slkinsey

Spatchcock it. This means simply that you cut out the backbone with kitchen shears and flatten the chicken out. Alternatively, you can cut through the breastbone with a knife and flatten it out the other way. Once spatchcocked, you can throw it skin side down in a hot pan to brown the skin before flipping it over and finishing in the oven.

Although I am by no means an expert on Kosher law, this does not seem to be entirely accurate. Brine is a solution of liquid and salt. Something that is "brined" is soaked in such a solution. Kosher law, and I'm going on what I read here, does not specify that meats be brined. Rather, they are soaked in tepid water for at least half an hour, the idea being, I gather, to soak it until the water no longer becomes reddened by the "blood" (actually probably myoglobin and dissolved minerals). After that, the water is drained away, salt is applied to every surface of the meat and the meat is placed where the "blood" can easily drain off. After an hour of salting, the salt is shaken off and the meat is rinsed three times (hopefully under the supervision of a G-d-fearing woman). I would call this "salting" rather than "brining." As revealed in this thread, not everyone in these forums would agree with me. Call me conservative, but I hold that brining requires brine. I had always understood that there was no blood in the flesh of animals slaughtered by modern methods anyway. I have placed quotes around "blood" above because I think the salt part of koshering doesn't actually remove any blood. Perhaps one of the meat biz people can chime in here about whether there is any actual blood in meat. Regardless, I am at a complete loss as to any scientific explanation for how salting could "draw blood" out of meat. The more I poke around the Internet reading about this, the more I think that many of the koshering procedures are designed to eliminate the appearance of blood or things that seem like they might be blood. For example, it's not clear to me that kashering (broiling, more or less) will really get rid of any blood that is potentially in a liver... but I imagine it makes the liver seem less "bloody." No on one and yes on two. According to the site I referenced at the top, "the salt should not be as fine as flour, as it would dissolve too quickly and would not properly drain the blood. Neither should the salt be too coarse as it may drop from the meat. The salt should be of medium size, like that used for cooking, and should be kept dry enough to be easily sprinkled."

I agree that paying the bill via multiple credit cards or a combination of multiple credit cards and cash shouldn't be a big deal. That said, I think it should be the responsibility of the diners to divide the bill, and not the restaurant staff. As for taking separate orders for everyone at the table... Of course, in certain restaurants (diners come to mind) it's not a big deal to do a separate bill for everyone in a party of six as though they were six individual customers. In that case, the customers should not expect that all the food will arrive at the same time, etc. For other restaurants it is a bigger deal... Maybe it's a pizza place where everyone will be eating from one pizza. No reason the restaurant should have to do the math of splitting the bill. Maybe it's a higher-end restaurant where it is an important part of the service to coordinate the orders for the entire table so they arrive on time, etc.

By the time all the Italophiles on these boards finish telling you about their favorite places and making sure you know to "ask for my good friend so-and-so" you should be in for one hell of an awesome trip!

Just out of curiosity, are you locked into doing Roma, Firenze/Toscana and Venezia in two weeks? Personally, I think you'd have a much better chance of soaking up Italian culture if you did something like 10 days in Firenze/Toscana with a car (in which case, as previously mentioned, I suggest you stay at an agriturismo or similar place outside the city) and then the last 4 days in Roma. With a car, you can easily day-trip around Toscana and also get to know the city well by using the Firenze area as your home base. Three cities in two weeks makes for a fairly hectic schedule and doesn't allow you much time to get a feel for the place.

Some people I know run the Podere Toricella agriturismo right outside of Firenze. Cool place in the country, an easy drive away from Firenze. They make wine and olive oil, among other things. Should be interesting things happening around the time you'll be there. Nice place to stay and probably cheaper than staying in the city. I know several interesting restaurants and day trip-type places in and around Firenze I can tip you to when your plans firm up. I know you're mostly interested in food-type places, but given that you have an interest in music and you'll be traveling around the birthplace of opera... you might think of taking in a performance in Firenze, Roma (also see here) and Venezia (also see here). Some pretty interesting possibilities and some very beautiful buildings.

Dave, look here. I linked to this recipe from this page, which attributed the recipe to Patrick O'Connell. Sounds like brining to me.

Why don't you do that any more? Prefer to smother 'em in onions? Most of the leaner cuts of pig these days are awful, unless you're willing to pay premium princes (actually I'm more willing than able). Pork chops have my heart broken one too many times. I'm sorry (snif), I just can't talk about it any more . . . I know what you mean. If they're cheap pork chops, I really only like them thin cut and smothered (in either onions, mushrooms or both). I brown them off over really high heat, then put them aside as I deglaze and make the onions and/or mushrooms. When that's ready, I put the pork chops back in just long enough to heat them through. Seems to keep them tender and moist. For a real pork chop experience, I am lucky enough to have an old-fashioned full-service butcher nearby. When I want double cut pork chops, he pulls a whole fat-covered bone-in loin of pork out of the walk-in and asks how I want 'em. Not cheap, but certainly not expensive (although obviously I'm talking relative to NYC prices here). I usually brine these for around 2-3 hours before pan searing and finishing in the oven. They've never let me down even once. Nothing like it next to some cheddar cheese grits and sauteed bitter greens dressed with hot pepper vinegar.

Why don't you do that any more? Prefer to smother 'em in onions?

Just for the record, I don't usually include sugar in the brine for the entire brining period. A good idea to try is to mix in some light corn syrup into the brine for the last hour or so. The sugar then penetrates the skin and the very beginning of the flesh only. It does give the skin a "lacquered" effect that can be difficult to get by other means.

You should be able to brine a 200 pound whole hog for 24 - 48 hours with little concern that it will get "hammy."

