Blether

Sounds more like karaage: a wet marinade followed by a flour (or flour & cornflour) dredge. It gets especially bulletproof when they fry the hell out of it and it'd dry and overcooked.

FeChef - I'm consistently guilty of being terse, but vague ? Let me write it again more clearly: - you have a problem - what I think is: - it's the drying that's causing it Don't dry the chicken. If you think the brine will make it too salty, rinse it off. But don't dry the chicken. Your breading is falling off, right ? Not your seasoned flour. If the seasoned flour fell off by itself, you'd have egg-coated chicken. Whether you're breading with flour, crumb, crushed cornflake or broken spaghetti, you need to get the egg layer to stick to the chicken. You do that with flour. How you get the flour to stick to the chicken, is you make sure the chicken's wet. Use milk if it makes you feel better. They say "pat dry". How dry do they mean ? They say "light dusting". How light is light ? Dredge your wet chicken in as much flour as will stick to it. That's my advice.

I think it's the drying that's causing your problem.

If there's enough skin, you can turn it into pretty good gloves.

Breading ? - don't rest till the coating's complete - "a light dusting" ? Use as much flour as you need to coat completely - too much is better than not enough. I like to put the pieces in a big-enough plastic bag with a bunch of flour, and give everything a good shaking up - then egg - then crumbs. Drop each piece into the bowl of crumbs, heap crumbs over, pick the whole thing up, squeeze, then turn the piece from hand to hand to let the excess crumbs drop back

It doesn't sound right because on the one hand, I know you've put a lot of time into your knowledge of food - it was meant as a compliment - and on the other because even if you hadn't, everyone has the simple ability to say "I like this" or "I don't like this". Having the practised skill to create ghee with one flavour or another is a quite different subject :-) ETA: as for your experience of ghee from the market - I believe there are products - even Indian brands - on the market that call themselves ghee but contain no ingredients that came from a cow.

That doesn't sound right.

Hi Patrick, hey, Scott, and hello, pbear ! I haven't had the chance IRL to compare Gautam's genuine ghee vs clarified butter, but IIRC he was emphatic about how different the taste is. Scott, how about you ?

The purists (qv extensive discussion in past threads) will tell you that unless you start with cultured butter (effectively butter from full-fat yoghurt), you're not making ghee. There again I enjoy making clarified-butter-that-I-think-if-as-ghee for Indian dishes, because it tastes good and it's close to tradition. Scott, sure, but in a forum that's rife with elaborate combinations of technique, molecular gastronomy, hours-for-a-dish recipes and extensive discard - huh ? Constructively, one use I've found for them golden-fried milk solids is indeed to just eat them. But there must be more...

It's good for getting the barbecue going.

Great stuff, PC !

An hour in water and the potato will soak up its fill of water and get noticeably stiff. Have you noticed a difference between chips you've soaked, and chips you've just rinsed the starch off, David ?

Yes, Chris, congratulations on a job well done, thanks for the unfailing personal touch that you gave it, and enjoy your well-earned rest.

Looking good, Patrick

I just watched the "Scotland" episode of this series (following the link, Sockshare / continue as free user works for me) and was bowled over by how good it is: superb dishes made with style, from simple ingredients and sans fancy equipment. That, and it's hard to dislike old Jamie.

Umm, make your usual creamed soup, then reduce it to half the volume ?

I'm putting my faith in butter & bacon

We've talked about tuna varieties a few times - here for example, and that link'll get you to Fishbase too, if you've not been there before. The Japanese Wikipedia notes that it's made from "katsuo of the saba species, i.e. the mackerel family. Sorry I can't help with sources. There's a nice picture sequence here.

Is it Panch Phoron (various spellings), the Bengali standard five-spice ?

I bet he uses Cook's Thesaurus.

I found myself in Oakland last month. Amongst other good dining experiences, I was lucky enough to be shown District early in my week, and to be staying within walking distance (it's on 9th, a block west of Broadway). The staff told me it's only been open a couple of months, and it's a branch of the original District in SF (near the ballpark ?). It's a big space with a horseshoe bar, and sofa seating round the rest of the room, nice for just drinks or for some relaxed eating. I thought the it really worth writing up here on eG (and this looks like the most active Oakland thread !). I brought back a copy of their menu, wondering if it'd be OK to post it up - to find they have it on their own web site already - Food WineStand-outs for me - - the Moroccan spiced lamb meatballs are excellent, the flavours very well balanced - the cheeses - a wonderful selection - are in great condition and served exactly right - the wild mushroom pizza ('pizzetta'), perfectly cooked and with a beautifully-judged hint of rosemary in the crust - the all-available-by-the-glass wine list. (The Unti Zinfandel especially kept me coming back) - lastly, the Point Reyes oysters are superb, and you don't have to queue in the sun for more than half an hour like you do at Point Reyes, on the weekend ! $1 oyster happy hour ?! The charcuterie is perfectly good - only the "rillettes" are a smooth, unctuous mousse, not unctuously fibrous as I expected, and the pate de campagne veers more toward jellied and block-like and away from fat and crumbly than I'm used to. Overall, I was disappointed only that I didn't have the opportunity to eat my way through the whole menu.

I think Nayan is right. There are plenty of flaws in this example of hot water crust, but it must be your best bet for building out of real pastry. If you leave off the egg wash, you'll get a look like that of the scotch pies in the last photo. The pie with the straightest sides was cooked with a band of folded baking parchment round it, secured with metal clips. You could use a straight-sided, upturned metal cake tin with the pastry formed on the outside of it, and a band of paper round the whole thing. The paper doesn't have to reach right to the edges.

Wow ! Plaudits due to everyone posting here, I think. It was always something called 'rusk' that went into British sausages - not cornmeal, I don't think. Cornmeal and other maize products seem very American to a Brit (in general, I mean, not absolutely). Scotty - and putting the rosemary in the potatoes lets the diner vary the flavours with the meat just the same way, doesn't it ? Nice.

Nice. That relief one, in the two colour layers, is particularly pretty.

Thanks I'm generally kind of wary of herbs, but I made the soup to taste very simply of its ingredients - pressure-cooker chicken stock, sweated onion, tomatoes (and some brown-sauteed tomato paste), a very few lentils and the cream, salt & pepper. Now I can have it with oregano today, chives tomorrow, thyme another day; or toss in some fried garlic or a tadka of spices or some grated onion or... In the background it's the prosciutto (parma ham) on a single slice of buttered bread.