snowangel

Thursday, January 4, 2006 From the Star Tribune's Entertainment section: Purple People Eatery. As they say, Also of note on the main entertainment page are links to -- Restaurant of the Year. I've been once, and it was wonderful. I'm planning on hitting that place again early in February. The other great article still up on on the main page is a guide to Five Fabulous Pho Finds. Time for pho. Counter Intelligence visits Mañana Pupusería y Restaurante over in St. Paul. A very nice review. Over in the Strib's Taste section, a mother and daughter have a Dynamic Duel in the kitchen, cooking all sorts of "ethnic" recipes. There are a mess of Food Events, but I couldn't find any wine tasing events on the on-line edition. A search of the north and south supplements reveals a review of Granite City, which sounds like another restaurant to avoid. I continue to be puzzled when I navigate the recently revamped Strib web site, and wondered why they couldn't include an address for Granite City. Over at the City Pages Restaurant section, Dara doesn't do restaurants. Instead, she reviews two books -- "Vegetable Love" by Barbara Kafka, with Christopher Styler and "The Niman Ranch Cookbook" by Bill Niman and Janet Fletcher. I love Dara's subject choices. We have several great "food writers" in the Twin Cities, and I'm always glad to see Dara diverge from restaurant reivews. In the Pioneer Press's Entertainment section, Kathy Jenkins visits IN, Horsch's restaurant which looks to me like it sits at the unhip area of the intersection of 35W and E. Hennepin. In what I think is the current issue of Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine, they have updated their web site, and if you go to the Best of the Twin Cities page, and use the drop down box, you'll find their picks for some specific foods, including the likes of neighborhood wine shops, greasy burgers and ice cream cones to name a few. Minnesota Monthly features 2006 Minnesota Favorites, which includes some food stuff (not available on-line) as well as "quick bites" of Heartland Wine Bar and Kozy's (available on-line). Heartland's Wine Bar is on our February list of places to go. Last, a new issue of Mix, a bi-monthly available at local co-ops, one of the first reviews I've seen of Craftsman Restaurant & Bar since the change of chefs. <><><><><> Media Digest Notes... Updates from some Twin Cities media outlets, which do not 'go to press' by Friday each week, may be edited into each week's post as they become available. Please do not reply on this thread. For discussion of any stories which are linked here, please feel free to start a new thread or contact the forum host or the "digester" who will be happy to do it for you.

Woodburner is right. Wood chunks, not chips. Wet charcoal starts just fine if you have a chimney and a propane torch (to light not only the paper underneath, but also give a blast from up top to the charcoal. Trust me. Last time I smoked, the charcoal was wet, and the bag was frozen to the deck.

Fried Chicken This recipe comes with lots of notes. It very closely resembles what fifi has talked about with the chicken her Aunt Minnie used to fry. I still have a recipe card, written in spidery cursive, in fountain pen, that is splattered with oil droplets, from my Aunt Laura, who made this every time we came to visit. This would have been a different time and place. The chicken would have been killed and dressed the day before, and the chicken chosen by her while it was still wandering around pecking food. She would not have used tabasco; simply not available in Osceola, Nebraska back when she began frying chicken. She used the cayenne. When she moved into a nursing home, I don't know what possessed me to say to my sister "you take the cast iron pans (the ones she used to fry chicken). My sister is a vegetarian! Soak 1 small chicken* 1 quart buttermilk 4 T salt** 1 T Tabasco*** Breading 4 c Flour 2 T Salt** 1 T Ground pepper**** For frying Crisco and bacon grease, or peanut oil***** Cookie sheet Grocery bags****** *The chicken. I'd chase it around. The farm woman (Irma) would kill it, until I was old enough to do it. We'd dress it ourselves. Laura was right. It needs to be a small chicken, so it cooks well and evenly before it gets too brown. Laura's recipe specifies "fresh" buttermilk, as in from a farm. The stuff in a carton works just fine. **Salt. I use kosher, and have accomodated for such in the quantities. Laura used regular Mortans' table salt; I don't think you could get Kosher salt in Osceola's tiny market (which has closed) ***Tabasco. Her recipe calls for two "smidges" of cayenne. I know had she had access to Tabasco in the 1930's in Nebraska, she'd have chosen that. But, that tiny little market in Osceola...she was lucky to find a dusty rectangular can of cayenne. ****She used the pre-ground stuff. I use freshly and finely ground. Her cans of stuff had actual price tags on them -- and given when she purchased them (never toss anything!), they each cost like $.15. *****Laura always used a combo of bacon grease and crisco, and she used to strain it afterwards into a coffee can through a really old thread-bare flour sack dish cloth ******According to Laura, you must put the oven on low and put a mess of brown paper grocery bags on a "cookie sheet" for the chicken pieces as they are done. For the method (and now I quote Laura): Soak the cut up chicken in the buttermilk with the first salt and the cayenne (Tabasco). Put overnight or in the cellar overnight. Mix the flour, second salt and the pepper in a paper bag. Put the bacon grease and crisco into the cast iron skillet. When it is melted, stick the Taylor in and when it gets close to 350, put 1/2 of the chicken pieces -- one at a time, my dear -- into the four and lay them in the hot pan. When the pan is full, put on a lid -- you don't want the temp to drop too much, and when it looks right (peek!), turn the chicken over. You don't need to put the lid back on for the backside of the chicken. When it looks done, put on the paper bags on the cookie sheet and slide into the oven and fry the next batch. Doc (her husband) really likes the backs, so save them if you break up a chicken and don't use them. Keywords: Main Dish ( RG1555 )

