fifi

There is a restaurant in Mexico City (Arroyo, I think) where they do legs of lamb in agave leaves in big pits and have these huge vats of fat. They fry up huge pieces of pork skins (chicharones sp?) and... PORK ROASTS! They are great! Like all good frying, not greasy at all. Think a well fried turkey. I don't see why prime rib wouldn't be fabulous.

All of the above to your tastes and cooking style as it develops. I do have one trick. when the garlic comes in fresh and plump (and cheap) I buy a bunch of it, slice the tops off, drizzly with olive oil and roast up a whole big roasting pan full. Then, I squeeze it out and put it into small jelly jars and freeze it. I do the same thing with red bell peppers when they are cheap... cut into quarters and char under the broiler (you have to get real close and watch carefully) then into the fars with a little olive oil and into the freezer. The small jars don't take up much room and then you always have tose ingredients ready. Jars keep them from flavoring the whole freezer or picking up other flavors. I also have limited space now so when I make stock, I concentrate it, into the jars, into the freezer. There might be other things you find you like to use. Just think in terms of when the ingredients are good, prepare ahead even if you are not using them immediately. They don't take much effort and are a good thing to do when the weather is lousy.

Houston area, large scale... Fiesta for south of the border fare and a good supply of imported stuff from elsewhere. Great prices on produce. They make fresh tortillas. There is a good selection of chiles, fresh masa, corn husks, banana leaves, hibiscus (Jamaica) flower. I have even found avocado leaves. Hong Kong Market for all things Asian. Great prices on produce and sometimes the only place to find reasonable lemon grass, galangal, really fresh ginger. The butcher shop is awesome. There are a lot of smaller scale "ethnic" groceries from all over. There is an Indian market near me that comes recommended. I will jump into that cuisine soon.

I'm in Houston. Our Church's here are spotty. I usually really like Popeye's. I think I was just remembering the last time I pan fried some chicken. Nothing compares. A friend that I cook with tried some poussins not long ago. We didn't particularly like them. She cooked them perfectly. We just didn't find the flavor anything to write home about and they just seemed "fussy".

I have had the same problem. That is why I quit buying the packages of thighs, legs, breast or whatever. Those things seem to come from chickens that might even be bigger than 4 pounds. I use large chickens for roasting (preferably more than 6 pounders) and I will swear that those chicken pieces are coming from those steroidal types. I have to really look for the smaller birds. Oh... This thread made me really hungry for fried chicken. I couldn't come up with a good reason to smell up my current apartment-with-no-ventilation so I stopped at Popeye's. YUK!!! I was so dissappointed. My stomach was aching for the pan fried stuff. Oh well... maybe it was just not a very good store.

I make chicken stock using a variety of methods. I favor the oven method because I am basically lazy. If I don't get a chance to do all of the straining etc. right away, I just don't mess with the lid on the pot or open the oven. All is sterile. I have never had a problem. I did run into a strange phenom not long ago. I was in my big Asian grocery and they had these packages of chicken backs etc. for making stock and they were really cheap. (This place has its own REAL burcher shop so I take it that they are also cutting up their own chickens and sell the unpopular pieces for stock.) So I bought a bunch and proceeded to make a big batch of stock. When I put the strained stock into the fridge to defat... the fat never congealed!!! Do they raise polyunsaturated chickens especially for Asian markets? Weird.

It is because it is HYDROGENATED BAD BAD BAD But I do use it for chicken.

First... Be sure you are entitled to the catch. I don't know about on the east coast but a lot of charters I have been on, the boat kept the catch. You might be able to deal for some fish to take back if it is a good day. Years ago, I had a friend that had a big sportfisherman. We used to run out on overnight trips for billfish. (Gulf of Mexico) One time we caught a 600 pound tuna... immediately named Charlie. Luckily we all knew how to cut up fish but on that one, all we could do is cut it into very big chunks and get it on ice. The fish had fought for a long time, as you might imagine. The key thing is to get tuna on ice IMMEDIATELY! Tuna, unlike most other fish, actually heat up with exertion... almost like a warm blooded animal... and will go off fast. Luckily, our game laws at the time allowed us to cut it up so we could get it on ice and thoroughly chilled right away.

I live alone now so I eat where I damn well please. That being said, my son lived with me for a time, in his mid to late 20s, and the rule was that we sat down to dinner every night he was at home. No TV and we refused to answer the phone. If he had friends to dinner or if we had other family over, the same rule applied. It was HIS RULE and HE ENFORCED. My sister was appalled that we would not answer the phone. We would sit there ignoring the damn thing, she would jump up, son would yell... "touch that thing and you lose your dinner".

Houston... About evenly divided between wine and beer as far as I can tell. With a lot of "Mexican" food and BBQ, that probably drives some of the beer consumption. I don't see a lot of cocktails at dinner tables.

yay Katherine... I was just about to post almost exactly the same thing. You said it well.

Steven, it sounds like your book is just what is needed. Perhaps we should all get together, pool our torches and dogs, and storm the publishers demanding that they publish Steven's book... IMMEDIATELY! The survival of civilization is at stake!!!

I'm not sure whether to blame recipes or not. If I put myself in the shoes of a novice cook and all I have is a recipe of ingredients and not any explanation of details of technique and why, I am set up to fail. Case in point... I just posted on the fried chicken thread. There are a lot of details in there that make all the difference between success and failure. For example: the size of the chicken pieces, letting the chill come off before frying, the method for flouring, adding to the hot shortening piece by piece and watching the temperature, depth of the shortening, not crowding the pan, etc. All of these details would not be obvious to a novice and they would have to learn by trial and error. Too much error and they would probably give up on frying chicken and go get some KFC. Cook's Illustrated makes a good stab at explaining things but a lot of recipes seem to assume basic skills and knowledge. The pupil also has to be willing to really notice what is going on and ask a gazillion questions. And no one knows it all. I am always learning so I appreciate the details. My most recent epiphany was the temperature stall when smoking meat. And where did I get that? Here of course.

