So I’m watching chopped, and one of the ingredients for the appetizer round was chicken intestines, and all I can wonder is… “WHY?” Who cooks with those? What percentage of their viewing audience can find those in a grocery? I love to cook, have been in thousands of grocery stores, and have never seen chicken intestines. I just do not understand this show some times- shouldn’t all the ingredients, however odd the combination is, be available to the majority of people? Otherwise, what is the fucking point?
Earlier I watched Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel, and Zimmerman was somewhere where they served monkfish. Is monkfish really a bizarre food? If I had to choose, monkfish is probably my favorite fish to cook with, because it has such a great texture. Every time I find it in the grocery here in WEST BY GOD VIRGINIA, I buy it. I mean, it is not always there, but it is by no means a “bizarre” food. It has a wonderful texture and really has an ability to take on flavor, for my money, is better than any other fish. It tastes sweet and succulent like lobster, and is probably over-fished, if anything. How is that a bizarre food?
The final thing I do not understand is why all these cooking shows are so driven by complexity. If these chefs were given egg wash, chicken, flour, and bread crumbs, 90% of them would make a puree or some other bullshit. Just make the fried chicken that 99% of the country wants to eat. Do it well. Complicated does not mean good.
Somewhat related, I guess it is kind of sad that I have gone from yelling at my tv screen during cable news shows to now screaming at the tv during cooking shows.
James Gary
If people want to know how to make basic food (i.e., fried chicken) they watch Rachael Ray. My best guess is that all those “extreme cooking” shows provide fantasy-fulfillment for some people in a way that is completely incomprehensible to me, which is why I seldom watch them.
Little Boots
john, who do you think will be president in 2013?
Cap'n Magic
Moar news like this, plz:
Emdee
Rachael Ray never made a three-ingredient dish with fewer than 15 ingredients. Yuck-o.
When Chopped first premiered, the Boy and I called it I hate chefs die die die!, because the goal seemed to be to give them ingredients that they did not know what to do with. As I think I mentioned, one time they gave them boxed macaroni and cheese but removed all the dairy from the pantry. The point is not to educate you, the point is to make them work hard.
Similarly, they want “creativity,” which means “don’t make the most fucking obvious thing in the world with your egg wash, flour, and chicken.” They don’t want to taste 3-4 plates of fried chicken, they want you to think “outside the basket.” It’s kind of the point. How many times have you seen them get dinged for plates that were “too simple” or “not creative enough?” They don’t mean it needs to be 3 feet tall, they mean it shouldn’t be obvious. That’s the whole gimmick of the show. That’s why it’s not Top Chef.
Redshift
They do useless stuff like that for the same reason that pundits are always laughably wrong — because they get attention for being outrageous, not for being useful.
dp
I’m not at all sure that that’s not an improvement, rather than being sad.
All of these “reality” cooking shows suffer from a surfeit of cuteness. To rephrase what you say, show me what you can do with what confronts a family at 5:30 pm on a Tuesday.
Walker
I bet you could find them in any store that carries chitterlings.
One of the interesting things that I have run into over the years is that some of the higher end grocery stores are “too good” to carry certain foods. Love Wegmans, but of you want kidney or tripe, have to go somewhere else.
Little Boots
johnny, I know I piss you off. but what do you think? you’re a smart guy, we all know it, what is going on?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t think so, the challenge is the point. Would you even want to cook with that giant pear thing with the poisonous seeds? or fish heads? What I like is when the contestants don’t even recognize an ingredient. That and the Alex Guarnaschelli stink-eye. She’s gonna hit somebody before too long.
Do you listen to Marc Maron? HE’s gonna do an interview with… Conant, I think is the one. One of the two guys who look just like each other.
Hill Dweller
OT: The twitter machine is telling me the WaPo fact-checker gave an Obama campaign commercial hitting Romney for shipping jobs overseas 4 Pinocchios today(Thurs.), but the paper is running a big front page story on Romney shipping jobs overseas tomorrow(Friday).
jl
Cooking chicken guts: I agree, that is weird, OTOH, guts is cheap, and Cole just had his wallet chewed up, so I think he would be interested.
