Recipe: Bonehead BBQ Chicken

Posted on September 25, 2011 by Burnt My Fingers

Barbecued chicken marinated in Wishbone Dressing. About as easy as it gets.

Ingredients:
8 oz Wishbone Italian Dressing
1 chicken, cut into serving size pieces

Method: Pour the dressing over the chicken, stir to mix, marinate for 8 hours stirring several times to distribute the marinade. Grill until juices run clear.

Comment: This is the way my mom made chicken when I was growing up. I always grab a couple bottles of Wishbone when it is on sale and toss them in the back of the pantry for when I want a no-brainer BBQ. Of course you could use your own vinaigrette, but the guar gum and other preservatives and chemicals in the Wishbone dressing seem to keep the chicken from burning/sticking while providing an attractive, evenly coated surface.

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Recipe: Nair and Richard’s Pizza Topping

Posted on September 25, 2011 by Burnt My Fingers

A good and tangy topping for Pizza D’oh! or your favorite pizza base. Family friends Richard and Nair Wolf provided this recipe when she was working as a chef in the Doubletree Hotels organization.

Ingredients:
Olive oil, for brushing pizza dough
12 oz feta, chopped
4 oz English or other sharp cheddar, grated
4 oz mozzarella, grated
2 T Parmesan, grated
2+ cloves garlic, chopped
1 lb Roma tomatoes, sliced

Method: Brush top (not edges) of pizza with oil before final rise. After rise, add cheese, mixed with garlic. Top with sliced Roma tomatoes and sprinkles of Parmesan. Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes in a preheated oven on a preheated cookie sheet sprinkled with cornmeal.

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Recipe: Pizza D’oh!

Posted on September 25, 2011 by Burnt My Fingers

A pizza dough so easy and foolproof, even Homer Simpson could make it.

Ingredients:
2 1/4 tsp dry yeast (1 package)
lukewarm water (total approximately 2 1/4 C)
3 T sugar
1 T Kosher salt
5 1/2-6 c all purpose Flour
3 T olive oil

Method: Allow yeast to proof briefly in 1/4 c lukewarm water in a mixing bowl. Add sugar and salt and 2 C additional lukewarm water and stir till dry ingredients dissolve. Put 5 1/2 C flour in a second mixing bowl and gradually add water mixture, continually mixing with a big spoon. Add olive oil and spoon-mix some more. At this point you should have a shaggy ball of dough which is not too wet and does not leave too much flour on the sides of the bowl; adjust if necessary with more flour or a sprinkle of water. Remove from bowl and knead for several minutes on floured board till it becomes elastic. Put in oiled bowl with cover and let it rise till doubled in size, 2+ hours. Punch down and divide into individual pies; let these rise 30 minutes. Makes 8 individual pizzas.

Comment: What makes this dough foolproof is the large amount of yeast and the use of lukewarm water for a fast rise. You can refrigerate or freeze it just after kneading or after the first rise/punch down, then resume when you want. Recipe from old family friends Richard and Nair Wolf, who say they got it from the defunct Spago restaurant in Los Angeles.

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The beer that dares not speak its name

Posted on September 21, 2011 by Burnt My Fingers
Chosen Spot... the forbidden beer

Chosen Spot… the forbidden beer!

What we have here is an illegal beer. It was brewed for He’Brew under contract at the Olde Saratoga Brewing Company, and when the BATF inspectors saw the label they said it could not be distributed. The brewery could have replaced the labels, but I guess they couldn’t get the old labels off without ruining the beer, so in the end it was destroyed. So to speak. Let’s say it was a pleasant lager that employed premium ingredients for a rounded, slightly fruity taste.

What’s wrong with the label? My guess is the word “think” in the lower right hand corner. (Click on the picture for a larger view to see this.) Alcoholic beverage manufacturers, like vitamin companies, are not allowed to make any health claims about their product. They cannot imply that using this product will alter the consumer in any way. And “think” perhaps crosses the line—which is sad, because it means our bureaucratic Elliot Ness assumes the consumer is NOT thinking at present.

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Can recipes be copyrighted?