I have a book around here somewhere on medieval cooking that I picked up in England. The spicing is really bizarre.

I will weigh in on this one because a couple of years ago, an article in Martha Stewart Living reminded me of the best fried chicken on the planet. It was almost a duplicate of the way my great aunt would fry chicken when I was a kid. My sister says it is a duplicate, even down to the Tabasco. http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?ty...true&resultNo=2 When we remember back about Aunt Minnie's technique, we are not real sure if it is what you would call pan fried or deep fried. She used a cast iron dutch oven with more shortening than you would use for pan frying in a frying pan (even one with deep sides like the Lodge pan) but not so much as for deep frying. After several tries, we finally duplicated Aunt Minnie's chicken with attention to a few details: Pick a smallish chicken, not more than 3 pounds. I buy smaller chickens and cut them up myself. The pre-cut pieces we get here seem to come from BIG chickens. I usually just fry the legs, thighs and breast and use the rest for stock. We aren't big wing fans. If the breasts are too big, whack them in half. The buttermilk marinade is crucial. Overnight is necessary. If you go for the 2 hours like an option in Martha's recipe it really doesn't get that clingy film that you need to form the perfect crust. Take it out of the fridge a bit before you flour it to take some of the chill off. Use the paper bag routine, one piece at a time. For some reason, any other method doesn't get the right amount of flour into the buttermilk film. Don't let the coated chicken sit around too long before frying. The crust will get tough. Don't use vegetable oil. Use Crisco. It makes all the difference. Aunt Minnie would sometimes use half Crisco and half lard if she could get some fresh from the butcher. I make my own lard but never have had enough on hand to try that. I do add the bacon grease as Martha suggests but maybe use a bit more than she advises. Use enough shortening to just cover the pieces when you put them in. This is why I am not sure if this is classic pan frying or deep frying. It looks like somewhere in between to me. Don't crowd the pan. You need to keep the temperature up as much as possible. The heavy pot, shortening to chicken ratio, and the smaller size of the pieces help you out here. A burner with a lot of BTUs is a good thing. (For a lot of chicken I use a propane burner and a REALLY BIG deep fry pan thing.) Watch that thermometer as you add the pieces one at a time. The smaller size pieces also allow the chicken to cook through without the crust getting too dark. You will turn the pieces once during cooking. Pour off most of the shortening and make your milk gravy with the brown bits in the bottom of the pot. Perfect chicken is the result and it is NOT greasy. I am not sure why but we did try this with oil one time and it was terrible even though we did maintain the temperature. Technique is the whole trick. I can't imagine trying this on a production basis in a restaurant. But is it pan fried or deep fried? Ah... That is the question.

OK... I googled also. Apparantly this stuff only grows in West Virginia like sparrowgrass said. So... Where are providers getting enough of this stuff to sell? Is it starting to be grown commercially?

Eureka... I've got it! ASIENTO The good stuff at the bottom of the lard pot.

Yeah... You still put the lard in the flour for flour tortillas. Corn tortillas don't typically have lard. Maybe you are thinking of tamales. There you do whip lard into the masa. Then you spread on the other lard. Lard is usually spread on corn tortillas. By the way, there is a word for the lard with the browny bits but I can't think of it to save me. I have been going through my books looking for it. It is driving me NUTS! Where is Jaymes? editted for stupidity, mixing up tortillas and tamales... hey, it's a "t" word.

The Bayless method that I am looking at calls for putting the cubes of fat in the oven. That is also the method Diana Kennedy uses. I do that sometimes when I am in a hurry. Now that I think about it, I am not sure this method came from Zarela. I think it did but I just can't find it in the books I have handy right now. Anyway... You use a heavy pot on the top of the stove on medium heat (or lower), adding a little water to the bottom of the pot to get it started. You want to go slowly here and it will seem to take forever. The water cooks off. You dip or pour off some of the lard before the fat cubes get brown. This yields a very clear lard with a very mild flavor. Then you proceed to continue cooking. You can actually do this in three dippings yielding three products: the white mild stuff (probably what you want for baking), then a yellower medium flavored lard (general purpose savory cooking), then the bottom of the pot that has lots of browny bits and flavor (great for putting on a tortilla).

You're a The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover fan, too? Maybe my fantasy doesn't go quite that far. I just thought of something... Anyone with a whole pig on their hands might have some leftovers. There was a thread not long ago on carnitas. Jaymes put her recipe in the archive. It is good enough to conceal enough meat from the gluttonous mob just to make that recipe.

Thanks for the link. I have heard of this before but didn't really know what it looked like. Does anyone know where it grows in th US? Is it only found in cooler climates?

Hey... Wait a minute... I am the one with the snatching, grabbing, gnawing, grease dribbling down my chin fantasy.

Lard is quite possibly the most fabulous fat on the planet. But you either have to make it yourself or get it from a well trusted butcher. I make my own. I also like to use the method recommended by Zarela Martinez. That way you get this wonderful stuff from the bottom of the pan that includes some browny bits. You save that to spread on tortillas or dollop on just about anything else. I am not a baker but I imagine that if you are careful to trim out the whitest fat and render slowly, you won't get much "lard" flavor. That comes from the connective tissue that makes those browny bits. There is one very important word regarding "store bought" lard... HYDROGENATED That is what makes it stable on the shelf and more solid at room temperature. It also makes those nasty trans fatty acids. BAD BAD BAD Fresh lard... GOOD GOOD GOOD

I'll be careful next trip.