Grub

Carlovski, I see. I did eventually realize that more than one culture was involved, culinary speaking, once I realized what "Halal" was -- and that some of the kebabs, like doner, was more of a Greek or Turkish origin, than Indian... Seekh kebab was my favorite (at "Abduhl's Takeaway"), and a large would consist of three skewers worth of meat served in a nan, whereas a small one would be two skewers, served in a pita bread. There was a restaurant named Punjabi-something, that I liked a lot and we visited quite a lot, and it was unusual in that they didn't serve alcohol (rather important for us student), but the food was good enough to forget about that... I like potatoes quite a lot, so even if it isn't authentic, I'd be happy to include it -- but it would seem a little redundant, if I serve the dish over rice, though? waaza, oh no, I never thought your post was critical in nature -- it was very constructive and helpful -- just the kind of response I was hoping for. I've been longing for good Indian food for a long time, and several of my friends love it too, so I'm very glad to find some good suggestions. I completely agree with the line of thinking about quality, rather than purity, although I will probably always remain open to approaching cooking both from the perspective of "British" curries, as well as the more authentic styles. Coconut south, yogurt north -- now that's interesting, and useful information! I'll have a look around for Xacuti/Shacuti/Chacooti. Potatoes, I like a lot, but I could go either way -- it seems sort of redundant to add potatoes to the dish, if it is served over rice, so I guess I'll leave them out for now. Re. the recipe: - Most recipes I've seen only adds garam masala at the end of the cooking process, which gave me the impression that cooking garam masala for any length of time would make its flavors dissipate. Should I add it at the end, or include it in the marinade? - I've tried adding fenugreek seeds, but found that it had little or no impact on the overall flavor -- but that fenugreek leaves added a lot (although this was specifically suggested for British curries) -- would adding fenugreek leaves at the end be acceptable, instead of fenugreek seeds? - I've only ever used star anise once, and it was so exceptionally strong; it completely overpowered and ruined the dish. Would it be okay to just take a tiny portion of a star anise, rather than a whole one? On roasting the whole spices, okay, I'll definitely do that. One part of the Betty Crocker book that I still trust, is the description of spices, and it says spices can have several quite different flavors, depending on whether they are used whole, ground, roasted whole, roasted whole and the ground etc. and I find cumin particularly overwhelming when ground, so roasting it first (along with coriander) should be very interesting. And I won't dry the onions, but make sure to cook them immediately after dicing them up, check. And the bhuna stage, I'll make a note to pay attention to this especially. It'll probably be at least a week before I do this vindaloo again, but I'll definitely report back here -- with pictures. Thanks again! CharityCase, wow, that DOES seem like an extremely easy versions -- extremely minimalistic, as far as the spices go. I've read through Monica's excellent course, and have jotted down several of her recipes that I'd love to try. Right now, I think I'll go along the route of what I've got so far in this thread, with the help of waaza, but I'm sure I'll get around to trying this recipe eventually! Thanks.

Carrot curry soup! Years ago, an excellent, casual restaurant served a turkey curry soup that I absolutely loved. I went there for this dish alone, although they had lots of good stuff. Service was always excellent, but the place didn't seem to attract the crowds -- I think they were too non-descript, and didn't have an "angle." No one were willing to just check it out, to find the superb stuff inside. After it closed, this nightmarish chain thing called "The Elephant Bar" opened up there and brought in hordes of shopping mall families who just loved the whole Plastic Safari experience (and would let their own little wild animals roam freely, of course). So no more turkey curry soup for me... But seeing as I got stuck with heaps and heaps of carrots, I had to do something with 'em... This was completely winged. I chopped up an onion, some celery sticks and lots of carrots and threw em in a pot, let it stew for a while, added some chopped potatoes, let it stew some more. Then some water, and let it simmer for an hour or so -- covered. Added ground white peppercorns, cayenne, salt and mild yellow curry powder, and blended it with a hand-held. The flavor was too instense, so I added water. This made it too thin, so I added more taters, let it simmer for half an hour and blended again. Adjusted with some Worchestershire sauce and butter, and served with some whisked, plain, non-fat yogurt, and a slice of toasted french bread. Very nice for a cold, rainy day.

