Proust was the O.G. Oprah

There's no doubt that the Madeleine owes its fancy-pants notoriety to Marcel Proust. Would this tiny cake fetch $2 apiece at coffee shops had he not tediously described the crumbs in his tea spoon? Nope. Would this masturbatory exercise in intellectual foodie smugness have been given space on Slate's servers if the Proust-Madeleine connection weren't so well known? Actually it's quite possible. Forget about that one...that's a bad example (and by the way, if following Julia Child's directions in preparing the molds by brushing with butter and flour, a certain amount of micro-crumbs are definitely present on the shell side after removal).

The publicity generated by Proust's 7-or-so paragraph Madeleine shout-out dwarfs any kind of hype generated for the favorite things of Oprah, undoubtedly the most influential person in media...and possibly the planet (Would sales of Anna Karenina in non-school bookstores have increased 100-fold had it not been for her book club? Nope. Would Jonathan Franzen have been exposed as a complete douche had it not been for Oprah's wisdom? Wait...another bad example. Doucheosity of that magnitude always manifests.)

Sometimes people ask me what I've cooked most in my lifetime. Recently I've come to realize that it's the Madeleine. I first made them for 8th-grade Francais avec Madame Windfuhr (my sister knew her as Frau Windfuhr...she taught both German and French). I really didn't know what I was getting into when I decided this was going to be my contribution to the class holiday party (I'm so glad I didn't decide to do a Bûche de Noël). This was in the infancy of my cooking ability, and I was unfamiliar with the concept of needing a shell-shaped pan to make a shell-shaped cake. So my first step was to acquire a pan, which involved telling my mom (likely three days before the day they were due) that I needed a Madeleine pan...and while she was at it, a recipe.


Two different recipes were used for the very first batch I made. One called for Amaretto and orange flower water. It was fussy and overly sweet. The other was Julia Child's recipe, requiring lemon zest and browned butter. I've come to realize now that any recipe that calls for liqueurs or ground up nuts etc. are probably doing so in order to avoid browning the butter. This was the first time I'd ever attempted browned butter, and it was under my mom's watchful eye. I suppose this is why I've never been too afraid to do it, as I distinctly remember the first instant when the butter darkened and gave off that unmistakably nutty aroma, then my mom telling me it was ready to come off the stove and into the ice bath.

After determining that Julia Child's recipe was the best (and that our oven at the time ran 50 degrees hot), I had plenty of opportunities to fine tune the method, as my mother's infatuation with the little French cake developed instantly. I've tried less labor-intensive ways of making the Madeleine pan nonstick (nothing worked as well as the original), including silicone molds (terrible). I've tried straining out the solids from the browned butter (not worth the effort), and dipping in chocolate (also not really worth the effort). I'd conservatively estimate that I've averaged two or three batches of Madeleines per year since the 8th grade. I've made far more packets of EasyMac and instant ramen, but nothing from scratch. Any time I needed to contribute something for a French class party, the Madeleine pan made an appearance. At one point in high school, I think I demonstrated how to make them en Francais ("et maintenant, faites la le beurre noisette"). Unfortunately, this knowledge did not help me on the AP test. Nowadays I couldn't use l'imparfait to save my life (Is it if my life were in a habitual state of danger in the past? If my life were in danger for an unspecified amount of time in the past? Both?), but I can make a pretty decent Madeleine.


I suppose I owe a debt of gratitude to Proust, though let's face it...À la Recherche du Temps Perdu can be some pretty boring-ass shit. However, I can safely say that there is no possible way I would have known about Madeleines in junior high had it not been for him. The canelé and the macaron are also delicious French pastries, but I've only come to know about those recently. Maybe someday this blog will serve as my (rambling...sorry) memoir. I wonder what food item I will make famous. I suppose the chicken biscuit is what I've written about most lately. It certainly wouldn't be difficult to write a couple thousand words about my first chicken biscuit for (regrettably) it was only a couple years ago. That's why you shouldn't judge me for eating them so often. I'm simply trying to make up for temps perdu.

Do reality TV stars continue to exist if no one is watching them?

Debatable, which is probably why they're always doing stuff to keep themselves on TMZ. It seems like reality TV chefs have similar challenges. It used to be that someone had to establish a few really good restaurants before they could think about a shot at TV. Once they got there, they could either take the respected PBS cooking show route, the pseudo-cooking make-sure-it-contains-a-processed-food-we-can-shill Food Network route, or the ego-driven shameless-self-promotion-followed-by-crash 'n burn-route (aka "The Rocco"). All three can lead to celebrity and further success running a restaurant empire.

Top Chef has changed that formula.

Take for example Richard Blais, runner up on season 4 of the Bravo show that was never quite as good as Project Runway. Leading up to his time on the show, his résumé included a two year executive chef position at a restaurant that's now a Ted's Montana grill, a self-titled restaurant that failed within six months, a firing from another place, then a decent review from the AJC at a once-trendy restaurant that has since drowned in the sea of Atlanta's slickly-decorated-and-overpriced restaurants with indistinguishable $20+ entrees (bonus trendy appeal if it's located in what was once a warehouse or housing projects...nothing makes a restaurant experience better than the knowledge that your grilled hanger steak came at the expense of a few displaced undesirable poor people).