I’d like to see a show with old tymey recipes, like old heirloom recipes for pastries and cakes and cookies, and more cookies, and how about puddings. Did I mention cookies?
And stews. Oh, and pies.
The oldsters in my family made fantastic stuff using recipes from way back in the day. Nineteenth century farm and country recipes that were old even back then, out of cookbooks that were falling apart, with old yaller scarps with scrawled writin’ on em.
And me, being a young snot nosed unappreciative and unthinking punk, never thought I should keep track of those recipe books, because I would want some of those goodies again someday.
An old great aunt who was a pastry wizard actually gave the youngins a pie pastry lesson one time (“Cause, hell, I ain’t gonna be around much longer and ain’t you gonna want some pie? Better hand down the knowledge”) But it didn’t take, I never found the magic touch with ice cold water, just right mix of flour and I never understood about how to cut that lard into little pea things.
Anybody know of a cooking show with old time recipes?
There was this sour cream grape pie, with fresh grapes…. mmmm mmm. And four or five sweet tater pie recipes and each one was better than anything I can find now.
Little Boots
johnnie?
ant
my mom used to make them shitlins.
Hated it as a kid, but now as an adult, it’s something I crave, but cant find anywhere.
My grocery store gets em in like once a year, but I have no idea how to cook them things.
They stink. And my mom would spend hours prepping them to cook. And then they would cook for days before they were ready to eat.
One of the sucky things about having no black neighbors.
jl
BTW, what did they do with the chicken guts?
Deep fry them? A true son of the south ought to appreciate that king of thing.
Edit: I’m guessing no way they deep fried them. They probably ground them up with some herbs, or cut them up so they looked like little hoses with crud leaking out, ‘napped’ in some damn goey sauce with pickled berries or some such nonsense. something like that, huh?
Little Boots
you’re no doug.
that is all.
FlipYrWhig
I don’t think the point of Chopped is to teach viewers to make food. The point is to make the chefs use aspects of their training but incorporate stuff they’ve never worked with. The judges are high-end chefs and world travelers who have tried most everything, and the contestants need to impress them with culinary improv. And nine times out of ten they turn liquids and fruits into vinaigrettes and grind stuff up to make crusts anyway.
Little Boots
johnne, you are such a dick sometimes.
The prophet Nostradumbass
“Bizarre Foods” really is an interesting, but unfortunately mis-named, TV show.
Also too, his name is Zimmern, not Zimmerman.
jl
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
I’ve seen some interesting Bizarre Foods episodes. A few years ago, I remember an episode in Taiwan. Went to place in the mountains with tea plantations. Beautiful landscapes and beautiful women. But you can find that kind of thing all over.
But where else to you find fried bees? Or salted rotten pork fat?
I’m visiting Taiwan someday to check it out, but probably not eat it, at least not the rotten port stuff.
satanicpanic
Better than yelling at the kids on your lawn
Also, simple IS better
+4
McG
Preach Brother John.
All of my favorite recipes are about five ingredients or less, combined in about the most obvious way.
Give’em egg and cheese, they would make cheeselets stuffed with egg. And they would call it innovative, as opposed to a waste of cheese.
freelancer
That’s because Silly Season drives facebook traffic, drives Nielsen ratings, lasts forever, and acts as an ultimate distraction. Politics as a topic, exists, in most peoples’ minds as an abstract that, if you ask them to specify, recollect anecdotes supporting their confirmation bias. In the middle, people love the USA, on the left, they see the crisis and are mildly panicked, and on the right, they see themselves as Resistance Fighters in Nazi-occupied territory who want to destroy librul National Sockalist Obamitler because if they don’t he will send them off to
a FEMA camp where they will be raped by a Gay, Black, and Hispanic Marine Lance Corporal whose freeloading Dad came here illegaly and is on welfare right before they are death panelled by a Muslim because of Sharia lawa doctor that will set their broken leg and maybe, just maybe, they won’t get a soul-crushing, bankruptcy-inducing bill in the mail.But hey, what do I know. I’m just a dummy out there in the world trying to not get fucked.