touaregsand, thanks! Yeah, I think legs and thighs would probably be better than just plain chicken breasts, but seeing the above advice, I think I'll make this with pork the next time. waaza, those are great suggestions; thank you so much for taking the time to do this! I'll definitely follow your advice the next time around. (I do know that "British Indian" food isn't the "real deal," any more than Indian food served in American restaurants is (or for that sake, Mexican or Chinese foods served in the US -- or anywhere else in the world, outside India, Mexico or China, respectively). I would very much like to learn how to create authentic Indian food, yet at the same time I wouldn't turn my nose down at the "so-called" Indian food of Britain. It doesn't matter if the food is "so-called" or authentic to me -- if I can learn how to cook either, the most important thing to me is to create a tasty meal.) Your suggests are very inspiring. I agree completely with what you say, about "Does it instill confidence" -- absolutely not. And as far as the cookbook also adding coconut milk and yogurt to the vindaloo -- yeah I guess this thing isn't anywhere near as authentic as I thought it was. One question though -- I've seen vindaloos with potatoes a lot of the time. Is that authentic? Well, I'll probably have to wait a little while, since I've done three vindaloos in the last couple of weeks, but once I have another go, this is what I'll go for -- see if you think it makes sense... - 1 lb pork cut into bite-sized pieces, and marinated overnight in: - 1 tbsp ground coriander seeds. - 1/2 tsp ground turmeric. - 1/2 tsp ground cumin seeds. - garlic. - ginger. - 1/4 cup vinegar. - 4 crushed dried red chilies (no cayenne needed). - 1 tbsp oil. (Should I mix this together in a blender, to form a paste?) 1. Finely chop 2 med yellow onions, squeeze out moisture (dry w/ paper towels) 2. Cook over medium heat until golden, 15-20 minutes. 3. Remove meat from marinade (scrape marinade off as much as possible). 4. Cook meat until browned. 5. Reduce heat to low, add marinade, 1/4 cup water, cook until dry. 6. Add 3/4 cup tomato sauce, simmer until done. Oh yeah, and I'll use a metal spoon the next time around. Thanks for excellent advice!

noambenami, thank you! Reading it now, it seems quite logical, considering the nature of the food...

This is a fascinating thread... Behemoth, eating with your mouth closed seems sensible, just because looking at someone's mouth full of half-chewed food is unappealing -- and speaking with your mouth full of food, you risk spraying the table and fellow diners with it, so the "eating like a rabbit" comment sounds completely strange to me. What would the practical, and/or social reasons be, for eating with an open mouth? I grew up eating the "French" way -- except everyone in my family were left-handed, so I ate left-handed too, in spite of being right-handed. When I discovered this, around age 15 or so, I switched to eating right-handed, but there are still things I can only do left-handed, such as pealing a hot potato. In spite of this fancy-pants "French" way of eating, I learned few table manners (and the only reason we learned this "French" way was due to a snobbish rivalry between my mother and her sister). As a result, I experienced a few humble moments, when I grew up and ate with others... So, I hit the library and read up on etiquette... Etiquette can be silly, but it doesn't have to be. Basically, etiquette is just good manners, and good manners most often has a logical and practical reason for it. Sometimes, these practical reasons become outdated, and if the etiquette for dealing it still lingers on, then it can get pretty silly. I grew accustomed to crossing my knife and fork when I was done with a meal, but no one pays attention to this (or know about it) anymore, so it's really quite pointless. One "etiquette" that I dislike, is the clinking of glasses during a toast -- ESPECIALLY that everyone has to clink everyone else's glass. Just lift your freakin' glass and nod, okay -- that's a toast. You don't have go cloink! Seeing a large party leaning in on a table clonking and clinking away like "Oh, I didn't 'get' you" *cloink* WTF is this, a goddamn party game? The supposed reason for this type of toasting is that you'd pour some of your cup into the other's and vice versa, so show that neither of you have poisoned the other guy's cup -- well, you break my Waterford Powerscourt, I'll freaking poison you next time around, damnit. Sometimes people ask me about etiquette now, and I love to explain the "French" cutlery thing was because of the need to keep the knife in your right hand, because if a fight broke out at the table, it would be considered extremely uncivilized to stab someone with a fork... If you can keep a straight face, it's amazing how many will buy that explanation.