His bio mentions that he's studied under Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud, and Ferran Adria. These are some of the most famous names in their extremely different disciplines. Who really knows what "studied under" means on Wikipedia. Boulud keeps an office over Daniel (according to After Hours with Daniel), so I could walk into his restaurant, read the menu, then technically say I've "studied under Daniel Boulud" on the .01% likelihood he was in his office at that moment. Judging by his work on Top Chef and Top Chef Masters, it doesn't seem that Blais could possibly reach the lofty heights of his mentors' talents. I haven't actually tried Boulud's or Adria's food, but Blais doesn't have the instinct for perfectly executed California cuisine or the ability for all-out playful, challenging, befuddling molecular gastronomy. "Sorta perfect" execution and "sorta impressive but now somewhat common" molecular gastronomy wouldn't do in a fine dining restaurant...but it works perfectly for a burger joint.

My old college roommate Dan came down to Atlanta for the weekend. Our bond was forged mainly through being gluttons. During our freshman year, Trader Joe's had not yet come to Amherst, so when my mother sent Peanut Butter Cups and Crack Cookies (crispy oatmeal chocolate chip), Dan was always close by. He repaid her kindness by making her physically ill with his stench when he came to California. Sophomore year when we were living in the same room, the Pinocchio's number, along with their two-for-one pizza coupons were always in use. Junior year when he was abroad in Florence and I went to visit him, our tourist style was basically "Big church, big church, pretty art...what's for lunch?" Suite life senior year centered around tea-time eats in the lower common room. Naturally I wanted to take him to a hot restaurant that everyone was raving about but was also moderately priced. Dan's visit gave the perfect excuse to check out Flip Burger Boutique which I had been hearing about constantly but hadn't yet tried.

Let's talk about the milkshakes. Earlier I mentioned that his molecular gastronomy isn't on the level of a Ferran Adria, Jose Andres, or Wylie Dufresne. That's perfectly fine for a burger place. It's cool if there's something entertaining, as long as it doesn't seriously freak you out and it works well...basically it has to taste good. Using liquid nitrogen to make milkshakes could be a gigantic gimmick. After thinking about it, it may be that nitrogen allows for a liquid milk shake base, and instead of having to make separate ice cream base then churn and freeze it, (a long process), one can simply add just enough liquid nitrogen while mixing to create a milkshake consistency, but not too much to make ice cream (as anyone who's taken a high school level or below science class sometime in their life has done). Also, the whole freezing/churning process of ice cream might do undesirable things to ingredients like Krispy Kreme doughnut bits or pistachios. Either that or it could be a huge gimmick...I'll let you know after I try the foie gras. Given that Blais has talked about opening a creamery either next door or nearby makes me think that yes...they do make ice cream with liquid nitrogen, then make a milkshake in the normal way, then for show just pour a bit of liquid nitrogen on the top of the shake for flair.

I tried (over the course of two visits with friends) the Krispy Kreme, Pumpkin Pie, Pistachio White Truffle, Nutella and Burnt Marshmallow, and the Key Lime Cheesecake.


The pumpkin pie gave the most accurate taste experience to its namesake food. As you can see, they'll split a milkshake for you if you ask. Audra and Erin ordered these (Erin's is quite appropriately sized).


This is a shot of Dan's Nutella and Burnt Marshmallow shake (though on facebook, Amanda Cai-or The 'Da as I like to call her-tagged herself on this photo. This is because she was jealous that Audra and Erin were tagged on their milkshakes, but by the time photos had been taken, she had already inhaled her shake. Right now if Amanda is reading this she's probably upset, even more so because there isn't anything I've said that's untrue). The burnt marshmallow was fine...simple torch job on the top ones, but it seemed like the mound underneath were still "raw." The shake itself tasted like a good solid chocolate milkshake.


The pistachio white chocolate was quite good, but you have to stir it all together first. The shake itself is nicely pistachio-laden. The whipped cream contains a lot of white truffle oil/flavor. I started drinking from the bottom, which led to too little white truffle early on then a bit too much later. Together though, they make for a shake that tastes like Italy. Don't ask why...it just does.

Krispy Kreme tasted extremely accurate as well, but that might be better for splitting, and Key Lime Cheesecake was also delicious. It had graham cracker crust bits on the bottom, had a nice lime flavor without being too sour, and later I was able to taste the cheesecake-ness of it (which had been masked by the cold up until then). Again, one that requires mixing well first.

So the liquid nitrogen for milkshakes may be a complete gimmick to up the price, but it does serve a more functional purpose in the kitchen. The french fries are cut, blanched/par-fried in duck fat, then flash frozen in liquid nitrogen. Why are McDonald's fries so crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside? They're blanched then flash frozen. Fried once (a la in-n-out) makes for either weirdly crisp throughout or just kinda so-so soft. Even blanch frying then crisping later (which I do at home) can lead to uneven results, with fries sometimes becoming too brown before they're really done. The freezing process makes for a nice and uniformly crisp outside of the fry with a great texture on the inside. Frying in duck fat is nice, but I've read reviews on Yelp where people say that the duck flavor is great. Anyone who thinks they're tasting duck is fooling themselves. Think about what an unseasoned duck would taste like, then imagine if you'd be able to taste a thin layer of that over potato, salt, and parsley (not to mention ketchup and smoked mayo). Try taking rendered bacon fat and spreading it on toast. How much bacon do you taste? How much stronger does bacon taste than duck? In any case, stop fooling yourselves. Things fried in duck fat certainly taste DIFFERENT than if they'd been fried in say canola. Duck fat is more pleasantly neutral and feels lighter on the lips, whereas other oils are more raw/oily neutral tasting. Duck fat is also less likely to go rancid so there are definitely benefits. In any case, it's a bit of a moot point because they fry things WELL at Flip. This means that the things they're frying aren't sponging up massive amounts of oil (think steak fries from your school cafeteria).