PS: Here’s an awesome group of 21 pics of human beings being awesome.
jl
Allergic to Meat: Lone Star Tick May Make Vegetarians of Some
By KATIE MOISSE
” A bite from the lone star tick, so-called for the white spot on its back, looks innocent enough. But University of Virginia researchers say saliva that sneaks into the tiny wound may trigger an allergic reaction to meat, agonizing enough to convert lifelong carnivores into wary vegetarians. ”
http://news.yahoo.com/allergic-meat-lone-star-tick-may-vegetarians-133418695–abc-news-health.html
Watch for ticks, all you East Coasterners!
Viva BrisVegas
I must admit I had never thought of cooking and/or eating chicken guts. Around here the only use we have for them is as fishing bait.
They make great bait, you just thread a section onto the hook like a worm. The fish love it.
Suffern ACE
Yes, but who would watch a cooking show where they cooked like I did with breadcrumbs and whatnot. They don’t get the big bucks to fry eggs.
Also, due to a confusing menu layout, I once accidently ordered congee with chicken intestines. Poor waitress was beside herself. Ahe got another waiter to come over to verify the number I said. The cook, who actually spoke Englhsh came out to verify one more time and actually explained what the fuss was about. I changed my order. Apparently, they are on the menu for authenticity sake, but there are tight reporting controls to stop their inadvertent release to customers.
Steeplejack
@freelancer:
Probably want to spell out–sorry, couldn’t keep a straight face. Carry on.
The heat is making me giddy.
MTiffany
So that explains the quality of ‘reality’ TV.
jl
@Suffern ACE:
When I lived in Koreatown in LA, sometimes I would get adventerous and order something that sounded exotic.
I learned to pay attention when the waitress said ‘You don’t want that, Americans don’t like it’.
If it was just that it was supposedly too spicey, I forged ahead.
But once I got some seafood salad/stew thing with sea cucumbers that looked like little chopped up bicycle tires, glopped up with jellyfish and sea urchin eggs, or sperm sacks or god knows what. It was weird as it sounds. Had a weird taste of iodine in mouth all the next day.
Weirdest food was when Filipino family’s little girl teased me into trying some balut. Tried a tiny slurp of the ‘soup’, some of the egg, and little nibble of the… nah I don’t even want to type it out.
karen
Has any Jewish person here eaten Kishke? I think that’s cow intestines in a sausage casing but I could be wrong. All I know is that it’s freaking delicious and really bad for you.
jl
Here’s a recipe for balut. It looks very simple.
Balut
http://www.recipetips.com/glossary-term/t–38411/balut.asp
@karen: Well, if you can pass something off as a ‘sausage’ I’ll be tempted. I will keep an eye out for it. Thanks.
satanicpanic
@jl: aw, don’t leave us hanging
Chad
I thought high cuisine wasn’t judged on taste but difficulty. So they take the crap foods and try to make them edible.
jl
@satanicpanic: The little ducky goes down better with some fish sauce. My bizarre foods tip of the day. You are welcome.
freelancer
@Steeplejack:
You made me cackle for a good 10-15 seconds. Talk about inside baseball!
jill
the lovely husband and I think that it is Alton Brown’s diabolical genious behind the basket selections. What else would explain such choices?
satanicpanic
@jl: ducky as in baby duck? Or are we talking some urban dictionary stuff? I have eaten some weird stuff. Only thing I instantly regretted was some sushi that was a roll full of what I think were guppies. Everything else I regretted took longer.
slim's tuna provider
russians like to fry up chicken guts with chicken skin and onion. it is very good as an appetizer while you’re waiting for the woman to finish roasting the chicken and trying to sneak a bit of vodka wihout her catching you. it’s called shkvarki and boy is it not healthy.