That's a tough one. Depends on a lot of things, that would need to be quantified... Does it have to be a physical invention, or could it be a conseptual one? Could an invention be considered great simply because it effected a lot of people, or could it only be considered so, if it had a significant, positive impact? Canning was a big step forward. But the distribution of produce that exists today, has made fresh produce available every day -- look at cookbooks from the 50s, and recipes all expects canned goods... Yet again, the tomatoes you get all year round in the supermarkets today, aren't anything like genuinely real fresh tomatoes -- so just like it was progress when canning came along, as it made things available that previously hadn't, produce that is available year round might lower people's expectations of "fresh" produce, just like canning did. TV shows about cooking has probably done a lot to encourage people to cook. The Internet too. Fastfood had an enormous impact, but hardly a positive one. The refridgerator clearly is a big one. Flash freezing too.

I feel like a caveman trying to ask questions about the operations of the Star Trek Enterprise here, so sorry if this is a stupid questions -- but are you saying the dishes cannot be served, if the guest is away from their seat? I'm confused by this comment about "...every time you leave the table chef needs to re-plate dishes..."

SuzySushi, that looks excellent! I looked around, and found that Tekkamaki is tuna -- but how is that term different from maguro? Is it a different type of tuna, or is it just a word that in itself means a tuna roll? I love maguro and hamachi, but have never tried to make it at home, as I've never quite dared to go ask for sushi-quality fish... I'd never try a local supermarket, but know a few seemingly upscale stores -- not specialized towards sushi, mind you... How do you go about finding the right quality? -- Tonight's dinner: Salmon with a honey, soy, crushed green peppercorn and lemon juice glaze, potatoes and asparagus, all roasted on the grill (BBQ). Along with some Hollandaise sauce from the CIA cookbook. (Hollandaise is a bit of an obsession with me, and I've tried about a dozen different ways to do it, and I think I've finally found one that I really, really like. The Escoffier method seemed really easy, and came out pretty good, but was too buttery for my taste. This version suits my tastes far better.) Oh, and maybe this won't come as any surprise to anyone, but I just learned something today... Don't let Raley's sharpen your knives. They use machines. And not very well:

Chicken Vindaloo Full description over on the Indian section

Murgh Vindaloo -- Portuguese Style Chicken, or Vinegar Chicken. From Betty Crocker's Indian Home Cooking, Recipes by Raghavan Iyer, p. 104. Any comments or suggestions are most welcome! I was introduced to Indian cooking on Rushholme's (in)famous Curry Mile when going to college in Manchester. I'd never tasted any Indian food before, and refused to eat the first curry I was served -- I thought there was something wrong with it; that the food had gone bad... But since poor students in the area ate Indian all the time, I eventually learned to enjoy it -- first through mild, spinach based dishes, but by the time I graduated, I was a veritable vindaloo-overdosing, lager-lout, and making unpleasant jokes about keeping the bogrolls in the fridge. I've (unsuccessfully) kept trying to recreate the English Indian Vindaloo, since American Indian restaurants just don't do the same thing, but I've also cooked several dishes from this excellent book, that seems more authentic Indian, than the British curry house. And since I probably couldn't cope with a fiery English Vindaloo anymore -- and since I remember thinking, when I first tasted them, that I wished there was a way to enjoy the great flavor, but without the heat, I figured I'd give this one a go. This is a fairly detailed log of how it went, along with some notes about how I diverged from the recipe. The ingredients, prepped from right to left, by the order they are used: - 1 very large red onion (recipe called for 2 medium -- I assume they meant yellow, but this is all I had); - 6 cloves garlic, 1.5" ginger both coarsely chopped (they called for a little less, and also for this to be added along with the onions, but I find that ginger and garlic loses all their flavor if cooked along, so I hold off for a bit); - 3/4 cup tomato sauce, along with 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tbsp ground coriander seeds, 1/4 tsp ground turmeric, 1.5 tsp cayenne pepper and 1/2 tsp ground cumin seeds (recipe called for 1/2 tsp cayenne, but since it isn't originally a spicy dish, I added more -- recipe also called for 1 tsp ground cumin, but since I use freshly ground cumin seeds, it turns out WAY more powerful than pre-ground cumin. I find it hard to believe that this book expects pre-ground cumin, but it just completely overpowers any dishes that I cook from it, if I use the full amount). This is all loaded up in the tomato sauce can just for convenience, so I can just dump the can afterwards, without dirtying up an extra meez thingie. - 2 chicken breasts, cut into pieces. - 1/2 cup coconut milk, 1/4 cup white wine vinegar (in the coconut milk can). - 1/4 cup yogurt. Start off with some oil at med-high heat and add 2 onions, coarsely chopped. Cook until onion gets golden brown, and add1 tbsp ginger and 5 cloves garlic -- also coarsely chopped. This goes against the recipe, which calls for all three ingredients to be added at the start -- I find the garlic and ginger flavor dissipates that way... Also, the recipe calls for a 5 min cooking time, which is less than half the time it takes for the onion to get golden brown. Nearly EVERY cooking book I've used completely underestimates the cooking time like this. Are these recipes all created in the Iron Chef kitchen, where they have monstrous wok burners that put out the equivalent of an F-16 on afterburner? 5 minutes on medium high = golden brown onions, my ass! After 5-6 minutes, I add the ginger and garlic, and let it cook for a few more minutes. Now, once the onions are "golden brown" (or I guess that they would have been, if they were yellow onions), I add 3/4 cup tomato sauce, 1 tbsp coriander seeds, 1 tsp cumin seeds, 1/4 tsp turmeric, and 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper -- all ground, bring it to a simmer, and leave it partially covered for 5 minutes. A thin film of oil is supposed to form on the surface. This is the sauce. Pop it in the blender, and return to the pan. Add 1 lb. chopped chicken breasts, and let cook for 5 minutes. Stir in 1/4 cup white vinegar and 1/2 cup coconut milk, and cook until chicken is done. (Oops, I wanted to take the picture just after I added this, but I forgot, and stirred it in before taking the picture. Doh). Finally, whisk 1/4 cup plain nonfat (or regular) yogurt until it is smooth, mix it in, and let it warm up. The yogurt and coconut milk helps smooth out the sharp, bitter taste of the vinegar. Serve with rice, and/or nan bread of your choice. I really liked the result of this recipe. It was slightly hot, but certainly nowhere NEAR the typical English Vindaloo. Most importantly, it had a truly wonderful taste, even though the vinegar taste came on a bit too strong. So next time around, I'll go easier on the vinegar -- and make sure to have some yellow onions on hand. Edit: Murgh, not Mungh -- but can't change the subject, though...

Okay, I'm curious -- why is this?

In honor of Cinco de Mayo -- Tortilla Pie, Dos Equis... Low-Fat/non-fat cheeses, lean turkey meat, light sour cream, etc., etc., etc -- but I still feel like taking a nap, just from looking at that thing. Still, it tastes absolutely fantastic (and I'm not a huge fan of Mexican/Tex-Mex food). There's just something disturbing, with a dish that looks so insanely rich and filling...

Re. "White people limes" -- that's hilarious... Re. Whole Foods, or the Hippie Mart -- you get worse dirty, holier-than-thou stares from walking around with a bag of tortillas in that place, than swearing in a church. I don't mind people checking out what I buy. Sometimes, the person at the checkout can make some really astute observations -- like deducing that I'm making, from the ingredients. One time this girl scanned some white wine, grapes, cream and sole and burst out, "Ah, Sole Veronique?" That's kind of impressive... Another time something fairly peculiar happened, though... I went to the store specifically to buy Liquid Plumr, but remembered that I was out of mayo, and also spotted some micro brew beer I'd never seen before, so I picked up a six-pack of that too. The lady at the checkout counter made this comment: "Ah, having a party?" Liquid Plumr + Mayo + beer = party? WTF? The comment sounded so off the wall that I was out in the parking lot before I got my head around it, and too late to ask her why this would equate a party... Years later, I saw this comedy, "Undercover Brother" where a black guy has to pass as white, and part of his "training" involves him learning how to walk as if he's got a stick up his backside, talk like a preppie, and to eat mayo (which is either a euphemism for something, or maybe there is a stereotypical view that black people don't like it, but white people love it -- I don't know). I kept wondering, maybe black people think that white people partying involves eating massive amounts of food slathered in mayo and clogging the toilet? Or maybe white people really DO something really awesome with Liquid Plumr and mayo -- and I just don't know about it! Maybe there's some fantastic party trick you can do with it, or make amazing drugs with it. "Yeah dude, I was flying on PCP, Liquid Plumr and mayo, next thing I was hanging naked, upside down from a spinning ceiling fan, with battery clips on my nipples, and the walls smelled like snozzberries -- it was awesome!" Ever since that comment, I've held this nagging suspicion that I might be missing out on a real killer time here.