The fried bread and butter pickles (made in house) are fantastic. Don't let them sit too long though, as they turn a bit slimy and overpoweringly briny when cold. It won't be hard to eat them quickly though. Try them without the ranch first, then dip if you like.


The fried okra was the most impressive fried item of the day. Split down the middle (with what I imagine is a pretty sharp blade) instead of the more traditional segments, the sliminess is kept in check and the result is fried okra that's light and crisp like potato chips (with a few chewy ones every now and then...those are good too). Comes with a sriracha ranch.


There are those fries next to the farm burger. Here's where the Alice Waters influence comes in (wiki says he also studied at Chez Panisse...THERE TOO? SERIOUSLY, IT JUST SEEMS MADE UP AT THIS POINT). Organic grass-fed beef, heirloom tomatoes, local blah blah blah blah. It was a tasty burger. The beef was certainly of higher quality than any other burger I've had in recent memory, and it was cooked well. Flip doesn't seem to suffer from the temeprature inconsistency issues that places like The Vortex do. Nice amount of char on the outside of the burger, still slightly pink on the inside.


The steak tartare burger was phenomenal. Great texture, great flavor, sous-vide egg yolk takes out some of the rawness of normal tartare (eat a raw egg yolk, then eat an over easy or poached egg yolk for comparison, they're both runny but different).

I also tried the Philly the next night, which had "American Cheez Whiz" on it. This was more like a foam/whip cheese that tasted like Port Salut than actual cheez whiz. The burger sits on ketchup, then is topped with onions and peppers and the cheese stuff. This makes for a burger patty that is prone to sliding right out of the light brioche buns (from Alon's). It's a terrible mess, but also terribly fun. Delicious too. I had bites of the ossobucco, which had a nice gremolata, and the rBQ, which was basically a better than average pulled pork sandwich with brisket instead of pig.

I won't really pass final judgment on the burgers until I follow Marla's advice. She said to really judge the place I should try the the flip, their most basic burger. I was too excited to try the more creative things at the time, but now I realize she was absolutely right. The burgers aren't outlandishly expensive (the most expensive is the foie gras-laden A5, which at $39 is $7 more expensive than Daniel Boulud's db bistro moderne burger which comes with fries and adds truffle, but lacks Kobe beef) so if the flip is really solid that would make me happy. I think it was 6 or 7 bucks. The burgers are, however, a bit small to eat without a side which costs extra. The fried items are quite reasonably priced, for smaller but not inadequate portions. The non-fried sides are a bit more pricey.

I'll stop talking about the food for a bit now, as I'm wandering way too close into typical uninformed restaurant review territory. People often form an opinion of a restaurant before they even take a bite of food, either having read other reviews on yelp, or maybe they've seen the place on a Rachel Ray show, and gush about it. Otherwise, people will be negative for the sake of being negative. JUST GO EAT AT THE PLACE AND FIND OUT YOURSELF for god's sake. I'll just say this...it's good, I liked it, you should at least try it.

Will the hype last? I think the prices are pretty reasonable, but the menu needs some editing, and maybe more than one burger special. I haven't tried most of the non-beef burgers and I haven't tried some of the beef burgers. Dan and I went back the next night for dinner. In retrospect, for me at least, it was more the excitement of the novelty/creativity of the burgers and shakes than the food itself that drew me back (that and the fried items...I'd go just to eat the fried stuff). I'll have to go back and try the flip, and there are still things on the menu I want to try, and things I don't really want to try. After I'm through with those, I wonder if there's something that'll really COMPEL me to go unless someone comes into town. The drive is similar in length to that of a Banh Mi place that is excellent and where a sandwich is no more than $2.50.

There's no doubt that maybe 50-70% of the hype is Richard Blais's TV success. It's a solid restaurant no doubt, and to be fair Blais was a finalist, but I'd probably be raging at Flip if it cost any more. There was a bonafide Richard Blais sighting when he came out to talk to the front of the house, and Audra almost passed out with excitement. He's not really well established enough to avoid being hands on in the restaurant. The same could be said for a lot of other famous chefs out there now though. I think Blais is pretty smart in the way he digs in and gets involved. He shows his face which everyone gets excited about, and he's friendly and gracious and is willing to take pictures with people. He knows that some of the fame is from the show, and embraces that, but doesn't charge you for it. If he tried to get away with that he would tank. Think about how many Top Chef, America's Next Top Model, Project Runway WINNERS etc. etc. etc. go on to have really famous careers. Can you even name all of them? If you remember Top Chef's season one winner, Harold Dieterle, he opened a restaurant in NYC called Perilla. By the NY Times's review (1 star), he tried hard not to make himself too visible, probably not wanting to take advantage of his reality show celebrity (either that or he was too arrogant to think that the majority of his patrons were there for a different reason). The nicest thing Zagat had to say about it was "the understated verging on spare interior is in sharp contrast to the emphatic pricing." Snap.

In any case, Flip fills a perfect role. Upscale burgers at a reasonable price. Going to a really fancy restaurant is a great experience, but the prices prohibit your brain from craving a return trip. Flip is priced so that you can go back and try all the different burgers. If you don't get a milkshake (which you really don't have to), a meal is really very reasonable. I'll be going back, as I have unfinished business (they were out of Korean BBQ on the second night, which was my initial choice). I'm sure that anyone who goes will likely find reasons to make a return trip. It may be curiosity, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, because it's never a bad thing if there are multiple items on the menu that pique your interest. Once the novelty wears off, hopefully things rotate a bit or there's one particular burger I really want to go back for. Maybe it'll be the A5 with a foie gras shake, hopefully not...for my wallet's sake. I'm not really too concerned with my health.