/extremely sexist, but what actually happens
jl
@satanicpanic:
Balut is a half developed chicken or duck egg, that is then boiled in water or flavored broth.
You delicately tap off the top of the egg and slurp the delicious broth, then you savor the custardy egg substance, or whatever it is when it has turned into whatever it is after the fetus develops. Then you eat the little chicky or ducky nestled inside, gently napped (as a food critic might say) in the ‘soup’ and the pudding/jello crud that was the egg substance.
So, yeah the little girl teased me so much because I was not man enough to eat some, that I finally gave in and gave it a try.
Roughly the same as eating a Chinese hundred year old egg. As I said, not too bad with a little fish sauce.
Edit: this particular little girl liked to take out the little ducky and hold it by the wings and make it dance a little before she ate it. I think that put me off balut for awhile. I made her promise not to do that when I tried it.
Actually, though, a lof Filipino is very good. Balut is kind of an exception. They also have this blood stew and what looks like old dish water with lots of chopped up cow guts in it. I stay away from that stuff but otherwise lots of good food.
I don’t make fun, I saw some of the awful guts and blood stuff the Irish and Swiss oldsters made in my family.
satanicpanic
@jl: I salute you, that’s a tall order. I say I’ll try anything once, but the only thing I think I’ve eaten whole is deep fried shrimp.
jl
Meant to type:
Actually, though, a lof Filipino FOOD is very good.
No cannibal or pie jokes, please.
satanic: No way I ate the whole thing. But the laughter I endured as they watched my face as I ate it is still ringing in my ears.
satanicpanic
@jl: That’s pretty much a universal thing, right, “hey, try this… oh shit he actually tried it, hahahahaha” I have tried to get revenge myself (mainly with spicy Mexican candy), but it never really worked out as well as I hoped. Of American food the worst I could think of was pork rinds, and that’s not really that crazy
jl
@satanicpanic:
You Mexican heritage? The problem is that it is hard to find Mexican food that people don’t like. I miss getting some Mexican food I used to be able to find in LA. Big sugary candied fruits, the weird spicy stuff. Also the sapotilla fruits that came into the market twice a year.
If I wanted to gross out somebody with Mexican food that is available in the US, I would go with that puffy corn fungus stuff.
The only food I found so disgusting and foul that I would never even taste it was some foul thick grisly blood and guts pudding the oldsters on the Swiss side of my family used to make.
I got a crazy Scot cousin who actually eats haggis. Has made it, and goes to Bobby Burns Day celebrations and voluntarily eats a piece of that ****.
RadioOne
Bottom line, Chopped is a really, really silly show, and people who love to cook should not watch the Food Network, except to watch Ina Garten on Barefoot Contessa, who is awesome and knows precisely how to cook and prepare food for people.
Origuy
I like haggis, but I draw the line at black (i.e. blood) pudding.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Origuy: I have a lot of relatives who will eat black pudding (they’re Irish), but I won’t touch the stuff.
My mom will even eat tripe. She has told me that she would eat it raw (!) when she was a kid. The very smell of the stuff cooking makes me want to gag.
Anne Laurie
@jl:
Ugh. Worst thing I ever got forced to eat was fried elvers, back in the late 1960s, at a hole-in-the-wall no-English-menu Chinatown joint my food-adventurous dad adored.
Over the ensuing forty-odd years, whenever I tell some earnest foodie that I don’t care for seafood and they say “But you haven’t tried… “, I’ve always been able to reply truthfully that “Yes, I have, and I DID NOT LIKE IT.”
However, I’ve never eaten sea cucumber (thank goddess). Thanks to your advice, if anyone urges me to try it, I intend to lie.
