In a club I belong to, we have a monthly potluck dinner, where the host provides the main course and each of the guests brings a side dish or dessert. At the latest one, the host announced to everyone that dinner was ready - chicken tetrazzini. When we went to the table where she’d laid out the food, I saw that her “chicken tetrazzini” was canned cream-of-chicken soup, warmed in a crockpot, next to a collander of cooked spaghetti. I guess she gets points for creativity.
The setting: Thanksgiving (the one American food holiday with the most potential pitfalls), when we and our friends were young, fresh out of school, in our first career jobs, our friend’s first Thanksgiving in their new (and first) house, BC (before children), and wanting to impress us and a few other friends. Turkey comes out of the oven looking like a photo from Martha Stewart’s magazine – all looks good – she followed the recipe – we had no reason to doubt. She asks me to do the honors of slicing the bird – OK, sure. I have done this a few times before – slice, slice, slice the breast, so far so good. I slice a little too close to the cavity, which I assumed was empty, since no stuffing came out of there. Some people do leave it empty. Anyway, as I pull the knife back toward me, a few shreds of white plastic emerge. “What the…” when it dawns on me that is part of a small plastic bag that is usually inserted into the cavity that contains, you know, the neck, gizzard, liver.
Uh-oh – we have a problem. I call my wife over, who has, even at this juncture in our lives, cooked a few of these before, and I ask her what to do. Too late, the host sees what happened. A scene erupts, punctuated by nervous laughter, and pity. After a few embarrassed apologies, the rest of the giblets are removed, and the bird put back in the oven for a few more minutes to ensure any of the “juice” gets cooked. “Ha-ha! Everyone have another glass of wine. Ha-ha.” I tried to help the host feel better by assuring her it happens all the time, I’m sure. We eat and no one gets sick. The meal turned out to be memorable, for certain.
Anyway, moral of the story, and words to live by: It may look good on the outside, but make sure the giblets have been removed.
BTW, we are still friends with the hosts – she is a great cook now – her fresh salsa is food you can live on alone.
As a guy who got a cast-iron pan for his birthday a couple of weeks ago, how are you supposed to clean it?
Here’s a story:
A few days after our arrival in Lisbon, a woman who worked at the embassy invited us over for a dinner party. Her husband was going to make his famous chicken dish with his secret sauce that everyone raves about.
We arrived at the appointed time, and I noticed that there was no aroma of cooking food in the house, but figured that perhaps the dish has a short prep time. So we attacked the very meager appetizer plates; I’m talking a few hunks of cheese and some crackers for twelve guests. Nobody had been asked to bring anything, so that was it. Well, I’m thinking, perhaps dinner is going to be served soon.
Nothing. An hour goes by and still no hint of dinner being prepared. Two hours go by, and I’m seriously hungry, since (other than the piece of cheese) I’ve eaten nothing since lunch and it’s now 8:00 p.m. The hostess disappears, and about a half hour later she comes out of the kitchen and sheepishly announces that “Jim forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer, so it’s going to be a bit longer.” WTF? It’s a fucking CHICKEN dish!
Another hour goes by, and we are finally called to table. By now everybody is ready to gnaw on the furniture, so we’re eager to eat, and oh what the hell, shit happens, right? They pass around the platter of chicken, followed by the secret sauce and some sad-looking veggies. I pick up my knife and fork and stab into chicken that is cooked to a depth of about 1/8 inch, then raw, then frozen. Now, I’ll eat most anything served and smile and say “thanks”, but there is no fucking way I’ll eat raw chicken. So I pushed it aside, and nibbled at the veggies a bit. Then I staged a huge yawn and claimed that I was still jet-lagged, and we beat a hasty retreat home. Oh, and the secret sauce? A thin, watery, tasteless gruel.
Why is that being a snot? I never said she used binders and we’re not talking about just condiments mixed in. She used a ton of A1 and then on top of that used a ton of worchestershire sauce. It was so vinegary that it was inedible and her rationale was that if hamburger tastes good with A1 and tastes good with worsauce then it must be great with both added.