Is reality TV good for restaurants? I can't say. There are a few other restaurants here in Atlanta with Top Chef alums, some of whom have gone pretty far in the contest, and I hear they're good. Still, how many Top Chef alums do you suppose will win James Beard foundation awards as well? Yeah that's what I thought too.

Pop quiz

Is anything not enhanced by the addition of a fried egg?
Hint: If you had to think about it, you're wrong.
Fried eggs on pizza? Delicious. Fried eggs on chocolate cake? Rich and creamy!
In fact...fry up an egg right now. Then eat some of it. Then fry up another egg and put it on top of your other fried egg. Better right?

Fried eggs make everything better. Just ask The Vortex what makes the Double Coronary Bypass Burger is so good (and trust me...it is). Is it the grilled cheese sandwich buns? The five slices of bacon? Well...yes those definitely help. But the two fried eggs certainly heighten the deliciously artery clogging experience.

This is probably why chilaquiles are most delicious in their breakfasty fried egg form. For the Mexican potluck I mentioned in the last post I also made some of this:


If you want to make some salsa verde yourself, just get a bunch of green things, chop 'em up and mix them together. In this case:

Tomatillos (roasted)
Green tomato (because there weren't that many good tomatillos at the market...also roasted).


Poblanos (charred...love that gas stove)


Scallions
Cilantro
Lime Juice
Garlic (not all that green, but let it in anyway)

When it's done, have a really fun Mexican potluck of some sort. Drink heavily.
The next morning, cut up some (preferably stale) corn tortillas into strips or wedges. Fry them in a little bit of oil then dump in a good amount of salsa and simmer (this really could be any type of salsa).
Experienced Tip: DO NOT USE TORTILLA CHIPS, even if you're at a lake house and the night before, all the real tortillas were used up making drunk food quesadillas. You'll end up with a thick salsa corn paste, but not chilaquiles.
After simmering for a bit, they'll be good as is. Put a little bit of queso fresco (or cotija because I had that in my fridge already) on top and you're good to go. Onions are good, sour cream, chicken, anything you can think of. But I guarantee you it will be even better if you put any type of fried egg on top. Scrambled works, sunny side up if you like to live on the edge, I used over-easy.

I want to say two words to you. Just two words. Are you listening?

Ring molds.

Today was a potluck for my friend Geoff's birthday (which is really tomorrow...I bet Halloween babies get extra candy, whereas Christmas babies get shafted with combination presents...plan accordingly, future parents), that had a Mexican theme. I wanted to avoid the use of my oven for anything because I've already burned through two years' worth of gas making popovers. Avocados were on sale so I figured I'd do something with that. Also, ceviche (though technically Peruvian in origin) doesn't require any cooking if you use the right things. So I figured, ceviche with avocados and stuff...simple and straightforward.

But I chose this occasion to practice a bit. For what you say? For when I'm sponging off of a rich wife and throwing dinner parties and the like. Indeed, the only reason I came to med school was to find a future rich doctor wife. I've failed in my first couple years so far. Since I haven't sewn one up yet, I'm doomed to take Step 1 of the boards, but I'm still keeping hope alive. In short, I'd have absolutely no problem being someone's "trophy husband" (hell I'd gladly take "consolation prize live-in boyfriend").

But what if somehow I manage to land a woman of sophistication and taste? I'd have to step up my home cooking game, and maybe borrow a few tricks from fancy restaurants.
That's where the ring molds come in. In my case, the set of biscuit cutters that I got for my chicken biscuit.

Here's some tricks that I've noticed fancy restaurants use (though I haven't been to that many...these might be outdated at this point) in order to make simple dishes look fancier:

First, deconstruct. The idea that restaurants want you to think is that by isolating the elements of a dish, you're presenting in radical form a familiar flavor, aggressively inviting the diner to consider the culinary process by which something edible comes together.
In reality, this is an awesome way to make the person eating do all the work for you. You don't have to mix your stuff together in the right amounts! Just put it all on a plate, have the person do all the work, then blame them if it doesn't turn out well! You could just criticize the ratio of the different items they put onto their fork/spoon and say it's their fault. Genius!

I deconstructed a Mexican ceviche by separating avocado from seafood from tomato. After some calculations, I figured out that each serving is about $2.50 worth of ingredients. Let's say the theoretical base price if I owned a restaurant that no one really knew about would be about $5 (I have no idea how they decide what to charge for stuff). Here's how I would mark it up. Please try to imagine a cash register "ka-ching!" sound every time you see a dollar sign:

The menu would simply say "ceviche" because that's more ironic and playful. Clearly this is not just any ceviche, but the foodie crowd would read "ceviche" then the description, and would feel smug about picking up on the chef's "cleverness" and feeling as if they were in on the joke with the chef, who is clearly their close personal friends because they go out to eat at fancy places all the time. ($6)
"ceviche" would be in all lower case letters, and the price would not have a dollar sign next to it. Also if there were a fraction of a dollar, it would be written as an actual fraction, not a decimal ($6.50...er i mean 6 1/2)



Here's the description:

Citrus-marinated ($6.75 for use of "citrus" instead of "lime") fresh sea scallops, wild caught ($7) gulf shrimp, and red onion.
Grape tomato and cilantro salsa cruda (use of the term "salsa cruda" instead of "hastily chopped" $7.50).
Chilled Haas Avocado soup (whaat...Avocado soup? $8) with cumin and cayenne.
All produce sourced from local ($8.75) organic ($9...local and organic are two words that give you license to charge anything! KA-CHING!) farms.

I garnished with lime zest. I don't describe the garnish so that it seems like a surprise and extra effort on my part ($9.25).