Anne Laurie
@karen:
Not Jewish, just NYC-raised, so I have probably eaten my body weight in kishke over the years. It’s basically grain-heavy sausage — chopped meat & cooked barley or oatmeal in an intestine casing. Like all sausages, when it’s good, it’s really really good, and when it’s bad, it’s nasty.
I think the word ‘kishke’ means “guts”. Back when MAD magazine was new, “Kick ’em inna kishkes, they don’t like that!” was a catchphrase in every fight scene.
Anne Laurie
@Origuy:
I’ll eat both black pudding and haggis, but not *gag* head cheese. All due respect to our starving ancestors who had to eat anything that might be construed as edible, but I figure they gagged that shite down in the hopes that their descendents wouldn’t have to!
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Anne Laurie: So, it’s kind of like Jewish Haggis?
Anne Laurie
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
Believe it or not, Campbell’s used to sell condensed Pepper Pot soup — beef tripe, veggies & a whole bunch of black pepper. Haven’t seen it in years, which may just mean I’m shopping in more upscale groceries these days…
Anne Laurie
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
Yeah, except kishke’s cow-based instead of sheep-based. And it’s easier for sensitive types to nibble a portion of tube than to watch an entire sheep’s stomach full of miscellaneous organs being hacked apart (as the show before the meal). I vaguely remember being told that Jewish butchers invented kishke because they weren’t allowed to keep the good parts of the cows they slaughtered for the local nobility, but that’s the story behind 85% of our various prized Ethnic Roots cuisine…
jl
@Anne Laurie:
“Campbell’s used to sell condensed Pepper Pot soup”
What? ‘Philly food’ in a can?
I have some Pennsylvania Dutch in the family (except it turns out they are really Swiss who passed as Germans after they got off the boat long ago).
Some of that Pennsylvania Dutch and Philly food is odd too. There is one scrapplemaniac in the family. Has to make it himself and clean it up afterwards since everyone else is afraid to go near it.
Loaf pan of mush baked with pig guts ‘n’ parts, egg, lotsa pepper, some veggies. Slice and fry it up all nice and greasy like. With, to top it off, syrup. Yikes.
I tried some of the low test scrapple once, but have not seen reason to try some of the high octane versions I’ve seen him make.
Edit: problem is, he likes it with organ meats, including what is to me, the ultimate gag food, liver. It amazes me how many people do not understand, cannot get it through their heads, that liver and kidneys are not edible.
MikeJ
@jl: The livers of chickens are ok, especially as a mousse. Not a fan of other varieties.
kimp
My hand to God, i spent the night in 5th grade with a friend from school . and her dad was eating boiled chicken FEET .Like it was corn on the cobb. Disgusting. (Then and now)
James E. Powell
My grandmother loved czarnina. I thought it smelled like death.
karen
@Anne Laurie:
There’s an expression that someone is “eating their kishkes out.” which is kind of like eating your heart out…so maybe it’s like guts or soul, some Yiddish words don’t quite translate into English because they’re feelings.
Anne Laurie, now they make vegetarian kishke because of the heart attack in a casing that non-vegetarian kishke has.
karen
@MikeJ:
When my parents have company over, they always have chopped liver (already made, don’t know if it’s made of chicken or beef) and crackers.
They may think it’s delicious but…
UGH.
karen
@jl:
I’ve seen scrapple, they serve it for breakfast here in Maryland sometimes at buffets but I haven’t been brave enough to try it.
Older_Wiser
I won’t eat any of that shit. I’m a southerner, and wouldn’t eat pickled pigs feet, either, or other throwaway parts and entrails of any animal popular in the south or elsewhere, and, in fact, have been pretty much vegetarian since the 1970s. I mean, why poison myself with antibiotics, hormones or anything else in their feed, or wait for vegetation to go through an animal’s digestive system?
And why do these idiots use an expensive herb, spice or other ingredient you don’t usually have on the shelf and wind up having to throw out (along with your money) because you just bought it to try out something complicated that looked OK in the end and your family won’t touch with a 10 ft pole? Presentation is everything to these celeb chefs–the selling secret–along with the personality of a carnival barker.
