tino27

@lisa: You make an excellent point about frozen vs. fresh meat. Even if the meat was never frozen from processor to the distributor to the supermarket, the minute it makes its way to my grandmother's condo, she immediately freezes it until needed. That being said, when I pick the meat up from the grocery store and use it that day, I still notice the loss of juice, so I surmise that it was probably frozen at some point and then defrosted before being placed for sale out in the refrigerated bins. This alone is probably the biggest culprit in losing juice. For the purposes of chicken breast, I do exactly as you suggest. I pull it when the internal temp is 160 deg Fahrenheit, knowing it will reach 165 during the covered resting period. Obviously, pork and beef are cooked to lower temperatures (although grandma is from an era where pork was cooked well done, not medium as is the trend today, so I usually cook pork to 145 or so).

@HungryC: That's a great suggestion and actually the last time I did chicken, I poached it in order to make a "chicken pot pie" without the pie crust (I subbed in spaetzle for the starch). That being said, I think both of us really enjoy the flavor compounds created from searing the meat (plus that gives me some nice fond to build a pan sauce off of).

That's a good idea. I'll have to check the packaging next time, but I'm pretty sure that the supermarket chicken breasts and I'm almost positive that the pork chops have already been injected with a saline solution prior to packaging. I'm not sure if additional brining would help. Perhaps next time I'll try it, just to see if that makes a difference or not.

We're talking average supermarket thickness. My grandmother had gotten in the habit of buying chicken tenders (supremes) thinking that they were the tenderest part of the chicken. I've tried (and somewhat successfully, I might add) to show her that a thicker cut of meat cooked to the proper internal temperature is actually better because it is harder to overcook it and it will generally be moister. Same goes for pork chops. She isn't buying the extra thick ones, but she stopped buying the really thin ones that are basically cooked entirely in the pan as you suggested. I'd say the sirloin steak I cooked last night was probably about 1/2 inch thick. I cooked it about 2 1/2 minutes per side in the pan and then finished it in the oven for another five minutes. It was medium rare to medium, just what I was aiming for.

I had no idea that this technique was called jaccarding. I understand why doing this would make the meat more tender (by breaking down the muscle fibers), but I'm at a loss as to why this would make the cooked protein juicier.

My grandmother has had issues with swallowing in the past, so the proteins usually involve very tender cuts (which also makes them particularly lean, too), such as chicken breasts, pork loin/chops, or sirloin beef steaks. I was under the impression that lean proteins do best with a sear over direct heat for a short period of time followed by being finished in an indirect heat (such as the oven). Thank you for the America's Test Kitchen resource. I try and catch their PBS show whenever I can.

Since my grandmother is about to turn 88 and has more or less lost the desire to cook on a regular basis, I have been going over to her condo on the weekends to make sure she has at least one homemade meal per week. While she does have a regular stovetop/oven combination, she also has a small toaster oven that I employ quite frequently to "finish" the protein. Whether it is pork, chicken, or beef (we're talking chops/breasts/steaks), my normal cooking technique involves removing the protein from the fridge about thirty minutes before I am going to cook it. I dry it off with paper towels and salt and pepper it immediately prior to placing it into a hot saute pan which I've preheated with a bit of grapeseed oil and a pat of butter. I sear it on each side for about 2-3 minutes and then transfer it to a pre-heated toaster oven pan, where I will finish it off at somewhere between 350-375 deg Fahrenheit until I get the proper internal temp for which I am looking. The two issues I have is that when I remove the tray from the toaster oven, there is accumulated juice in the bottom of the tray. I don't waste it, I will simply add it to the gravy or sauce that I've prepared to accompany the protein. I then remove the protein to a cutting board where I will tent it with aluminum foil loosely to let it rest for about five minutes. When I finally remove the foil to slice and serve it, there will inevitably be even more juice on the cutting board, even before cutting into it. My question is basically ... how do I keep all of this juice in the meat? Fortunately, because I am using an instant read thermometer to pull the protein out of the oven at the right time, the meat is never dried out, but if I can make it even juicier, I'd like to try. By the way, all proteins are generally from the regular grocery store/supermarket so I'm sure they are brined and whatnot. Thanks in advance for any tips.

Several years ago, friends and I did a Sunday night dinner + viewing of Desperate Housewives. Every Sunday we'd rotate who was hosting and that person was responsible for dinner. One friend did homemade waffles, I did roasted chicken with potatoes gratin. It came time for the third friend to host and while not expecting anything fancy, I also didn't expect to show up and find that she had simply gone through the drive-thru at Taco Bell and picked up a mega meal. While I'm not going to disparage Taco Bell, it was probably one of the most disappointing meals I've had at someone else's house. The worst meal I've had at someone else's house was the complete absence of a meal. I have friends who to this day tend to be nibblers. They put out a tray of "snicky-snacks", essentially a tray of cheese, crackers, and cured meat slices and simply nibble on that all day long in lieu of any actual meals. I learned early on that if I was planning on spending any length of time at their house to eat before I came.