Second tip: Ring molds ($9.50). Food just tastes better when it's perfectly round.


Here's where I went wrong:


I mean look at those bowls. They're just so...round.
Despite the fact that food tastes better when it is perfectly round, it tastes worse if it's in the same shape as the plate it's on.
I could've charged much more for square ($9.75), or better yet an unnamed geometric shape ($10). The motherlode were if it were served on some sort of bowl carved out of pink sea salt ($12) that was cooled to the perfect avocado soup temperature ($13), thus keeping the dish cool and adding a subtle saltiness. If at all possible, use some sort of squeeze bottle to put sauce on ($13)
Oh yeah...the owner of the restaurant is a celebrity ($16). That celebrity is Jay-Z ($17), co-owned by Kanye West ($16.50). Also I'm Asian, so by definition making Mexican food is fusion ($18). Also my restaurant is in Vegas ($25).

So as is, I served a

ceviche 9 1/2

that cost me $2.50 and required absolutely no cooking whatsoever. I just stole $7 from your pocket. I'm gonna need that to pay for Step 1...unless someone wants to bail me out in time...ladies?

Buttermilk frying...and something completely different

There seems to be a bit of a debate as to how to do Southern Fried Chicken. Should you use a traditional brine or should you pseudo-brine in buttermilk instead? The benefits of using buttermilk are well-known, with its slight acidity helping creating for a more tender chicken. In my opinion, after trying both methods, buttermilk doesn't contribute a whole lot to flavor. If anything, my poultry rub (that always sounds dirty) has to be a bit stronger for buttermilk frying. For my chicken biscuit, I decided to use buttermilk for a crust, having already been happy with how the brine's turned out. I did give it an hour or two in buttermilk just to make sure it really stuck.


And there it is. It makes for a nice dark crust, but one that's a bit heavy and thick. Interestingly, using buttermilk makes the overall taste of the chicken sweeter (the Coke is more noticeable). I think I prefer egg and flour or Panko, but this is certainly on the table and will be up for review.

In other news, I used an Amazon.com gift card to order some psych books, and with the leftover, I got something I've been meaning to get ever since BLT Steak. Here's my first attempt at popovers, with my brand new popover pan.


Not bad I think. I used a bit of bread flour just to make sure they held together, but I think I'm cool to use all AP from now on, and maybe the weaker dough will puff bigger.
I also topped a couple with some gruyere:


This was shredded by the food processor, and I think ended up being a bit too heavy. I don't actually own a cheese grater though, so we'll see if microplaned gruyere is too light and burns right away.

Say hello to the biscuit

This is it...


Sweet potato, cake flour, buttermilk.


A few of you will be trying some of these tomorrow. They're decent if you microwave them for a few seconds.


The final chicken biscuit tasting panel will try small pieces of each type of chicken on these mini versions...

Even More Fried Chicken...

Interesting timing of this NY Times Article. Southern Fried Chicken has no flavor? I disagree. I'm a huge fan of Korean fried chicken and other creative forms of fried chicken, but to say Southern Fried Chicken is only in the crust is insulting. Interestingly, I do use a generous amount of Old Bay to season my flour/cornmeal, as well as smoked paprika, cayenne pepper, and garlic powder among a few other things. When I fry whole birds I like to shallow fry, but for these thin breast cuts I've been straight deep frying in a combination of Safflower and Canola oil. Peanut is just so damn expensive...though they do sell 35 pounds at Costco for 29 bucks.

I'm happy to report that the brine is done. The combination of Coca-Cola and a light pickling spice is perfect. It led to some incredibly moist and flavorful results.

Today I tested egg dredge methods for the crust. Each piece of chicken starts with a coat of seasoned flour, then a dip in egg, then another dip in either...

More seasoned flour:


Probably the most traditional result so far, and nice crisp crust. One of the finalists for sure.

Seasoned cornmeal:


The crispiest crust and the most "staying power" in terms of crispness, but also a bit dry and gritty. At this point, pure cornmeal has been abandoned. In the future buttermilk testing, I'll test out how it is to mix a bit of cornmeal into the flour.

Panko:


I wasn't really thinking about doing this, but the flour-egg dredge method is how I start out frying things Katsu style too. Although it started out as a dark horse, this is definitely gonna be one of the finalists. I'll have to adjust the initial flour dredge to have more seasoning, but the panko crust is incredibly crisp and light. It also fries faster so there's not as much danger of the chicken drying out.

In any case, I've got a bunch of fried chicken in my fridge. In defense of Southern Fried Chicken, one of its best qualities...which doesn't work with sauced versions...is that it's just as good at room temperature (or cold) as it is when piping hot.

It just comes down to my buttermilk frying results (that'll be next week...I'm off to Chicago tomorrow) and another crack at sweet potato biscuits, then I'll need to enlist the help of some judges for focus group testing.

The chicken...round one

So where did we leave off? That's right, I made a pickle brine, threw some chicken in it, then fried it.
The chicken itself was too briny. There was a lot of flavor, and it was moist and all that, but it was like eating a pickle...a chicken textured pickle. My next brine will omit the vinegar and use less pickling spice. I'll also probably brine it for less time.

As for which crust I'm going to go with, I tried a few different things out.

Seasoned cornmeal:


Though it doesn't look pretty, it's tasty, but can border on a bit dry. This is definitely something I'm gonna have to follow up on.

Seasoned 00 flour:


00 flour is so fine it's almost like making a corn starch batter. This was light and crisp, but maybe a bit weak for a chicken biscuit.