One of the greatest things I ever learned on eGullet was to either cut off the end of the chicken leg or to at least sever all of the tendons and skin at the bottom of the leg. Makes it just that much more succulent. But, one of my favorite preps, riffed from Michael Field, is to brown them, remove from skillet, toss in a whole mess of whole, peeled shallots. Return chicken to pan, cover with a lid and cook over very low heat until done. Yummy, and your house will smell divine.

Time for an update on Heidi, who is now 11+. She now in middle school (6th grade). Her class has a full kitchen and laundry room. Range, oven, nuker, dishwasher, blender, etc. Three times per week, she has in-class cooking lessons. They started with opening tupperware-type containers and spooning out pudding. Lest you think that those food choppers that you push on the top and they chop (the kind advertised on late night TV; the ones that most laugh at but do have a place for those with limited abilities) have no place, let me tell you that they do. Heidi has become a pro at chopping stuff to put in her breakfast yogurt. We added some meal stuff to her IEP this year. She now carries a tray to the table in the cafeteria this year (albeit it has only an unopened milk carton on it; her aide carries the food tray), but she has only lost it once this year soo far. She is required to make her own meal choices, and it is becoming obvious that she makes the choices that she will actually eat. Since no trading of food at lunch is permitted or tolerated, she no longer is grabbing at other's food items. She is, via hand over hand, leaning how to load the dishwasher. Next year, she will have FACS (home ec to those of my age, food and consumer science to those younger) next year, and we will soon make plans for what part of this she will take. She shows a penchant for washing dishes, so that may be her part in the class. Heidi has just come off a food moritorium, which is great. She is now wearing size 8 (kids) clothes and weighs 63 pounds. Keeping weight on has continued to be a battle, but she is hungry, so we are keeping her fed with lots of high calorie, high fat foods, combined with her protein sources of choice (fish and beans). Seizures remain under control. Her school program is the best, and includes plenty of field trips. There is a supermarket not three blocks from the school, so going to the market and getting snacks (teaching fruits and veg!) is prominent. Tomorrow they will take the light rail to the Mall of America and eat at the Rainforest Cafe. The restaurant was generous enough to offer that they could have a reserved area, and that the kids could either order off the menu, bring a bag lunch from home. Heidi gets to order off the menu, and if she wants Coca Cola to drink, she can.

My fried chicken was divine. I had intended potato salad as a side. But, I didn't have any mayo, nor did I have any potatoes ( ) and since the kids' buses were due to arrive, I decided that potato salad wasn't going to happen. But, I had happened by my local Thai market earlier in the day and had some Chinese broccoli, so resorted to a standard in my family -- the Chinese Greens, Thai Style, from Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet (this is a go to recipe). This, along with a spinach salad with croutons from a stale loaf of Acme sourdough and grape tomatoes with a vinegarette) was dinner. The salad did not make it into this pathetic photo: My plates are not pink. The chicken looked much better than it does here. Don't worry, I've pulled out my camera manual (I have a Power Shot G1).

Now that I think about it, Rochelle, it might be about pushing more buttermilk out of the butter once churned. I remember my grandmother weighting down her butter (which was wrapped in cheesecloth. Dunno. But, I do kow that I like a cultured butter better.

You'll need cream with a higher butterfat -- that's the big difference. Most American butter is 80% butterfat, and Plugra is slightly higer. Is Plugra cultured butter or sweet cream?

I personally would not mop the brisket with a sauce. If you think it needs a mop, just use oil. Not mopping gives people the option of either having sauce (which should be warm or room temp) or not, and makes the leftovers more versatile. As to the sides, yes, you are right on! I often do cornbread (or not) and slaw is very typical. And, yes, you probably should have made the cornbread just before eating, but reheat it gently. It doesn't have to be hot, hot, hot. Remember all of the advice on the other topics. Smoke it low and slow. Keep the heat down on the smoker! Edited to add: Have fun and be sure and report back!