I love salmon, and cook it any number of ways, but there's one particular recipe that I'm especially fond of just cause I arrived at it purely from my own experimentations, rather than someone else's recipes... Top a salmon fillet with a mixture of crushed coarse sea salt, crushed green peppercorns, grated ginger, and grated orange zeast. Drizzle olive oil over, and pack the mixture down with your hands. Broil for 12-13 minutes under full heat, until the top starts changing color (adjust heat down, and cooking time upwards, if the fillet is very thick). I tried different types of all these ingredients before deciding on these four... The coarse, crushed sea salt gives a nice crunch that you don't get with the fine salt. Black and white peppercorns are too strong, red/pink "peppercorns" are too mild -- green (dry ones, not in oil) are just perfect. Lemon and lime zest both have nice flavors, but they just don't match the salmon and the ginger as perfectly as the orange zest. I've tried additional ingredients, and to remove any of these four, but not been able to find anything that truly improves this -- although the next time I make this, I plan to add a small amount of grated parmesan, perhaps halfway through the cooking process...

The knife-fork-spoon falling on the ground superstition exists in Norway too (obviously, not everywhere, nor amongst everybody), but I can't remember which utensil stands for what kinda visitor -- man, woman and child... There is also an odd Christmas tradition in Norway (not exactly a superstition, but kinda neat so I figured it was worth mentioning) that if you cracked open a hazelnut (traditional Christmas fare) and found two nuts inside, you would eat one yourself, and give the other one to someone else. Next day, whoever could first remember this would yell "filipine!" at the other person, who would then be required to give them a present... This "filipine"-bet would be made between adults and children, as an excuse to give kids an extra present for Christmas, so adults would only be too happy to lose the bet, but you'd occasionally have some rather dimwitted kids who'd make the bet with another kid, and there'd be a lot of grief and bitterness over a lost philine bet

Awesome grilled pizza, rooftop! I feel inspired to have another go at it after seeing this (my own attempt was a little less successful, heheh). Good idea, kneading spices into the dough, btw -- I gotta try that. Always wanted to try a curry pizza. I'm curious about Chufi's question also... Does leaving the dough in the fridge overnight create a more "fluffy" result, for a chewable pie? Or does it do something else?

Thanks for the uplifting comments on my Salmon Wellington tale/epic/story/disaster I have done this dish several times before, and always did it in the oven (and it came out really nicely -- except for one time when I had a really large piece of salmon, and had to use several puff pastry sheets to cover it, and had a lot of problems closing the "seams" up properly). This was a bit of an experiment -- and although it didn't turn out as I hoped it would, there are no failed experiments -- even if you fail, you still learn something from it, I think... The creamed spinach was just of a pre-made, frozen kind, I'm afraid -- nothing very fancy there...

Maybe "exciting" isn't the right word -- weird, bizarre, or revolting would do, I'm sure. I actually like Brussels sprouts... But "Spicy Dill Pickled," "Gourmet 'Atomic,'" "Extra Hot" Brussel Sprouts -- now, that I don't know about -- even if they are Fat Free.