Batter:


Stay away from this. The extra juiciness afforded by the brine generates massive amounts of pickle flavored steam which turns the initially crisp batter soggy in a matter of minutes. My guess is that Chick-fil-a uses an egg dip then flour, so it's a bit drier and thinner than a batter, but also they fry their stuff in a pressure cooker, which I don't own.

For my next brine, I'll be replacing the vinegar with the liquid that flows through the veins of Atlanta...good ol' Coca-Cola. Also I'll be testing out the flour-egg-flour dip method for frying, as well as a combination brine-buttermilk-flour/cornmeal crust method.

Man cannot live on chicken biscuits alone...no matter how hard he tries

So I might've been pretty close to getting scurvy. I figured I should balance things out with a few fruits or vegetables or something. Well, I used pickle brine on my chicken (will post about that tomorrow/later today) so that's technically a vegetable right? Figured I should eat some fruit. What better way to eat fruit than with frozen yogurt?

This whole frozen yogurt insanity actually started in 2002 with Korea's Red Mango. Pinkberry is a filthy knockoff, though many people give it credit for starting the craze. These must be the same people that think General Tso's chicken is an ancient Chinese secret, and that the Star Wars prequels were awesome.

The first time I had Red Mango in Korea I was blown away. I had no idea it was supposedly healthy at the time, but it didn't matter. The yogurt was unbelievably smooth, rich, and instead of artificial vanilla sweetness, was tart and well...yogurty. The fresh fruit toppings reminded me of my other favorite yogurt spot in the Dayton's basement in Minneapolis (now a Macy's...I wonder if that yogurt place is still there...) A subsequent trip to Korea was Red Mango-less, and therefore a disappointment.

A couple years later, when rumors started emerging from Southern California of a Red Mango-like yogurt shop, I started to get excited...but also suspicious. "What a ripoff of my beloved Red Mango!" I thought to myself...but mostly I was pissed that someone had stolen MY idea to rip off Red Mango and make a billion dollars by opening up in the states. Still...when I saw those American Express Plum Card commercials and saw those Korean people had opened up Pinkberry, I was like "maybe they're affiliated...maybe they renamed Red Mango to Pink Berry for the states...because those names are way too similar." But nope...no affiliation...just a straight rip off.

Oh well...maybe it'll be just as good and it won't matter. I tried Pinkberry though...AND IT WAS FUCKING TERRIBLE! Why are people going crazy over this shit?! How could those Korean American guys in that American Express commercial take something so good and fuck it up so bad? I understand if someone decides to pawn off the crap that Korea deems unsuitable for domestic use on other countries to make a few bucks (see "Winter Sonata" and "The Lake House"), but Red Mango was something from Korea to be proud of! I henceforth label you Pinkberry people TRAITORS TO KOREA (though to be fair, I too may have earned that label after the infamous Buford Highway Karaoke incident of 2008...but that was mostly Topel's fault).

It was bland, overly sweet, and icy as hell. It was like spoiled milk mixed with corn syrup and poured over hospital ice chips. There was no way you could call this shit yogurt...and the California FDA agreed with me:
Only 69,000 bacterial cultures per gram? That's well short of the 10 million required to be called frozen yogurt.
To borrow a joke from Aziz Ansari...if Pinkberry was a drug dealer I would've shot him in the face. Did you think I wasn't gonna count that shit?! Also, you guys at Pinkberry are TOTAL DICKS for claiming you could cure colon cancer.
Perhaps it's gotten better now that they've changed their recipe to be actual yogurt, but they still make their yogurt from powder, and now that Red Mango has formally opened in the states, there's no need to ever go to Pinkberry again. I'm pleased to say that Red Mango is just as good here as it was in Korea. It didn't suffer the pitfalls of a famous institution from abroad opening up in the states and not being nearly as good (talking about you GROM...it's not our fault that you didn't look into the fact that you wouldn't be able to get all your fancypants ingredients here. Geographically, Torino:The Rest of Italy::Upper West Side:Staten Island and New Jersey...I'm sure the Sicilian almonds are coming in nicely on top of Fresh Kills right about now).


Ah Red Mango...thank god you're in...Walnut Creek. Damn, I'm in Atlanta. Enter Yoforia...another Red Mango knockoff, but this one has some pretty bold claims on its website (which looks exactly like Red Mango/Pinkberry's sites). Organic milk and yogurt? Could this place finally live up to Red Mango?

In a word: no.
In two words: Definitely no.
In more than two: What the fuck is this shit?


First they make a huge pile up the middle then try to squeeze the fruit around the sides...they then squish it down with the lid, but all this leads to not that much fruit. Red Mango builds the base layer, puts the fruit on in a layer, then puts more yogurt on top.


Next you'll notice the grittiness. It was just as disappointing as Pinkberry. Completely bland, aggressively cold, and grittily icy. When it melted, it melted down to grit...I have a feeling that all those claims of organic milk and yogurt are complete crap, and that this yogurt too is made from a powder, possibly supplied by IFDPrep (italian freeze dried prep), cielo, only8, or any of the other knockoff suppliers, evidenced by the sign:


If that's too small to read, it says "Italian frozen yogurt," which is a bit bizarre. You can tell if it's a knockoff if they don't carry the Live and Active Culture seal from the National Yogurt Association (yeah it really exists and Red Mango was the first to get it). If these guys were large enough to be on the radar, they'd probably get into trouble for calling themselves "yogurt." Sorry Atlanta, nothing but cheap pretenders here. Guess I'll have to wait until another trip home to Korea or California.

