I didn’t go shopping before the snowstorm because I have a ton of stuff in the freezer, but it appears the chicken breasts I put in just a few weeks ago were not completely wrapped and have freezer burn. Any good home remedies for fixing that?
Also, those of you who have the Palladium music channel, at 5 pm there is an Elvis Costello concert.
Mal Carne
Cut off the burnt bits; they’re really bad chicken jerky. Got chicken stock, wine, or even German beer in the house?
JenJen
You’re gonna have to grind that chicken, Cole. No, really.
It won’t be too bad in a stew or a chili or any kind of slow cooker recipe, but if you try to grill or sautee it it’s going to be rubbery and yucky. Those chicken cells are good and exploded.
John Cole
@JenJen: Actually, I was making chicken tacos.
Dave Fud
Make a soup with it. It will be much better than other options.
JenJen
@John Cole: They’re not going to be very good, I’m afraid. When this happened in the professional kitchens I’ve worked in, it only meant that White Chicken Chili was going to be a blackboard special tomorrow.
Midnight Marauder
One of the few reasons to keep the cable box around these days.
kid bitzer
i find that the best thing for a burn is to apply ice.
General Winfield Stuck
I request a string of open or cooking or wine or photo or pet or christmas threads to get all political ones off the front page. I submit my request to the blog sanity Gawds, and the FSM, and any other powers that be.
It is sunny and nice here, for some strange reason I envy the snow the east is getting. Seems fitting to have the white stuff for it’s beauty and solace of spirit. Long as it melts away before I get tired of it.
We humans are so powerless in the big scheme of things.
John Cole
@JenJen: Ok. I’ll make chili tomorrow and start defrosting a salmon filet.
JenJen
@John Cole: Good call, and hopefully you have some beans in the chili to counteract the off-texture you might get from freezer-burned chicken.
Love all this cooking talk and especially the baking chatter from one of the earlier threads today! Mmm… salmon. What’s the side dish? And wine, too?
Mark S.
@John Cole:
That doesn’t sound like too bad of a deal.
Does anyone know why the price of chicken has hit the roof? It’s about as expensive as steak.
cleek
quenelles !
tavella
I find that if you cut the seriously burned bits off it’s fine; in my freezer it seldom goes more than a millimeter or two deep. Made a stirfry with some breasts with bits of burn the other day and it was fine; sliced them, pulled off any substantial burned bits, didn’t bother about the stuff that was just surface burned.
eric k
Cut off the burned parts and use the rest for Kung Pao Chicken, the spices overwhelm any bad taste.
HRA
Throw them in the garbage. So speaketh a child of a chef.
Violet
If your cheap or thrifty, cut off the burned bits and use the rest for something with a lot of flavor where you won’t really notice – spicy stir fry, chili, grind it up and make chicken lasagna, etc. The chicken tacos would probably be okay if you add plenty of salsa and flavor the meat well.
If you’re picky or had really wanted to make something where the chicken was the focal point, then toss it and get yourself some better chicken.
I’d vote for making the chili. You could make it tonight and let the flavors meld overnight and it’ll be excellent by tomorrow. Perfect for enjoying on a snowy day.
NobodySpecial
Is that the Nashville concert with the Imposters backing and guest appearance by Emmylou? Good stuff. Now if only they’d release the Decades concert on DVD or Blu-ray. /sob.
Violet
@Violet:
Urgh. Used the wrong “your” when I meant “you’re”. Tried to edit but it says I don’t have permission to edit my post, even though it gives me an edit option. Huh?
Comrade Mary
Has edit disappeared again?
EDIT: Mine seems to work now, but my last one never did.
Kirk Spencer
Biggest problem with freezer burned chicken is the extra flavor the chicken picks up. As @Mal Carne said, it’s basically bad jerky. In the process of losing moisture it picks up all the other wonky odors in the freezer which then spread through the meat.
For my taste, if more than 10% of the surface is burned I just toss the chicken. If it’s less, I use half the chicken and toss the part closest to the burn. Finally and as plenty on here have already noted I ensure what I’m using buries the taste of the chicken. Your tacos might work provided you go with strong spicing.
jeffreyw
dumplins
tamiedjr
Having a wonderful snow day here in the ‘burgh. Made cranberry nut bread, listened to Christmas music, made bacon for me and the pooch and have a steak thawing for later when we get hungry again. Hope everyone stays warm and toasty.
I’m not looking forward to going out and shoveling that driveway tomorrow. Maybe we’ll have a thaw and it will all melt.
Tagg
30 years slinging hash, my advice trim off the burn bits, saute some diced onions in olive oil, a little garlic if you like, cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces, saute, salt, pepper. Got a jar of pasta sauce? Toss it in. Boil the pasta…drain, add it to chicken and sauce…enjoy!
psychobroad
I love reading the cooking threads! And I learn something every time.
rachel
@cleek: Hah! Every time I see of hear the word “quenelles”, I remember that scene in Tampopo where a bunch of salarymen go to an expensive hotel restaurant. One by one, all the old farts order sole meuniere, consomme and a Heineken because they have no idea what else to have. And then the waiter goes to take the order of the youngest one.
WAITER: And you, sir?
JUNIOR: One moment.
THE OTHERS LOOK AT JUNIOR IN SURPRISE.
JUNIOR: So you have quenelle.