In my experience, it does.

Dave, I think it really depends on how long you leave the meat in the brine and how strong the flavor is in the brine. I have used herb flavorings steeped in the brine, lemon juice and chili pepper in the brine, and also garlic brines. All of these flavors penetrated deeply, as was evident by tasting some of the flesh near the bone. Part of the secret, I think, is that the flavoring agent has to be really strong in the brine. I do think your molecular size hypothesis makes sense. For eample, I wonder if it might be the case that pigment molecules are too large or otherwise not able to be carried deep into flesh. When I have brined chicken with chili peppers, the chili flavor was carried deep into the flesh but very little of the red color. The red color ended up mostly on the skin and the outside of the flesh.

You definitely do not want to be heating up an enameled cast iron pan to maximum temperature. What you want is regular, cheap "raw" cast iron. As I think I mentioned in my cookware article, if you heat a seasoned cast iron too hot, the seasoning will start to burn. This is not good, as it can screw up the seasoning for other, non-steak uses. On the other hand, you do want the cast iron pan to be screaming hot. Or, more to the point, you want the pan to be so hot the steak screams when you throw it in the pan. For super high heat cooking applications like this, it makes sense to acquire the largest cast iron pan you can get and simply keep it unseasoned. This means that you wash and scour the pan out completely after every use and then wipe it down with a thin coat of oil to keep it from rusting until the next time you use it. With an unseasoned cast iron pan, you don't have to worry about burning the seasoning and creating more smoke than necessary. Cast iron is incredibly cheap, so it's not a big deal to have a dedicated meat-searing pan. As for heating the pan in the oven as opposed to the stove top... I prefer to heat mine on the stove top. A 500 F oven can only heat the pan up to 500 F. When you slap a room temperature steak in there, the temperature will drop below 500 F as heat is transferred from the pan to the steak. What I like to do is put the empty pan on the stove for a long time until it is screaming hot (a lot hotter than 500 F), throw the steak in there and then toss the pan under the broiler for a few minutes per side (time depending on thickness).

Oh my God, you're right!

Thanks for the lesson, Irwin. I think that's more or less what I was saying, and it's good to hear it explained and supported by an expert.

I'd be happy to make the same mold for every potluck type event. My fear is that I'd be expected to top myself with each creation! A real Jello Artist would constantly seek to push the envelope and expand the realm of what is possible in the Jello medium. Next time, we all expect you to recreate one of the designs from the ceilings of the Sistene Chapel in brilliant Jello tones. I am quite certain that Michelangelo would be a Jellist if he lived today.

Excellent! Then run to Lobel's while the taste is still fresh in your mind, go home, fire up the broiler and eat another strip steak for the sake of comparison. I know it's a sacrifice, but you're doing it for science, man!

BWAH!!! IngridSF, that is hilarious! I feel like printing it up and sending it to Millenium in SF. I'd just like to go on record as saying that I am all for women baring their breasts in public, for whatever reasons they may choose. No need to restrict it to breast feeding only on account of my delicate sensibilities.

It's not always clear to *everyone*--often the person in question--when someone has been rude & acted like an ass. Oh hi Matthew. We've been waiting for you. Thank you. Please await my brother. I am sure you will find him a far meatier and tastier billy goat than I...

I don't think anyone is refuting your idea that it can be rude to bring meat into a self-described "vegetarian restaurant." In fact, I thought that is what I was saying at 04:46 PM. Clearly the woman was rude and acted like an ass. Given any reasonable understanding of "vegetarian" one should assume that chicken, beef and other such things would not be welcome on the premises. This does not, however, negate the fact that the word "vegetarian" is somewhat nebulous as it is commonly applied and that vegetarianism and religion-based dietary guidelines are fundamentally different in certain respects.

The evidence would seem to indicate that is is not the case that "the word 'vegetarian' has easily recognizable associations with certain dietary rules and restrictions," as there are plenty of people who call themselves "vegetarians" who eat fish and other animal and animal-derived products. We also have the example of restaurants (one was cited by FG) that are described as "vegetarian" and yet serve some animal products. Furthermore, where is the line drawn? Are "vegetarian restaurants" allowed to use butter, cheese and eggs? If not, then there are an awful lot of restaurants calling themselves "vegetarian" that don't fit the bill.

Oh... I completely agree. In fact, I don't think there is any reason to preface your remark with "even." The point is this: Someone who is born/raised an orthodox Jew and who practices that religious philisophy may not feel like he has any choice in the matter of his religion. For him, he doesn't decide whether or not he is a kosher orthodox Jew, he simply is a kosher orthodox Jew. In this case it is not a matter of making a moral choice about whether or not to eat pork. In fact, from a purely moral standpoint, he may not think there is anything inherrently wrong with eating pork. But, nevertheless, he does not eat it because eating it goes against what he is. For most non-religion-based vegetarians, it is not the case that they are vegetarians in the same sense. They have made a choice to be vegetarian for whatever their reasoning may be. It doesn't make one better than the other. In fact, one could argue that making a choice rather than following religious dogma is the more moral of the two and indeed one's moral convictions could be such that it doesn't seem to be a choice. But the two things do strike me as fundamentally different.

Minor point here... as I believe FG pointed out earlier, many people believe that their religion, and whatever dietary guidelines may go along with it, are not a matter of choice. Whatever one may think about religion, this makes, say, keeping kosher fundamentally different from being a non-religion-based vegetarian. This little digression has no bearing on your good point about the inherrent rudeness of bringing meat into a vegetarian restaurant (and especially expecting to be able to eat it).

Just for the record, I have always preferred leather handbag thinly sliced across the grain and served just below room temperature.