Dave the Cook

I don't know why that wouldn't work. Parboiling will also render off some fat, which will help keep the thing from being too greasy. Alternatively, make an "Cajun Danish": peel the casing and parboil. While it's cooling, caramelize some trinity (onion, bell pepper, celery -- maybe the celeryis optional in this case). Cut your pastry into squares about 3x the diameter of your sausage. Slice the sausage into 1/4-inch rounds. Place a round in the center of the pastry. Spoon some trinity over the sausage. Fold up the corners to the center and secure with a bit of egg wash. Bake. Edit: red bell pepper would be prettier, and a little garlic wouldn't be amiss. And I'd brush the pastry with egg wash for a glossy finish.

Are you wrapping the whole sausage in the pastry, then slicing it for service?

I think you're gettting the benefit of water vapor -- don't bread ovens usually have some way of introducing moisture to promote crust formation? As jackal notes (at least I think this is what he's saying), in a domestic oven, moisture is vented. But your grill is not -- at least not at the top, where the water vapor would accumulate, so the cooking chamber is staying nice and humid.

I wouldn't boil broccoli anyway, since the florets love to hold on to the water. But with tougher or denser vegetables like green beans or carrots, I will choose the method based on what else is going on. I also like Julia Child's technique of simmering in just a bit of water with a knob of butter and a shot of wine or vermouth. If you do it right, the water evaporates just as the veg is done, and you get a nice glazed veggie without a lot of trouble. There are a number of things that I don't do with water at all: zucchini and asparagus, for instance.

It's quicker.

Clean them off, using a very stiff brush or steel wool. If you want to really start over, put it in the oven and run the self-cleaning cycle.

Water is a byproduct of natural gas combustion. Is your KA gas or electric?

Seriously, the problem is that your pan is never really getting seasoned. The crisco/oven thing only gets the process off to a good start. But you have to give it time, repeated saturations with oil/fat/grease, and some TLC until the seasoning really takes hold. If you can keep hubby from mistreating it for a dozen or so cook/gentle cleaning/crisco cycles, it will be able to withstand much more of his abuse.

It's a two-step process: 1. Divorce. 2. Bacon.

could you show us the equation please? Uh, no (please note, charitably, the "I'm pretty sure" part of my post!) My surmise is based on (believe it or not) an elementary understanding of swimming pool and aquarium chemistry. But as the product of a strong base (NaOH) and a strong acid (HCl), table salt (NaCl) has a pH of 7 (neutral). The green veggie thing is explained in one or more of the usual suspects' (McGee, Wolke, Parsons, Corriher) books. It has to do with the release of acids as the chlorophyll breaks down. I don't remember the specifics, except that I think that if you leave the pot uncovered, the acids disperse with the steam. If you cover the pot, they condense on the underside of the lid and go back in the water. So leave the lid off, and your veggies will stay green. Maybe someone is close to an appropriate text and can check this out.

I think I'd have to try it. Maybe it works, though at the moment I don't know why, and your answer doesn't attempt an explanation. In fact, you only say they do it "to tenderize," but you don't say that, in your experience, it's an effective treatment. (I'd bet it tastes good, though.) As this thread demonstrates, people do a lot of things 1) because they've always done them, or they were told to do them by some authority; 2) because they work, but for reasons that are not what they thought they were; 3) because the technique has a pleasant effect, even if it's not the one intended.

Thanks, Paula. This is good to know. Note that this is quite different from marinating as it is commonly done in the US, which is usually in some form of a vinaigrette.

I'm pretty sure that salt won't make water more alkaline, anyway. At the most it can buffer pH change in alkaline tap water.

1) It does work. It just doesn't work in the way that most people think it does. I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear. I would like to hear about the subsequent cooking technique. 2) They like the taste. I haven't heard of this before. Can you provide more detail?

Doesn't Thomas Keller suggest heavily salted water, because you don't lose the boil when the vegetables are added? He might suggest it (and I'm sure others have), but he would be wrong. Adding salt (in reasonable amounts) to water affects the boiling temperature by only a fraction of a degree.

Use marinades for surface flavoring -- if that's what you expect from them, you're less likely to be disappointed. Papain marinades (like you find in papaya, fresh pineapple and Ac'cent) don't tenderize so much as they degrade the protein. If it's not carried too far, the effect works quite well. Let it go too long and, like fresco says, you get mush. Oil and vinegar (or other acidic marinades) don't penetrate much more than a quarter of an inch, if that. And again, you're degrading tissue, so "tender" is misleading. The one exception is a marinade with a high salt component, which will bring water-soluble proteins to the surface of the meat and promote browning. If you want to tenderize your meat, use a brine. Or a mallet.

That's my point. You can't, at least not very well.

Biting my tongue. Maybe Jason should handle this one.

I'm in rare disagreement with the Colonel here. I just don't think deglazing is a practical techinique on a grill pan. The shape of the pan bottom precludes the use of a spatula for anything except turning the food and scraping the peaks of the ridges. You scrape the food into the valleys of the pan, and then what do you do? What can you do? Your best bet is the edge of a spatula or wooden spoon, but you're not going to be able to do a good job.

So CFS = Texas Wiener Schnitzel?

Those are for tourists. Seriously, those pads won't conform to the curves and ridges of grill pans without serious fingers fatigue. The stainless sponge does so effortlessly (here's a version that might be a little more pleasant to use). I don't know about Home Depot. I've only found them at restaurant supply stores.

You want one of these.

Well, I did have an unfair advantage, having written the article, and I'm addicted to the endorphin-like ego boost. Welcome.

Or could have used the link(s) in the fourth post of this thread.

Finally got around to posting the recipe here.