Sides? I'm going for potato salad, and some sort of green thing. Salad? Green beans? To me, fried chicken screams potato salad. Must have been all of those summers on a Nebraska farm. The big difference is that my grandmother and I would have gone to Dorothea's farm and killed the chicken ourselves. Oh, and the buttermilk would have been from another near by farm (my grandparents did pigs).

Ah, great minds think alike. My chicken is enjoying it's buttermilk spa as we speak. Report tomorrow.

Over in the Pasta Cook-Off topic, there are several discussions of pasta rollers -- the KA attachment, manual ones, and manual ones with electric attachments. Also lots of good advice on making pasta!

My father had quintuple heart bypass surgery this past spring. The first meal of solid food he was served was broccoli/cheese/rice hot dish topped with Fritos (!). Rice pudding. A squishy whit bread roll with some pat of something that resembled a pat of yellow playdough. I was horrified. But, they did only offer skim milk!

My charcoal and wood chunks just sit on the deck year round, under the eaves. I store the chimeny in the Kettle.

I'll admit up front that I don't have a WSM. I have a Weber Kettle. But, I can't imagine storage is much different. Mine has sat outside, all year round, for almost 25 years and is still rocking and rolling and doing just fine. I think you can get covers for these things, but to me, the cover would be something to find a place for when I didn't need it which was more of a storage problem. If you go to my recent post on ribs, you'll see how my lid looked after I put it on after the coals were going.

Hey, if you don't sample the ingredients, how do you know they are any good?

Now that I think of it, I'm sure this is what my great-grandmother and grandmothers did, and that the lot of "dish towels" I got were not actually purchased dishtowels, but odd bits, hemmed. Some of them are hemmed on four sides, some on three sides (with one side the selvage edge). They have all been of slightly different colors, weaves and weights. I do know that the one item always purchased was Sugar and Cream yarn for dishrags and potholders.

Helen, I am blown away by the price of groceries in Japan! I can plan on spending US$50 at my local supermarket and coming away with 4 bags! What do your boys do for lunch on school days? What do they eat for breakfast?

How well with that Grafton melt? I have trouble with old Cheddar melting well without separating. I do like the idea of mascarpone and creme fraiche. No idea on proportions. I wish someone would chime in here!

I have included a mighty fine Chocolate Cake recipe in RecipeGullet. As a side note, I made the beef tenderloin canapes for New Year's Eve and know they will become a regular on the menu here. They were outstanding.

My new rule of thumb is to check out cookbooks from the library before buying them. If I renew them the max number of times, and then return it and want to check it out again, it's off to Amazon I go! My biggest disappointment was Barbara Tropp's China Moon cookbook. Her Modern Art of Chinese Cooking is one of the stalwarts in my kitchen. It is stained, dogeared, and very well loved. The China Moon book was full of recipes that called for a myriad of "concoctions" you had to make in advance -- cluttering an already cluttered condiment cupboard to mamoth proportions. So, out when the concoctions, and I took the book to Half Price Books to sell it. They refused it, and low and behold, their shelves already had plenty of copies languishing. (I did, however, copy the cookie recipes out first; they were the only winners, IMHO.)

Andie, I am hording that last package of Curity diapers that I have! But, my daughter did come across a package of flour sack towels at WS that had a smudge on them, and I will launder than a couple of times in very hot water to see if they approximate. And, I will try the muslin thing. That could be what I'm more looking for. I just don't understand how they can see cheeseclothy stuff and claim it is "flour sack."

I love flour sack dish towels. They are very absorbent, and dry in a flash. I love giving sets of them, embroidered for each day of the week, as gifts. When my grandmother died and we emptied her house, I took the last of the unused flour sack dish towels (all 70 of them) and have managed to give all of them away. So, what I see in stores seems skimpy. Not only in size, but terms of quality. Am I the only flour sack dish towel junkie? Can someone point me to a source of nice, high quality ones? Evenly woven? Not resembling cheesecloth more than what I'm used to?

Although technically smoking, not grilling, here's a report on activities at the Fahning household yesterday. It was 28 degrees (F).

All this talk of smoking butts got mine in gear. I woke yesterday with a serious hankering to smoke some meat. Not wanting to head to the store to hopefully procure a shoulder, I grabbed a 6 lb. package of pork spareribs that was languishing in the freezer. I stuck them in the microwave to start the defrosting process and when they were still only slightly frozen, I brined them. I know they should have had overnight with the rub, but that wasn't an option, so as soon as they were thawed, I rubbed them and stuck them in the outdoor fridge while I got the Kettle going. It had been a few days since I used the Kettle, so once the fire was going, water pan in, etc. I put the lid on to melt the snow. Ribs ready to be pulled off. Since these didn't have an especially nice fat cap, I wrapped them in foil and returned them to the Kettle for about another hour or so. I didn't drink beer this time around. Bloody Marys instead. These were absolutely terrific. Finger licking good.