Dave the Cook

I, too, have lots of warped Calphalon.

How about: roast the tomatoes in a slow oven with a head or two of garlic. Bathe the steak in lime or lime juice, soy and a little brown sugar for an hour or so, then grill to medium rare. Let cool. Slice the steak thin on the bias. Wrap a rosy slice around a chunk of tomato candy, a clove of garlic and a basil leaf (or oregano leaves) to make a sort of flower. Secure with a toothpick, sprinkle with coarse salt. Garnish with a tiny basil or oregano leaf (or basil flower sprig, if you've got any).

Good God, Archie, you really are the Science Guy! Thank you so much for this. I am sorely tempted to try . Really. Just can't think of a way to determine whether a pan has reached 600 degrees. Steel mill, perhaps? Just send the pans to Dave the Cook. Those who can, do. Those who can't, post on eGullet do-it-yourself threads. Some gas grills can hit in excess of 700 degrees, as can charcoal fires. I've heard Big Green Egg folk claim up to 850 or so.

Yes, Lily, you can do it at home, but you'll probably ruin your manicure. Are you still interested? You'll need: - steel wool - tin solder - flux (you can get it where you get the solder) - a heavy leather pad - something to lubricate the pad (try to find an old tallow candle, or hunt down some plumber's tallow -- your best bet is a hardware store in a gentrifying neighborhood that has a lot of old plumbing in it) - an area where you can heat the whole pan (not just the bottom) to about 600 F In a nutshell: Scour the interior of pan with the steel wool Coat the scoured area with the flux Melt the solder in the pan. Tin melts at about 450 F (as you discovered, though the solder melting point might be somewhat different). You want the pan evenly heated so the tin will flow over the entire surface. Smooth the solder around the inside of the pan, using the leather pad. Keep the pan hot so that the solder flows smoothly, but not so hot that it thins out. (Think about how thin oil gets when you overheat it.) Piece of cake. Allow to cool naturally (in other words, don't dunk it in ice water).

Man... my pet chicken is going to be really glad to hear that! But I'll bet the ferrets will be disappointed! A dizzy chicken is easier to dispatch.

While gelatin is a useful emulsifier, and can facilitate reduction sauces, the real powerhouse in any sauce involving butter is lecithin, which is abundant in both egg yolks (think mayonnaise and hollandaise) and butter (also hollandaise, though the amount of lecithin in an egg yolk overshadows the amount in butter). In The Curious Cook, Harold McGee describes making a butter sauce (meaning beurre blanc or an enriched reduction of pan juices) as the act of turning butter back into cream. The real key is temperature. If you maintain the contents of your pan between 100 F and 130 F, you can whisk all the butter you want into the reduction, be it wine and herbs or meat stock. You don't need to invoke superstition or arcane techniques like shaking, swirling or swinging a live chicken over your head. If I recall correctly (I don't have the book in front of me), he even demonstrates it with plain old water.

Nor I--but I always thanked the sugar for that.

I've never heard sugar mentioned in the context that Grigson uses -- in reference to brining. It's always been a flavor component. I'm inclined to agree with your comparison to searing, as well as your contention that results are what matter (though it's often helpful to know why things happen). My result: I've never had meat come out of a brine tougher than it was when it went in.

With all due respect, that's not reasoning, is it? She's going to have to do better than that. I think meat is submerged in a solution of salt, saltpeter and sugar, then removed from the solution and allowed to dry. In this case, yes, I could easily see sugar helping out, since it's hygroscopic. But that's curing, not brining.

I'd like to hear the reasoning on this. I've never heard it before. It seems to me that unless it's water soluble, it's not going to be able to infiltrate the meat in the same way as the salt. Even then, the size of the molecules could inhibit osmosis of some ingredients (I'm thinking of polysaccharides). So I don't usually bother with spice and herbs, since much of their flavor is in the form of oils. Aromatics like onions, garlic, celery and so forth seem (to me) to have limited success, unless you want to sweat them first or boil them in the brine and let it cool. More trouble than it's worth, in my book. However, fruit juices and ciders do work, as do vinegars. I often add lemon or lime juice to brines for chicken. On her foodblog, I think fifi mentioned sour orange juice for pork, and I've used sherry vinegar with tenderloins. I'm with Jim on the sugar. I'll add it in small quantities to pork sometimes.

This is my problem, I think. "Rationale" is just too close to "rationalization" in the dictionary for me to distinguish. I hadn't thought of kitties, but you're right there, too. Ever since I found a paw print in the butter, I've been more careful.

Unless you left the shell on the egg, I'm with AB. (I admit to bristling a bit at the word "rationale," as what he says is true.) Yes, covered, but that's to keep airborne stuff (and creatures) out. I don't think it has anything to do with acid doing its work.

even with surface area considerations? Surface area (related to granule size and shape) matters when you're measuring by volume. If you measure out a cup of Kosher salt, you'll see it weighs significantly less than a cup of table salt -- hence the differing proportions for different types. But a pound of salt is a pound of salt, regardless of crystal shape or size. And of course, once it's dissolved, surface area doesn't matter.