Older_Wiser
@karen: In the South, they have livermush, finely ground, cooked internal organs, spices and corn meal, formed into a rectangle (dark in color), eaten fried or out of the pkg in sandwiches w/mayo on white bread, and often fried with eggs and eaten w/grits for breakfast.
Schlemizel
you need to live in a community with a larger black and/or asian population. We have pig and chicken intestines (frozen) at our local chain (CUB – a division of Supervalue).
It also wouldn’t hurt if you surrendered the mistaken notion that Chopped is about cooking. Its a reality drama show, the food is incidental.
Schlemizel
@RadioOne: Sorry but Ina is perhaps the most pretentious of the celebrity chefs – and that takes some doing. The woman that does NPRs “Splendid table” is running neck and neck, Both know how to cook but will start telling you about ingredients or methods that are currently “hot” as if they were the only way normal humans can enjoy the meal.
Frankensteinbeck
No, it’s a step in the right direction. Politics requires level, complex thought. Art requires deranged zeal.
NotMax
There is a take-out place in town (one which I do not frequent) which serves trays of (really not making this up) fried cow lips, and also perhaps the most disgusting item in the pantheon: Balut (see also: the #1 item here)
NotMax
@MikeJ
Well made, properly lumpy chopped liver is a thing sublime.
I do like to occasionally make vegetarian mock chopped liver instead.
Thoroughly drain one can of French cut green beans (recipe doesn’t work right with any other kind of canned green beans). Put into food processor or blender along with 1/2 onion, diced and fried, 1 hard boiled egg, a bit of parsley and 1/4 cup (or more) walnut pieces.
Blend until slightly pasty. Looks and (surprisingly) tastes close to chopped liver.
Tradition within my family to serve this for New Year’s eve gatherings.
celiadexter
Monkfish. Yum yum yum. It was marvelous at Le Bernardin and perhaps even more so at Tra di Noi (our favorite Arthur Avenue restaurant, for those of you not afraid to venture into the Bronx). However, not what you would call a pretty fish. I didn’t see that Bizarre Foods episode so I don’t know if Zimmern showed what these guys look like before they get to the fishmonger or restaurant, but this should be a link to the Google Images monkfish page: http://www.google.com/search?q=monkfish&hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&prmd=imvnse&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=kU_kT6iBHqjc0QHVkYHWCQ&ved=0CGUQsAQ&biw=1910&bih=928
Any questions?
Happy birthday, John!
gelfling545
You will always scream at the tv because it just gets dumber & dumber. One successful show spawns a bunch of knockoffs which are generally terrible or some fool decides (as with cooking shows) to “take it to the next level” when there really is no next level & it’s all just nonsense. Then there’s the 24/7 non-news. I have been a happier person since I ditched the cable tv.
J.W. Hamner
Watch Giada if you want to learn
about breastshow to cook things and watch Chopped because it’s entertaining. You are not supposed to learn how to cook by watching “Battle Antelope” on Iron Chef either.kc
Well, the pompous judges are always telling the chefs to ” repurpose” or ” transform” the ingredients.
chopper
the first and only time i made monkfish i made the mistake of telling my wife what it was, wherein she promptly did a google image search.
AnnaN
Blech. I try to stay away from organs; I don’t care how they are processed, spiced, or prepared.
slim's tuna provider
@Anne Laurie: yiddish is mostly old german, with bits of old testament hebrew and slavic languages thrown in. “kishke” is actually borrowed from russian/ukranian, and means “intestine” or “gut”, but usually not in the figurative sense, with the exception of the expression “thin kishkes”, meaning someone is not tough enough for a certain task or conflict. like, say, mitt romney againt any real issue.
schrodinger's cat
You should watch America’s Test Kitchen on PBS for stuff that you would actually cook. Also any show by Jacques Pepin. Weirdest things I have eaten, frog legs and brains of a goat. What can I say my parents were adventurous eaters.
