fifi

It isn't a silly question. I just can't find the answer. Years ago, my grandmother raised quail. We always cooked or pickled them right away. Or at least after a few days in the fridge.

This grows wild here in Texas. We call it Stachys or Woundwort. We have a large patch at the country place that we dig in the fall. Discussion here.

I'll play. I have, in recent years, had to try to recreate my mother's cornbread dressing. The kids are operating under the delusion that there is "one recipe." Well, that didn't happen. She changed it every year. Anyway, here it is. Corn Bread Dressing This is the traditional corn bread dressing that my mother made every Thanksgiving. She never measured anything for this dish so I had to wing it. I took my best shot and measured things as I put it together. My sister and nephew pronounced it genuine so it must be close as they are extremely picky people. 2 recipes “Real Corn Bread” (Don’t cheat on the corn bread. It must be this recipe.) 2 cans cheap (like a store brand) biscuits, baked pretty brown but not burned 3 cups chopped onion 3 cups diced celery 2 Tbs oil, not olive oil 1 cup chopped green onion 1 cup chopped parsley 6 boiled eggs, diced 1 ½ tsp poultry seasoning, or more to taste 1 Tbs black pepper 6 – 8 cups chicken stock salt to taste Hand crumble corn bread and biscuits into a large bowl, big enough to hold all of the ingredients with plenty of stirring room. Lightly sauté onions and celery until slightly wilted. Add to the bread. Add the green onion and parsley. Cross cut the egg in an egg slicer or dice and add. Add the poultry seasoning and pepper. Mix thoroughly with your hands. (Hands work better than a spoon to get it well mixed without mushing it up.) Continue mixing while adding chicken stock. What you want to end up with is the bread mixture well saturated but no excess stock pooling in the bottom of the bowl. Taste for salt and adjust if necessary. Spray pans with Pam. Put the mixture in the pans and level out but don’t pack down. Shallower pans give you more crust. Deeper pans give you more soft stuff. You pick.. Bake at 350 F until lightly browned and the center springs back when poked. How long you bake it depends on your pans so you just have to watch and poke. Variations (Mother was always tampering with the recipe. To say that this is THE recipe is a lie, actually.) Add cooked crumbled sausage. Oysters are another possibility. (yuk for me) Add cooked crumbled andouille sausage or slices of smoked andouille, a cup of diced bell pepper with the onion and celery. Substitute Cajun seasoning and some cayenne for the poultry seasoning. Add cooked crumbled Italian sausage, a cup of diced bell pepper with the onion and celery. Substitute oregano, thyme and basil for the poultry seasoning. Leave the eggs out of this one. Add cooked shrimp, a cup of diced bell pepper with the onion and celery. Substitute Cajun seasoning and some cayenne for the poultry seasoning. Make some good strong shrimp broth with the shrimp shells (and heads if you have them) and substitute for some of the chicken stock.. You get the idea… Chorizo, poblano, chile powder, Mexican oregano? Someone (maybe Mother) once thought about mixed sauted mushrooms. (I don’t know about that!) Mother once used all fresh herbs of the poultry seasoning persuasion that she grew. It was fabulous. (She grew herbs many years before it was cool.) Note: This recipe can be halved but it is a lot of trouble to make too little and it freezes well. The quantities given in the recipe are not critical. If you want more onion, celery or parsley (or whatever), go for it.

I can't . . . repeat . . . can't get rid of books of any sort. I even have a ridiculous collection of tattered Rex Stout and Agatha Christie paperbacks that I still reread. As to cookbooks. I can't imagine getting rid of any of them. With one exception . . . The Barbara Kafka book Roasting is going to the first friend or relative for which I develop a strong animus.

AH HA! Chris is now a convert to the 1/2 inch dice AAAAAANNNNND. . . NOT soaking his beans! BWAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

In my offshore fishing days, we used to run into schools of tuna quite often. They were immediately cleaned on deck, steaked, and sent to me in the galley. My favorite way to cook them was to use some olive oil and whatever seasoning I decided on at the time and pop them into the oven, probably about 350F. I then monitored them until they were just done. Exquisite. I have to say that none of us on board would have gone for "rare" tuna. But this was never dry. Then there was the 600 pounder . . . but that is another story.

It snuck in here. (Is "snuck" a past tense verb of sneak?)

No! No! No! Don't grind it up! Half inch dice, you fool!

That is really looking good, Chris. What is it with the big chunks of meat? Are you guys too lazy to do a 1/2 inch dice? I am now wondering why cinnamon isn't in the Whacked Out Chili recipe. I think it would be a good addition.

Well . . . If you compare Smart Chicken to a REAL free range chicken, you won't get it. It is when you compare it to the water processed factory birds that you get the difference. Actually, the "organic" birds we get here are pretty much like so much cardboard. I will bet they aren't free range.

Oh my . . . Words fail me, Bill. That looks just gorgeous. Did the smokiness of the smoked meat come through? I have got to try this. Or at least some version of it.

I am going to say that that is a "Yep." Though I don't know how they can call it marjoram. Of course, it doesn't really taste like oregano either. It is close, but no cigar. There was probably wild garlic growing around the area as well. As I said above, the cumin came in with the Canary Islanders.

I bought one very similar by ChefMate at Target. It has a much finer mesh than my other strainers. I have used it to strain stock, sauces and chili pepper puree and it works great. I think it was about $10 for the big one. You can use the back side of a ladle or I use this little jewel as a "pusher." Sorry . . . Anco doesn't make them anymore. You might find one at a surplus place like TJMaxx or Marshall's. It is called a Garlic Smash. You turn it upside down to use as a pusher through the mesh. If you find some, let us know.

