiring rouxing and bhunoing and find something that doesn't require stirring at the stove for 30, 40, 50, or 60 minutes!!

What a fantastic thread! I live in Providence RI where we're lucky to have many Vietnamese restaurants and shops. Now I have a much better idea what to order and buy! As for that dish, I'm guessing cucumber, yes?

OK, I'll bite: what's the lots of garlic for, pray tell?

Makes sense. I'm trying to figure out the bacon/orange thing, which seems jumbled in me head; I can't figure how to make that work in my mouth. I wish I had a decent orange around here.... I agree: I think that it is precisely these sorts of fascinating combinations that make for remarkable dining. Or for spectacular bombs (not bombes). Thanks for sharing!

Fascinating, John. Can you say more about the sweetness? (Having had breakfast at a local diner, I had lots of recent examples of syrup-dripping bacon floating around my head as I read that.) I can't tell if it was a play on an English-style savoury ending, or a sweet, or both (bacon 'n' syrup).

Great stuff, Andiesenji. I bow down to your mill! Yep. John Thorne devotes a great many pages to this marvel in his Simple Cooking.

Great point, Varmint. I work in early childhood education, and cooking is one of the great ways to teach fine motor development, especially "sensory integration," or the process by which all of your different senses start to work together in parallel. Squeezing, cutting, sifting, measuring, pouring -- these are all incredibly powerful means to help children grow.