Rich Webb
@schrodinger’s cat: America’s Test Kitchen? Oh, hell yes. “This is what’s available in the supermarket. These are the brands we liked and why. And if you don’t want to buy that $200 All-Clad pan, here’s one for $29.95 that’s really pretty good.”
Just re-watching the Season 11 DVDs. Gotta try that chicken pot pie recipe this weekend…
merrinc
My husband and I love Chopped. Dunno why since neither of us like to cook and I often find myself in front of my fridge and/or pantry, looking sadly at what I have on hand, and instead of accepting the challenge of making dinner out of say, weinies, fruit loops, cucumbers, and fresh dill, just order a pizza or drive half a mile south for Chinese takeout.
But yeah, some of the ingredients on Chopped are most bizarre. I don’t understand the fascination with organ meat or various testicles with silly names. But the basket with fish heads was just insane – who the hell puts fish heads on their shopping list? No one in this country, I bet.
JR
I think it was 3rd season of Top Chef when they had a French cooking school design an elimination challenge for the contestants. The test was each contestant got a chicken, a potato, and an onion. The winning dish was a butter poached chicken with potato puffs.
Of all the episodes I watched (I gave up around the time of Marcel), I think that one was the most accessible overall to amateur home cooks.
The next goddamn episode was elk. Fucking elk.
bemused senior
@kimp: They come around with stewed chicken feet at our favorite Dim Sum restaurant here in the SF Peninsula. Don’t taste any different from the neck or some other not-meaty part of the chicken.
Regarding simple ingredients, my husband’s grandmother made the absolute best meatballs in the world, that noone can quite reproduce, having virtually no added ingredients (ground beef, one dampened slice of white bread, garlic salt; canned tomato sauce with a teaspoon of sugar after the meatballs were done.) The trick was how she prepared them. She squeezed the meat mixture for a really long time to combine the bread and, I guess, tenderize the meat. Then, after forming the meatballs, she would “cook ’em slow” — her words — browning them and cooking the meatballs really slowly. Finally she’d add the tomato sauce and sugar to the meatballs and juices, heat slowly for a little while, and they were ready. I can come close to hers, but I am obviously not as patient.
GeneJockey
Who the hell uses egg wash and bread crumbs to make fried chicken? What are they, barbarians?
Tonybrown74
@kimp:
Sounds like a Trinidadian appetizer that I grew up with (hated the idea of eating chicken feet, but the liquid it was soaking in is quite good).
It’s called souse, and it’s pretty much picked chicken (or pigs) feet in a brine of salt, cucumber, lime juice, pepper sauce, cilantro, and other spices.
Uyrich
All the best, John. Yours is the first blog I read every day from down here in UY! Keep up the great work!
MikkiChan
@GeneJockey: Thank you!!!! It might be ‘breaded chicken’ fried, but certainly not fried chicken!
Bubblegum Tate
@AnnaN:
I avoid organ meat like the plague, but when I was in Florence last month, I had something called Crotini Toscana in a trattoria, and it was fucking delicious. I had a sneaking suspicion there was some sort of organ meat in it (it was basically a delicious and hearty spread over some grilled crostini), and when I got back to my room that night, I Googled it and found that yes, it includes minced chicken livers. I still ordered it again. But that’s the only exception I will make.
Cliff in NH
@schrodinger’s cat:
Thanks for the tip!
Here is a link to episodes:
http://www.americastestkitchen.com/episodes/
I got a bunch of russets to use up so I might try this one:
Potato Gnocchi with Browned Butter and Sage
http://www.americastestkitchen.com/episodes/detail.php?docid=35185
asiangrrlMN
I love innards, Cole. I’m betting you can buy them in an Asian food store.
tones
Jaques Pepin is genius, Alton Brown is always interesting.
Giada is ok