Just save it to rub a chicken. Rosengarten also does roasted chicken rubbed with goose fat and a lot of salt that is spectacular. Pork fat can't hurt.

OMG! I had forgotten about that post. Here is a direct link. I am again reduced to a shapeless puddle on the floor after rereading that. That is one of those posts not to be missed. I have never done this but I am thinking that there is so much fat on a duck that if you don't gently steam it to render a bunch of it out before frying, you are going to have a mess. I don't think the fat will render out in the fryer before the duck isn't overcooked. And, by steaming, you can save that duck fat. Please report. I would like to try this the next time we do turkeys.

Kristin . . . You just gave me a great idea to stretch that last bit of chili to serve a few. Of course everything is good on rice! I knew that!

My offset smoker (now in a foster home) is about identical to yours and used a lot more fuel as well. At least as compared to the Weber Bullet. I also found that logs did better. I did as Abra says and typically used briquets to get it started and used logs after that with maybe some briquets to pump up the temp if I needed to. Looks lovely. Now that it has cooled down enough to hang out on the balconey, I have to do some smoking.

Amazon has it for the $84.95. I am pretty sure that there is Amazon.ca.

Thanks for reminding me about the Thermapen. It is now on my Amazon wish list. Actually, it solves a thorny gift problem for the nephew.

Ah ha! An expert shows up. I have two half sheet pans and Sil-Pats. Why didn't I think about that and do fewer at a time? Duh! A long time ago, I found a supplier that had the forms. As I recall, they had the forms for cones, baskets, flat wavy things and I forget what else. Unfortunately I can't find it now. Suggestions?

Isn't it odd how the ethers converge in the universe and all things become clear? (Well . . . Not exactly clear.) I was just thinking about this as I was thinking about Thanksgiving. A few years ago, I actually tried this. Of course, I had no idea what I was doing. I was working on getting four of them to serve some sauted shrimp as a starter. I actually prepared 6 to use 2 as practice. I used the Sil-Pat in my half sheet pan. I think the oven was pretty hot but I don't remember the temperature. I was actually making cornucopias or something like that instead of baskets. Looking around for something cone shaped to wrap them around, I found a bottle with about the right shape. I used fairly coarsely grated cheese and left them lacy. The big fight was keeping them all warm for their turn on the bottle. Now I have learned that you can get little tin molds pretty inexpensively but I forget where. I think they are the thingies that are used to shape tuilles or something. (I am not a baker.) The darn things actually came out pretty good and were a lot of fun. I laid them down on the plate and kind of had the shrimp and other ingredients spilling out. They didn't suffer from getting limp and yukky because it was a fairly dry filling. I can see how that could get tricky if you tried to assemble ahead of time. I am looking forward to hearing here from folks who actually know what they are doing. These things are really fun, taste good, and look spectacular.

Good point about the pan drippings. I hadn't thought of that. The drippings might get salty. I have had this happen with brined turkey and chicken. The meat is fine but the drippings get concentrated. Here is what I have done: Pour off fat and liquid (if any) and reserve. Gently rinse the fond in the pan with a bit of cold water, letting it sit a while. When I say gently, I mean that you are trying to leach salt out without removing the browned bits. For this to work, you need to let the pan cool before adding the cold water. You pour off that water and discard. If a lot of browned bits are coming lose, you can pour through a strainer and reserve. Add back some unsalted stock, reheat and stir to incorporate the fond. Taste for salt and add back any juice you may have reserved if you can. At this point, you can make a light roux with the reserved fat in a separate pan and use that for thickening if you like. I have used that technique to salvage what looked like a lovely carpet of fond but was, alas, much too salty. The whole idea is that salt will dissove preferentially in the water. If you use cool water in a cool pan, you will lessen the amount of flavor components that leach out. This is a bit fiddly but is the only way I know to get a pretty darn good pan gravy out of salty fond. YOIKS! I just checked the calendar. If you are thinking about this for Thanksgiving action begins next week in order to get two weeks corning time. Nov 7-8 buy ham Nov 9 in the fridge to corn Nov 9-23 check on ham to drain and resalt where necessary Nov 23 rinse ham and put in cold water in the fridge Nov 24 (early am) put on to bake

I looked at that site and I think the skin is on it. I noticed that they did the low slow cooking like I would probably do. I just looked at the calendar and it appears that I will have to get some answers soon if I am going to be able to do this for Thanksgiving. I would resist adding seasoning. I think the idea is to end up with pure pork goodness. Yes . . . I know that will be hard. I am similarly tempted. Get thee behind me evil cajun mix!

I can't find a picture but a turkey tail is just a bigger version of a chicken tail . . . "pope's nose" in the vernacular. When you google for them you come up with listings of providers of smoked turkey that have them.

I recently saw the smoked turkey necks at my HEB. Then, I think I saw the tails. I think I remember saying "Well, I'll be damned." But then, I may have been dreaming. I don't hallucinate, often, but I do dream things and think they are real. I have only tried the smoked turkey as a sub for ham hocks a couple of times since this started last year. I used thighs. I did this just out of curiosity because there was so much variation in color. The darker ones were definitely more flavorful, the light ones weren't much help at all. BTW . . . I have also noticed the same variation in ham hocks.