I’m sure if chefguy wanted to make a mayonnaise pie crust I would try it but not my SIL because for her Miracle Whip is mayonnaise and she has no technique so it would have been flour mixed with Miracle Whip and pressed into the bottom of the casserole.
When we were kids, my brothers and I were treated to the joys of cooking using a pressure - cooker.
My mother, who did the cooking, discovered that you could make chicken stew by throwing chicken bits (bones and all) and various vegitables into a pressure-cooker, and cooking the hell out of it.
Then, the left-overs could be stored in the fridge, in the pressure pot. The next day, you could throw more chicken bits and vegitables into the same pot, and pressure-cook the hell out of it again.
Each person would fish out of the pot the tasty bits of chicken and vegitables, cut off the chicken meat, and throw back in the bones “for flavour”. We were not allowed to throw the bones out.
We used to call this the “endless stew” - the pot was never fully emptied until it was as full of bone and gristle as a chicken graveyard, and just as appetizing.
She didn’t use binders and I’m talking an assload of A1 then an assload of worsauce on top of that because if each tastes good then together they must be awesome. The burgers were inedible because they were so vinegary.
If chefguy wanted to make me a mayonnaise pie crust I would try it but here is the recipe she wanted to use
When was the last time you poured a crust or put hard boiled eggs in a chicken pot pie?
First, that’s not at all how you described it initially. Second, it doesn’t matter. Let her make her own mistakes. Or maybe she likes it more vinegary and sloppy joe like. Who cares. If she asked you for advice, great. If she didn’t, it can be a bit rude to give, depending on how you give it.
Did you even let her try? Is it possible she may have made it before?
Never, but I would absolutely eat that. That said, I have a special place in my heart for those Midwestern types of “easy casserole” dishes like that one. Hell, even I whip out the cream of whatever from time to time to make a casserole. I’m going to put this one in my recipe file and give it a shot soon.
ETA: Note the reviews for the recipe. There’s only three, but all positive. It’s not haute cuisine, but I’m sure it’s reasonable.
A bit of water and bring it to a boil and use a spatula to gently remove anything big. Then wash it out and put a bit of oil and kosher salt (you can use table salt if you’d like but I think the bigger grains make for a better abrasive) and rub it around with a paper towel to scour the rest. Rinse and let dry on the stove. That’s what I do although I’m not nearly as fanatical about it as other people.
After washing it with hot, soapy water, cure it with peanut oil (heat 2 tbps to near smoking, swirl around all inner surfaces, let it cool, add 2 more tbps and repeat).
let the pan cool and discard the oil. wipe in the inside with a paper towel.
Once that is done, you should only need to wash it with hot water. You want carbon buildup on your cast iron. You don’t want crusty bits, however. Take some steel wool to those bits and gently remove them.
I have cast iron pans that are at least 40 years old, and that is how I have cared for them.
Hamburger meat mixed with onion salt, garlic salt, and Worcestershire sauce is great. Haven’t tasted it with A-1. My favorite is unadulterated meat with a little garlic butter melted on top once they’re done. My father-in-law always made his with a sprinkle of garlic salt before cooking.
My cast iron pans are well-enough seasoned that soap doesn’t wreck them. I’ve seen a relative have an actual tantrum when someone had the nerve to wash his precious omelet pan with soap.
Ditto not seeing the problem with mayonnaise in a crust (have you seen oil crusts?). It probably tastes just fine. I’d bet it has more flavor than a typical Crisco crust, which has no flavor. I’ve been served mashed potatoes made with mayo, and have to admit that they were delicious, although I don’t intend to start adding mayo to mine.
Every cook has to start somewhere. At least she’s making the attempt to cook for people, no matter how ungrateful they are.
You’re seriously belittling her for not adding a pinch of salt to chocolate?