I spatchcock so often that I find I can remove the backbone with poultry shears (which is all you really need to do) plus cut out the breast bone and those funny shaped ones attached to the leg bones in around 2 minutes, so I almost always spatchcock. The added bonus is that I throw the raw bones into a bag in the freezer which I turn into chicken stock every time it fills up. Spoken like a man without benefit of three children (and no, ferrets don't count). Five minutes saved on bypassing a spatchcock is five minutes earned, especially on a school night. And while I save meaty scraps, too, I don't fret much if I miss a few. Whole chicken legs are so cheap, and so often on sale, that I don't mind buying a few pounds of them when I need to make stock.

Sam is on the money: either you made a mistake, or you don't like the results. The former can be remedied; the latter is a matter of taste. The most common error I see (aside from brining a kosher chicken, or one that's been injected with enhancements at the processing plant) is that of substituting table salt for kosher salt. Somewhere earlier in this thread, I gave proportions, but you can assume that table salt is twice as "powerful" for a given volume as Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt, and 50% more than Morton Kosher Salt. (Note that if you're weighing your salt, you should use the same weight regardless of brand or type.)

you didn't notice that more of the bird was on the grates? It was spatchcocked, dude. It was as flat and grateful as it could possibly be.

Whatever works, I say. Our differing results could have to do with a lot of factors: grill temp, brining/not brining, distance from the heat, which house the moon is in. And I exaggerated my experience. The fact is, I've never noticed that the brick made any difference at all, except to impress the neighborhood kids and gullible relatives. I don't flip it, and that's probably the biggest difference. If I left the brick on for forty minutes, skin side down, I'd probably burn the bird on the grate. Sometimes I will rotate it, depending on how the coals are laying/burning down.

OK, maybe. Skin up, or skin down?

I'll bite. I have a number of questions, but first, can you explain this? It's counter-intuitive, isn't it?

Sounds great, tommy. The brick is for tourists. Absolutely unnecessary, and actually makes the chicken more prone to burning. You don't press on your burgers while you grill 'em, do you? Don't mash the bird.

If I spatchcock a chicken for the oven, I handle it pretty much the way Sam does. But more often, a spatchcocked chicken will go skin down on the grill, over indirect heat for about 40 minutes -- no turning. Usually I use lump charcoal, but if I have time, I'll soak a few chunks of hardwood and toss them on the hot coals, too. Close the lid and I get an semi-smoked chicken that's pretty hard to beat under any circumstances, spatchcock or no. But all this spatchcocking (and Sam's method or broiling or mine of grilling) is quite far from the utter simplicity of tj's original post and my follow up. Here's the drill: I'm on my way home, a little late, but the allure of roast chicken will not be denied. There is no time for brining, no time for spatchcocking. I call my daughter and tell her to put the pan in the oven and turn the oven on. I pick up a chicken on my way. By the time I get home, the oven and pan are hot. I don my custom-made maggiethecat apron, and I remove the chicken from the packaging. I rinse it, dry it, probe it and put it in the pan. It squeals and hisses and sizzles. Thirty minutes later, we have roast chicken. How easy can you get? Where is there a better convergence of cost, effort and taste? It cost me three bucks, and took me five minutes, tops. I have not turned, and I have not basted. I have not spatchcocked. (Six times I got to say spatchcock [ooh, that's seven]. Thank you, tommy.)

That's funny -- I do the same thing. Yeah, more veggies all around, I think. I've been thinking about the game component. It's almost 400 miles from my place to Varmint's. I'll bet that on the way, I can scrape enough opossum and coon off the road to give us what we need.

So what's your advice on the rabbit? Regaradles of price, do you think it adds much to the dish -- aside from being able to say, "Oh yeah, that's rabbit in there"? Good idea on the gizzards; I wish I'd thought of that. And I had planned on more livers the next time around.

The other thing you've got going for you is that short ribs are pretty tough -- full of connective tissue. There's some acid in the wine, but I'm thinking you're going to be fine, unless they've added some kind of tenderizer like papain.

I was waiting until I could post pictures, but I'll do that later. Mine was thicker, mostly because of longer cooking, I think. Some notes: - I completely understand the impulse to add the additional seasoning. It wasn't overpoweringly sweet, but it was unbalanced. I think black pepper, a touch of lemon and some Tabasco or Worcestershire would restore it, and, unlike the sriacha (bless your heart), would be entirely Southern. I now understand why these are common ingredients. - On one hand I agree about the chicken drying out, but I don't think the answer is to substitute more rabbit. The bunny remained moist, but didn't add much gaminess to the pot. I'm thinking that using all dark chicken meat would fix the moisture problem, and we'd save some on the expense of M. Lapin ($3.50/lb -- or did you get it cheaper, Dean?). As for gaminess, Richard (and others) might be right, but I'm not sure it's a realistic ingredient for us, given that we'll have to make about ten times this recipe. Duck, maybe? Or some red meat? I'm open to suggestions. I suggested tossing a lamb shank in the pot, but Varmint vetoed it. - I thought it needed more tomatoes, for acid, color and richness. - Using vegetable stock did add depth, and it certainly made a darker brew (you'll see when I post the pix). The veggie stock had a lot of mushrooms in it, and while there was no noticeable mushroom flavor in the VD Stew, it did have a non-specific meatiness that was missing in the plain version. This, I'm thinking, must be unami. I'm debating how to get this into the stew without going to the trouble of making veggie stock, because it's going to be too much trouble to make stock and stew in the same 24-hour period, not to mention consuming mass quantities of alcoholic beverages and helping to eat a whole pig. OTOH, it answers the question raised by Jaymes' mushroom-inclusive recipes.