My 6 Qt. KitchenAid uses the pigtail dough hook and usually the only time I have an issue is when I have to add a touch of water to a dough that is already in the mixer. I have also used the "J" dough hooks with the smaller KitchenAids and while some breads kneaded just fine, others caused the hook to simply sit on top of the dough and spin uselessly. I ended up having to knead those doughs by hand.

Make the full batch and freeze the other loaf. Most breads, when wrapped well first in plastic and then put into a freezer safe bag will freeze and thaw without much problem. You can toss the defrosted loaf into the oven at the same temperature you originally baked it at for 5-10 minutes to warm and re-crisp the crust. Just make sure that the loaf is completely cool before wrapping and freezing.

I agree with Nancy on GHT getting you your porcine quota for the day. I was with Nancy (and Edsel, too) during the last visit where we pigged out :biggrin: Here's a link to the write-up of our experience. When A Pork Chop Simply Won't Do

I want in on this. That bread that you brought to the Feast in A2 was just unfair...I haven't had its equal since. You don't do French pastries as well, do you? Thanks for the compliment. I actually baked that bread on-site last year. I started the pre-ferments in my hotel room the night before, brought them with me to Tammy's co-housing unit on Saturday morning, and baked off the bread right before everyone returned from the Saturday morning shopping at the farmers markets. As for French pastries? While I certainly love eating them, I'll leave the making of them to those with much more adept skills.

Is your mother coming, too? I miss my biggest fan. If possible, we'll both be there (but no guarantees for either of us). If she is there, don't be too great, though. She gets super annoying when she raves about you. I'll attempt to be less inspirational. Ain't gonna be easy though.

T-shirt, shmee-shirt. I'm waiting for him to go all Hulk Hogan and simply rip the chefs whites right off his torso. Now THAT would be entertaining.

Not just prick holes, but deep enough holes. I was baking some potatoes in their skin to turn into gnocchi. I always prick my potatoes with either a fork or a small paring knife. At about the time I thought the potatoes might be done, I slid my small paring knife into the center potato (of three) and determined they were done. I pulled the tray out of the oven and set them on the stovetop. The left potato was making an odd sort of whirring noise that I had never heard before. Within about fifteen seconds, I head a muted "pop" noise and looked over to discover that the top half of my potato had blown itself off and was covering walls and floor with bits of fluffy potato shrapnel. I was as surprised as anyone else. Kind of makes me wonder what would've happened had I used that particular potato to test for doneness instead of the one that I did.

Is your mother coming, too? I miss my biggest fan.

I should've been more precise in my answer. I'd be happy to put on a bread workshop, but would need a kitchen (professional or otherwise) in which to hold the class and bake the breads. Also, if we can manage to locate a space for the Saturday event that had an available kitchen in the morning (Tammy's co-housing complex was perfect for this!), I could bake the breads on location instead of having to bake them prior to my arrival on Saturday afternoon for the beginnings of our communal dinner.

Pate a choux. Before I realized that sometimes the batter needs 4 eggs and sometimes it needs five eggs, I always put the maximum number of eggs for which the recipe called. And interestingly, instead of little cabbage shaped puffs, mine came out more UFO shaped. And, then, of course, I didn't find out that once out of the oven, you needed to prick them in order to let the steam escape so that they hold their lovely shape. Too many rules.

NancyH -- I'd be happy and honored to do a bread workshop whenever it fits best into the schedule.

French dressing. It's the one holdover from my childhood that I have to get on a basic iceberg lettuce salad.

Those dates work for me!

I suspect that if she has been a food writer for fifteen years, there are probably more than a few restaurateurs and servers out there that know what she looks like. While taking her picture and posting it anywhere without her permission was inappropriate, refusing her service based on the suspicion that she MIGHT say something negative is just wrong. What's to stop this loon from refusing service to others because he didn't like their religious beliefs, political alliances, or sports team? I've not read any of Virbila's reviews (as I don't live anywhere near LA), but IMHO, her point of view is important because of her anonymity (as much as it can be guarded). I know that I personally wouldn't want to read reviews of restaurants where the reviewer is obviously getting special treatment and/or free food. I wouldn't step one foot inside Red Medicine.

I also attended this dinner with LuckyGirl. I'm not sure who first mentioned it, but the flavor of white pepper was the overwhelming spice in our dishes. That being said, there was definitely some lip numbing going on as well. Is there some other spice that could cause that level of numbness to occur? Not having had the experience of true szechuan peppercorns in a dish before, I have no other bar with which to compare it, but I also thought the numbing effect was about a 4 out of 10. I don't know if the chef held back because of our non-Asian-ness or if, as was suggested, a less grade of peppercorn was used.

Had a fairly successful dinner with my mother and my grandmother. At grandma's bequest, we didn't do the standard turkey, but a pork roast instead. I decided that in addition to the standard seasoning that I would make a glaze out of heavily reduced pomegranate juice, a little Dijon mustard and some honey. The glaze looked and tasted really good. The problem came when I went to brush it onto the pork roast while it was cooking in the oven. The glaze essentially melted and ran off of the roast and onto the pan underneath where it caramelized. I brushed every ten minutes or so, but the pork just didn't build up a beautiful caramelized crust like I had hoped. Everything tasted alright, but the glaze failure had me a bit bummed. Any thoughts on how to correct this problem for next time?

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