Most of the time, I just wait for it to cool down (not cold, just not too hot to handle), then wipe it out with a paper towel. Done.
If there are lots of cooked on crispy bits, I sprinkle in a teaspoon or so of salt, rub that around with my fingers to remove the crusties, dump the residue in the sink and follow with a paper towel polish.
I love using cast iron.
Pretty much this. The main key, in my experience, is to make those coats of oil as thin as possible. I basically put it in the pan, and wipe the excess off with a paper towel, and heat it up until it starts smoking and repeat several times. You can also do this in the oven (which is the more usual way.) There are folks who swear by flax seed oil, and, having tried it, it really does seem to build up the slick surface much more quickly.
If the pan is poorly/unevenly seasoned, I prefer to start from bare metal by throwing it in the oven on a self-cleaning cycle (or you could do a lye bath.) But once you get it seasoned properly, you’ll get a nice slick surface. And you don’t have to be religious about avoiding soap. I tend not to use soap at all on my cast iron pans, but occasionally for really tough stains I’ll use it, and it hasn’t been a problem.
That type of dish was popular many years ago. Bisquick came out with a recipe similar to that, calling it a “Surprise Pie”. It’s a meal-stretcher type of dish and kids usually like it. But a pot pie it ain’t.
googles Aha, cooks.com, poisoner of the interwebs.
As someone who searches for recipes online a lot*, I have found it much less distressing and disheartening since I set up a special “recipe searching page” which is just a local .htm file with a form that passes search terms to Google, automatically adding “recipe -site:cooks.com” to make sure that I never see any results from cooks.com, because of all the times I found I started reading a recipe only to get a quarter of the way through before going, “That can’t be right, that sounds like something an unsupervised child would do. Oh, right - cooks.com.”
*I plan our meals a week in advance using a schedule that rotates staggered cuisines and meat options for maximum variety, so it’s like, “Well, Wednesday night it’s going to be Indian/Pork - let’s look at Vindaloo recipes, then.”
Yeah, someone here (I believe it was devilsknew) taught me the Bisquick chicken-and-dumplings trick. You make yourself a typical chicken stew base with veggies and cream of celery and then dump some still Bisquick batter on it to bake.
Ah, here’s the recipe. It’s really quite good.
I didn’t connect the dots, but you’re right that the “mayo crust” recipe is a similar idea. It’s got self-rising flour, milk, and mayonnaise, which is basically going to give you a Bisquick-like “crust” I assume.
I am a little dubious about the cooks.com recipe asking for cooked chicken and baking it for an hour and a half, but I assume it’s a leftovers kind of recipe, hence the cooked chicken.
Husband can cook anything as long as it has beans in it.
Chef daughter can cook anything but can’t resist tweaking old favorites.
Bachelor son is an excellent cook (for what he cooks) but wise enough never to let on.
A long LONG time ago, I made my burgers that way - mixing spices and Worcestershire into the meat gave it much better flavor. Finally, I figured out the problem. I WAS BUYING SHITTY MEAT! It had no flavor.
I’d buy in those tubes from Winn-Dixie that looked like a two pound package of sausage, whith a photo of ground beef on the plastic wrapper. Once I learned how good a mixture of chuck and round is mixed together, and then even better, grinding the beef yourself is, there was no more need to mix flavoring into the ground beef.
A little salt and pepper on the meat patties and off they go to the the grill for seven minutes - four on one side, three on the other. Easy-peasy!
Thanksgiving with my aunt. My aunt of strong Dutch heritage.
There was zero browning on her turkey. She was of the “get up at 2am and put it at a low low temperature” school, maybe? Anyway, the turkey was simultaneously dry and not brown.
There was no gravy.
Mashed potatoes from a box mix.
Steamed cauliflower with nothing on it.
Stuffing made from white sandwich bread.
Applesauce from a jar.
The end. The whole meal was white.
And again I don’t mind A1 in hamburgers or WorSauce in hamburgers but both TOGETHER is indible overkill.