Salmon Wellington Any advice or comments are welcome, BTW... I've never felt tempted to make Beef Wellington, but I came across this very simple dish on the web: salmon fillet, topped with creamy spinach, wrapped in puff pastry -- baked in the oven. This dish is both easy to make, and looks great. With the crispy, golden dough, you don't need to add any starchy vegetables like potatoes or rice, so I tend to go with just some asparagus and Hollandaise sauce. First off, I debone and skin the fillet. The bones are easy enough to deal with, but skinning is tad harder (but not as hard as getting someone at the supermarket to do it for you; see note at end*). I ended up just picking the sharpest knife, rather than the fillet knife here, in case you're wondering. Getting the fillet knife sharpened asap. I'm not too good at this, but it's actually one of the best attempts I've managed yet... Then, you arrange the fillet on the puff pastry. Note: Don't thaw the puff pastry out until you need it -- I left mine in the fridge for a couple of days, and it got sticky and hard to handle... Make sure to fold the tail of the filet up, so you get a fairly uniform piece, as this will cook more evenly -- I've also folded the top right part of the filet in, where it is widest. The fact that it is folded like this will not be apparent once it is wrapped in dough. The original recipe calls for serving-size fillets to be wrapped individually, but I find it less time consuming to just do a single, big fillet. It looks pretty neat too. Season with salt and pepper -- I used white pepper since I had some left over from the Hollandaise sauce. Add the creamy spinach, and brush everything with egg wash. The various recipes I've come across use a lot of different things, that possibly might be more in line with Beef Wellington, but I've yet to see anything that appealed to me more than creamy spinach. If it's good enough for Popeye, it's good enough fer me. (*toot* *toot* !) I do drain the spinach fairly well, but the remaining liquid helps keep the fillet nice and moist. Finally, fold it up. I like to crush the edge with a fork, and then fold it back. However, if there's a lot of extra dough, you should cut it off, since large chunks of dough isn't very nice. Oh yeah, don't forget to brush the whole thing with egg-wash, so you get that crisp, golden skin. Then, it's time to cook the thing. Normally, I do this in an oven around 350 for about 20 minutes, and up it to 400 for an extra 10, to make sure I get a crispy, golden crust. It all depends on how thick the fillet is, of course. However, in this case, I'm doing it on the grill -- you can do anything on the grill, right? Besides, it's summer time so no need to heat up the kitchen. I'm using medium load of coals here, placed all the way to one side of the grill, to give me some maneuvering-room, in order to control the temperature. I figured I'd leave it directly over the coals, to get some nice grill-marks, and then I'd move it over to the other side. (There's tinfoil-wrapped corn-on-the-cob on the sides).. Looking good -- but not fer long... (The only drawback about doing this on the grill rather than in the oven, is that the latter is pretty much "set-it-and-forget-it," whereas the grill requires a bit more supervision. It's a good excuse to enjoy the sun and a brewskie, mind you (besides, the last couple of times the neighbor strolled by and asked what I was grilling, I was doing chicken wings and hotdogs -- Salmon Wellington would be much more impressive. I gotta quit watching "Keeping Up Appearances")). Ah crap... I'm a really smart cook, so I know to let the grill heat up properly, and oil it, to ensure things don't stick to it -- but on the other hand, I'm an idiot cook, and didn't realize that slapping egg-wash-covered, wet puff pastry on a grill is gonna stick, no matter what I did to the grill... Oh uh. I'm thinking, this should not be done on a BBQ at all, or perhaps it might work better, if I had started it off AWAY from the coals, rather than directly over it. I could have put it on tinfoil, but that would kind of have defeated the whole BBQ thing, I think? Notice how I've got nice brownage going on the edge, whereas other parts just look completely uncooked. Man, this looks just downright depressing. Salmon and spinach shows through, and the whole thing looks like a half-cooked experiment from KFC that got run over in the drive-through. Well, I served it up anyhow, and it actually tasted okay. I had hoped for the beautiful, golden, crisp look that I get from the oven -- but with some spiffy grillmarks, and lovely coal BBQ flavor, rather than this ratty Salmon Roadkill effect, but oh well. You live and learn, I guess. * I can understand that the average supermarket might not be able to afford the kind of sky-high salaries that surely are demanded by those capable of such astounding culinary ninja feats as skinning a damn fillet of fish, but I somehow thought that this uh, "Wholesome foods" Market thing was a little bit more upscale -- ah, yeah, uh, nope. I asked the guy to debone and skin it; dude replied that while he could debone it, it would be an utter impossibility to skin it. When I got home, the jackass hadn't even deboned it. Bastard. Maybe I'm just getting irked by how the place is completely infected by vacuous yuppies buying pre-made lobster bisque, and neurotic hippies fondling the latest herbal Feng-Shui crappola over in the Transcendental Metaphysical Ginseng-aisle. Damn hippies.