THE MANAGER NEXT TO JUNIOR KICKS JUNIOR UNDER THE TABLE.
JUNIOR: Boudin style.
THE MANAGER KICKS JUNIOR AGAIN.
JUNIOR: That’s quenelle prepared in the shape of a sausage?
WAITER: Yes sir.
JUNIOR: I think Taille-Vent in France serves this.
WAITER: You’re well informed. Our chef trained at Taille-Vent.
JUNIOR: Then it’s served with caviar sauce?
WAITER: That’s correct, sir.
JUNIOR: And the escargots wrapped in pastry. In fond-de-veau?
WAITER: Yes. Escargots and mushrooms simmered in Madeira, and then stewed in fond-de-veau, sir.
JUNIOR: Yes, I’ll have that. And apple-and-walnut salad.
WAITER: A perfect match, sir. A drink, sir?
JUNIOR: I think I feel like some Corton Charlemagne. Do you have a 1981?
WAITER: I’ll call the sommelier.
JUNIOR: Thank you.
THE WAITER WALKS OUT AS THE MANAGERS LOOK AT EACH OTHER IN ASTONISHMENT.
Edited to add: If you know much about Japanese cultural expectations, this scene is even funnier.
Jack
I like Tagg’s idea — make a zesty tomato sauce and serve it with pasta. You also could use the chicken in a spicy gumbo. The basic idea is the same — just overwhelm the freezer burn with garlic, cayenne, thyme, oregano, etc. The advantage of adding the chicken to a hot liquid is that its texture might be a little better than if you sauteed it. Your gumbo also could have some andouille sausage, shrimp, or ham in it, so the chicken wouldn’t be the only meat. I recently salvaged some seriously old frozen chicken that way.
I’m afraid I can’t abide the thought of chili made with chicken, however, let alone beans. I grew up in McKeesport in the 1950s and 60s and had way too much bland “chili” made with ground beef and kidney beans back then. It was wholesome but boring. Today, my chili is made with cubed pork or beef or both, lots of onions and hot peppers, tomato sauce, beer, wine, or bourbon, and appropriate herbs and spices. No beans! Do you guys really eat chili made with chicken these days?
monkeyboy
@Kirk Spencer:
I learned in a bad way about foods picking up freezer odor. That is why all the extra butter in my freezer is now double sealed inside 2 zip-lock bags.
Freezer flavored butter is nasty stuff.
Steeplejack
@rachel:
Tampopo is a great movie. Food and sex–what’s not to like? I keep looking for it to come back out on DVD, but I haven’t seen it in a long time.
. . . Er, I must not have looked in a while. Amazon has it now, and says it was released in 2005. My bad. Great movie, everybody.
I love the scene where the protagonist cuts his finger on the shell of a fresh-caught oyster, and the oyster diver girl gently sucks the blood off his finger.
Japanese trailer here. And it looks like you can see big chunks of the movie itself on YouTube.
Ked
Hooray! Someone besides me has discovered Palladium! If there’s enough of us, maybe Viacom won’t MTV-ize the network for at least a few years.
If you don’t have an HD subscriber package (I’m on DISH – almost ten years now and still loving it.), Palladium is sort of the MTV/VH1 complex’s venture into dedicated HD programming – except it doesn’t suck! It’s almost exclusively concerts and live events, with a few HD music videos for interstitials and late night throwaway fare, and “music movies” to round things out. (Their cut of The Wall is a little chopped up, dammit.) I first noticed it when I browsed past HDNet and landed in the middle of a Nine Inch Nails concert. That got my attention. The downside is that their available programming is a little thin (lots of reruns) and they don’t seem to get a wide variety of commercials. God, I hate Rock Band: The Beatles, and it’s all Palladium’s fault.
With the ownership team, you know it’s all going to end in shitty reality shows, but while this lasts I’m loving it.
rachel
@Steeplejack: The scene with the gangster, his girlfriend and the egg yolk is also quite rousing.
My favorite, though, is the one where the dying woman gets out of bed to fix one last meal for her husband and children. It always brings tears to my eyes.
Steeplejack
@rachel:
Great movie. You’ve got me psyched about it all over again. I may order it from Amazon.
Elizabelle
Silly question, but couldn’t you cook up the freezer burned parts and feed them to Miss Lily (or add them to her dog food)? She might think Christmas has come early.
Ian
Deep Fry. With Buffalo sauce.
monkeyboy
@Elizabelle:
Dogs will eat almost anything if you can give it the right taste. I once did an experiment where I offered a dog plain grated carrots which were refused. Then I mixed in a little mayonnaise and the dog scarfed them down.
I often make meat stocks which start with simmering a turkey carcass or meaty beef bones for hours. You can tell when a stock is done (extracted all the meaty goodness) if you pluck out a bit of former meat and taste it and find that it tasteless and mostly fibrous. However dogs love this crap because it still has a hint of flavor. Cook a stock, run it through a food mill to separate out the fibrous stuff, and then give the refuse to dogs or pigs. They will love you forever.
elmo
@Elizabelle:
Why would you cook the freezer-burned parts before you give them to Lily? Dogs eat raw chicken!
Remember what dogs are descended from. Have you ever seen a wolf carrying a crock-pot?
And John, if Lily knew that you were actually wondering what to do with inedible chicken, she would have a sad.
monkeyboy
@elmo:
Um, dogs also get salmonella.
(I must share one quote that popped out in that google search)