Chicken biscuit quest continued

After the somewhat disappointing sweet potato biscuit result (tasty but not really biscuit shaped), I went back to basics. I figured I should make a normal biscuit to compare the sweet potato biscuits to (a baseline biscuit if you will), and see if it's even worth the effort to do all that potato business. This time I got myself an actual cutter, some cake flour, some fresh baking powder, and it made a huge difference. I also wore gloves kept in the freezer while handling the dough. Here are the results:


Very pleasantly biscuity, flaky, etc. They split nicely by hand. Just a wee bit on the salty side. I really think that sweet potato does actually make a difference. It's subtle, but the tang from the dairy and the chemical leavening is pleasantly dampened a bit, and they're a bit moister. Also, the biscuit is not quite as salty, which will be good when I slap a piece of chicken on there. Maybe with all the changes I made, the next sweet potato batch will be successful.

Here's what I had for dinner:


I've also made my first brine for chicken frying (that'll start up tomorrow). This is a straight pickle brine. Unfiltered cider vinegar, water, sugar, salt, pickling spice, a few chiles de arbol, and a couple cloves of garlic.

I Didn't Really Like Breakfast Food Until I Came To The South

The chicken biscuit is quite possibly the perfect food, anytime anywhere. I think it's almost impossible to get a bad chicken biscuit wherever you are, simply because it's such a perfectly conceived food. Chick-Fil-A? Delicious. Gas station in South Carolina? Delicious.
My sister and dad are breakfast food fiends. There was a time growing up when I would always try to order off the lunch menu if we went out for breakfast (eggs used to make me throw up actually...i wasn't picky...my stomach just couldn't handle them for some reason...chocolate too...those were dark dark times). Going to Millie's Kitchen and eating a burger and coffee cake was probably the worst possible thing for your health, but it sure was delicious. The chicken biscuit is like a gateway breakfast food for someone like me. Chicken fried steak...though delicious...is a bit much. Fried chicken on a biscuit? That's the perfect amount of unhealthy in the morning. I do like breakfast foods a lot now...though I'm not really in the habit of eating breakfast on a daily basis. But sometimes on the weekend I get up and cook myself a little something like eggs, or hash browns...or that time I made corned beef hash with leftovers from St. Patty's day.
Since coming to school I've been introduced to the world of the lake house (it's not just a shitty Keanu Reeves remake of a Korean movie that makes absolutely no sense...how do they have conversations back and forth on written letters through a time portal mailbox? RIDICULOUS). I have found that I suck at waterskiing (in my case it's more like watertainting...think about it) and hate getting up in the morning early enough to go out on the boat for the best conditions. I'm much happier getting a bit more sleep and cooking breakfast for everyone when they get back, then heading out later for tubing/jetskiing etc.
I made a promise to myself that I would make fantastic chicken biscuits for all next time I go to the lake. But opportunities for that to happen are quickly disappearing. Still, nothing's stopping me from learning how to make a chicken biscuit.
In the coming months, this blog will prominently feature updates on my project of making a phenomenal chicken biscuit. This is a food that deserves this kind of attention (I've gotta study for/take the boards at some point in there too). I'll be trying out different types of biscuits and testing out all sorts of fried chicken. I'll be devising my own brines, crust methods, frying methods etc. But first let's start with biscuits:

Batch #1: Sweet potato biscuits.

Sure anyone can pop open a can of pillsbury's or mix up some bisquick and make some pretty delicious biscuits. I want something more. Something that's undeniably handmade and special. Let's put some freaking sweet potato into a biscuit:

It starts here:



Baked a monstrous sweet potato for an hour, then let it cool and pureed it silky smooth.
I then used organic whole wheat (mom would be proud) pastry flour...trying to infuse a bit of my California heritage into something Southern. Used baking powder and baking soda, cut in butter, mixed in the sweet potato puree, and used a bit of pourable yogurt to bring it all together. Had to use a glass as a biscuit cutter and the final results are as follows:


Disappointing really. They're too thin, as they don't rise nearly as much thanks to the sweet potato. They're dome shaped due to the very blunt drinking glass mashing down the sides of the biscuit round instead of cutting through...and I'm forced to use a processor to cut the butter in due to my incredibly warm hands preventing me from using that thumb rolling technique that leads to nice and flaky results. The inside looks like this:


Next time I'll mix in the cold sweet potato puree by hand after cutting in frozen butter into the flour mixture, which will hopefully keep some of those big globs of butter intact. I'll make the dough thicker and find a better biscuit cutting device, all while using the ice bath/frozen glove technique I use while making truffles.

Also, almost all biscuit recipes call for more shortening than butter...but I'm not gonna go down that road. Shortening makes for some damn good biscuits (and fried chicken too), but it's an abomination against nature. Screw California though...whole wheat pastry flour is out. I'm gonna go full throttle with bleached cake flour.

And for no particular reason...one of the sexiest things you'll ever see:


The Chick-Fil-A nuggets party platter.

Why are you still here?

The other day I noticed that I've had this blog for over four years now. I don't think I've ever been able to keep something up for this long, and a lot has happened in four years. I went back and looked at my first posts for fun, and realized that my blog content has changed a lot over the years. When did this food blog stop being about making fun of people and start being about...well...food? What happened? Maybe it's because I started dating...but even now that I'm not I still am a lot friendlier than I was before. Perhaps it's because the only people I ever interact with now are my classmates, all of whom are pretty terrific people. I genuinely like the four people that actually read this blog and don't end up here accidentally, but I never foresaw that anyone would actually read this thing.

And when did I stop making fun of my sister? Is it because it's just way too easy to make fun of someone pushing thirty who's unmarried and living with her parents? (hahaha...still got it)

Is it time to change my blog title?