I think I've only been to two all-out, highfalutin, fancy-pants gourmet joints. One was Halve maan (Half moon) in Amsterdam, Holland -- it was very good, but nothing that struck me as any more memorable than what I've eaten in more "ordinary" restaurants -- that is, until someone asked the waiter for some advice on the desserts, and the guy just simply shrugged his shoulders... The other place had a star in the Michelin guide -- D'Artagnan in Oslo, Norway. Six hour meal with sorbet palate-cleansers, wines, port, cognac, and I don't know what -- rounded up with Cuban cigars. Really impressive. Except, I thought the lamb dish I got was absolute crap... I would have put that down as my own ignorance of really snobby dining, but someone else had the same dish, and shared my opinion. These were business dinners, so thankfully I didn't have to pay for them -- if I had, I'd probably require trauma counseling or something... Overpriced nonsense.

I find it pretty hard to think of anything positive to say, except possibly, that In 'n Out supposedly treats their employees much better than most fast-food chains do... There, that's something... Oh and something that MAY be an urban legend -- if anyone can confirm or deny this one, I'd love to hear it: Supposedly, when KFC came out with their Extra Crispy recipe, it was a failure. So, they increased the pricing -- just by a nickel or something or something like that. This gave customers the impression that Extra Crispy was a premium product, and who wouldn't want a premium product, for just a few pennies, right? So Extra Crispy took off in a huge way -- and eventually, they changed the price back to the same as Original Recipe... If this is true, I think that's pretty clever... Finally, I guess it is admirable, in a twisted capitalistic sense, that the industry can make lots of money selling junk, har dy har...

Wow, that looks magnificent! How about supplying the recipes for the marinade too?

Thanks, dude! The rack came from http://www.sportsmansguide.com -- but they don't seem to carry this exact model at the moment, though...

Does anyone have a recipe for "Pain L'ancienne?" I keep seeing this bread recipe's name, but I can't seem to find the actual ingredient list...

Beer Can Chicken BCC is a fail-safe crowd-pleaser. Rub your favorite spice mixture on a whole chicken, shove a can of beer up its butt, and cook it real slow -- over indirect heat. Such prolonged grilling would normally dry it out, but the can ensures that it stays very moist. There are two things to note right up front -- first, you can obviously use any type of can... But perhaps less obvious, you don't necessarily have to fill the can with beer -- water will keep it moist just fine. Unless you use a very bland spice rub, the end result is so full of flavor that it makes little difference whether you use water or Guinness. The second thing to note, is that the saltiness of the rub seems to intensify during the cooking process. So don't use an overly salty spice rub. Here's some very useful hardware. BBC is a minimalistic recipe, but if you cook it often enough, this little baby is a real lifesaver. No more messing around, trying to balance the bird on a beer can, over hot coals. Um, some additional hardware... But seriously, the welding gloves are extremely useful. You can rearrange hot coals with those babies. Ready to roll. Notice that the BCC-rack allows us to cook the bird on the lower grill, where the coals are. If the bird was placed on the top grill, the bottom would get much more heat than the top. There are soaked smoking chips over the coals. And there are cold, "fresh" coals on top of the hot ones, which means we don't have to add coals during the cooking process. Put the lid on, and let 'er rip. Err, smoke. But do regulate the air-flow -- you don't want TOO much smoke. Of course, some recipes says to add the smoke chips towards the end of the cooking process, but this creates very little smoke flavor at all... Two hours later... Intensely flavorful, crispy skin -- but juicy and moist like a sponge. Make sure your grill has a bottom pan to catch the fat that renders off. Here's the bad boy in all its glory. The only thing I can possibly think of, to improve this, would be to tie the wingtips in, as they get fairly crispy... But I'm not sure how butcher's twine would stand up to the heat, though. Oh yeah -- make sure you oil the BBC rack thingie and can, or just spray it with "Pam." This doesn't just facilitate cleanup -- it makes it a whole lot easier to remove the chicken. Super-moist, fall-apart tender, insanely flavorful, Beer Can Chicken!