Not yet...aside from the four aforementioned "serious" readers (and admit it, you're only here as a break from facebook), the majority of the people that land here on my blog are absolute morons who are brought here by google. I've already talked about the people who come here with the google search "foods i don't like," (it leads to more specific results than their first attempt that included "and i'm too much of a complete idiot to know myself and am expecting google to tell me"). Let's take a look at some of the most recent keywords that have landed here:

tempura soba
shrimp tempura soba - it didn't work, we're not dating anymore. Make something else you asian fetishist creeps.

pseudoplastic foods
food pseudoplastic - Try wikipedia for your third grade science report next time you punk kids.

Hamptons dinners - if you can't afford to have a personal assistant look this up for you, you shouldn't be eating there. Get a job.

im fucked for the mcat
i hate the fucking mcat
i fucked up the mcat - Hope you enjoy dental school.

I like I Don't like grammar food - you're beyond help.

i don't like restaurant food - don't go to a restaurant jackass.

Whew...that's better.

Cooking Lessons

At various points, a few people in my class have asked me to teach them how to cook something. To some degree, there's not too many things that I cook that are really interesting at all for people to learn, or that they couldn't just figure out from reading some recipe instructions, but gnocchi is something that may be useful to have someone show you how to do the first time. So, I gathered a few of the people who have asked for cooking "lessons" at my place.

Of course, wine and antipasti are the most important part of cooking any meal:


Then it was on to making the dough. The basic recipe I used goes a little something like this:

For 4 people:
1 lb. starchier potatoes (King Edwards are great, russets if you can't get those)
1 egg yolk
Roughly 1 cup 00 flour (AP is fine if you don't have 00)

Cover the potatoes in their skins with water in a pot, put it on the flame and bring to a boil. Simmer until cooked. For faster cooking, peel and cut potatoes first then boil, but you have to dry them out over a low flame or in a low oven after that. Peel each potato (try to do this before people arrive or they'll be really bored and start taking pictures of you peeling potatoes).


Mash 'em (ricer is cool, food mill would be best if you're lucky enough to own one of those) then stir in the egg and about half the flour. Then flour a board and gently incorporate more flour (try not to knead too hard so as not to develop gluten) until a workable dough forms. I had each person add a different ingredient, roasted garlic, basil, cheese, and spinach. In the end the additions didn't make a huge difference in flavor.

Roll it out into a rope and cut it up.


Optionally, you can roll each one off the tines of a fork to create grooves.


Boil 'em until they float then give them another minute or so, drain, sauce, enjoy.
Everyone did a phenomenal job.


Denise made a design for aprons for all future students to wear...which is a great idea...and I love the 'stache.


You may have noticed that there were no men in this class (there almost was when Amanda pretended to have a headache and was going to send her boyfriend over instead, then pretended to miraculously recover just in time when she couldn't get a hold of him...women). I assure you this is not in an attempt to emulate other TV chefs who give cooking "lessons" as a veiled excuse to flirt with bored housewives (bonus points if the chef himself is married and/or has a foreign accent...see Tyler Florence in Food 911, Danny Boome in Rescue Chef, or the absolute winner, Curtis Strong in Take Home Chef). It's actually because dudes never ask me to teach them HOW to cook, but rather ask me WHAT to cook in order to impress the ladies, and would likely find it a bit awkward to have a private lesson on "romantic dinners." It seems like a bit of a bad strategy to ask a single dude how to woo the ladies, but we're not that smart.

The Door-to-Door Meat Salesman of Endocrine Test Week

Friday is the endocrine and reproductive health exam. I was sitting in a classroom studying when I get a call from Erin:
"Chris, what are your plans for dinner?"
This is always a good sign, because it means some sort of awesome dinner is about to be proposed...this goes double for a test week when the answer is usually "I'll probably just microwave a lean pocket, then out of the need to stress eat, microwave two more."

Apparently a meat salesman (think Omaha Steaks) had a box full of meat that needed selling, and in a last ditch effort to meet a bonus quota, sold it to her at cost. Tonight was gonna be burgers.

What goes great with burgers? Pretty much any type of potato really. I like burger places with multiple potato options, like the Vortex. There you can get fries, tater tots, or sweet potato fries. But why sweet potato fries and not sweet potater tots? Clearly something needed to be done. I was almost certain the idea of the sweet potato tot had already been done somewhere. A quick google search yielded no recipe ideas, but a few pictures and references to Atlanta's own FLIP Burger Boutique (still gotta try it). Judging from the pictures, it seems they cheat a bit by serving little cylinders of tempura fried sweet potato. Their cheatery cheater version looked delicious, but I wouldn't really call that a tot...more of a glorified steak fry. It's gotta have that shredded hash-browny texture to it. So I'd have to take matters into my own hands.

Bought a few organic jewel sweet potatoes, shredded them with my food processor, shredded in a bit of shallot just for kicks, added an egg and some flour, a bit of salt, switched to the processing blade, gave the whole thing a quick pulse and voila:


Unappealing sweet potato tot "batter." I tried dishing them into small sizes and then forming them, but they would just fall apart. I decided to dish out individual portions, freeze them, and then fry them. In retrospect this was completely unnecessary, because I thought they'd be more frozen, but that wasn't necessary. Just pop the whole bowl into the freezer until the mix is cool and easier to work with (or fridge if you have more time...but like I said before...test week...I don't have time to sit around waiting for my homemade sweet potato tots to cool down in the fridge.)

Give 'em a deep fry until they're pretty darn brown in 360 degree oil:


Sprinkle on a bit of salt and enjoy.


There you have it, no need to make the tough choice between tater tots and sweet potato fries, when you can have the best of both worlds.