Posted on September 21, 2011 by Burnt My Fingers

The U.S. Copyright Office is clear on this point: Copyright law does not protect recipes that are mere listings of ingredients. Nor does it protect other mere listings of ingredients such as those found in formulas, compounds, or prescriptions. Copyright protection may, however, extend to substantial literary expression—a description, explanation, or illustration, for example—that accompanies a recipe or formula or to a combination of recipes, as in a cookbook.

However, Burnt My Fingers thinks it is poor sportsmanship to reprint a recipe without giving attribution to the source that it came from. I rarely invent recipes from whole cloth but I almost always tinker with recipes to get the results I want. Here is the policy I will try to follow in my recipe posts and I’d appreciate it if you would contact me if you think it is off base.

  •  When the recipe is widely available over the internet from multiple sources, I’ll mention that it came from the internet without giving a specific link. The reason is that links change or go dead, individual posters do their own tinkering, and if you don’t want to stop with my rendition you are welcome to do your own sleuthing.
  •  When the recipe comes from a specific source I will give attribution to that source, including a link to purchase the book if it is for sale. An exception will be made for books that are long out of print or recipes of uncertain provenance, such as my brisket recipe.
  •  Some cooking blog authors are very proprietary about their recipes and refuse to allow their recipes to be reprinted, even though I believe they have no legal right to do this. I’ll always try and research the blogger’s preference before publishing the recipe (though not if I’m simply giving a link to another resource). If you are such an author and feel I have done you wrong for any reason, please email chef at burntmyfingers dot com and we’ll fix it.
  • You are welcome to reproduce (and use!) any recipe from Burnt My Fingers, but please provide attribution in text with a (working) link either to the recipe directly, or to my home page.

UPDATE: I found an interesting approach to this at White on Rice, a blog of beautiful food photography that also includes recipes: 

“hello! all images & content are copyright protected. please do not use our images without prior permission. if you want to republish this recipe, please re-write the recipe in your own words, or simply link back to this post for the recipe. thank you.”

 

 

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Recipe Forensics

Posted on September 20, 2011 by Burnt My Fingers

Have you ever wanted to figure out the recipe for a dish that isn’t available to you any more? Maybe it’s from a restaurant that went out of business, or stopped offering the item. Maybe you’ve moved away. Or maybe you’re just curious. Time for recipe forensics.

My first stop is the internet. Sometimes you hit it right, as with this recipe which is a close approximation to the dear departed Three-Bean Salad once served at Kentucky Fried Chicken/KFC. I did just minor tinkering with a recipe that is universally available and good.

But, suppose you want Sonny Bryan’s barbecue sauce as served out of their BBQ shack in Dallas where I grew up? There are plenty of links to this one too but the recipe is completely bogus. You will find a recipe that makes an interesting sauce that tastes nothing like Sonny Bryan’s. It includes crystallized ginger and large amounts of fresh citrus juices, ingredients that would have been unlikely to make it into a pit boss’s pantry.

Recipe forensics means thinking like the person who concocted the original recipe. Think about the cooking experience, the ingredients at hand, and the cost factor. Possibly a long ago cook at Sonny Bryan’s might have tasted crystallized ginger but they’re not going to get it from their pre-Sysco supplier and if they do it’s going to be prohibitively expensive, a minor ingredient that doubles the cost of the recipe. Nor would they squeeze dozens of lemons when a gallon jug of vinegar is close at hand.

While we’re in Dallas, another recipe I’ve been trying to duplicate is the sour slaw at the Highland Park Cafeteria. The sour is vinegar, but what kind? I got a very close approximation with a blend including sherry vinegar then I realized this couldn’t be the original recipe. Mrs. Dewey Goodman, the proprietress of the establishment, stopped serving on Sundays because she felt it was sacreligious. You think this paragon would have used a wine-based vinegar?

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An ode to poundability

Posted on September 20, 2011 by Burnt My Fingers

I once had a private tour of a prestigious Sonoma winery. The proprietress was the former girlfriend of my friend’s nephew, which made the occasion informal. She let us know about an attribute of their products that the vintners like to rate when the tourists aren’t around:poundability. As in, how does the taste and enjoyment hold up when you have more than one glass?

Poundability

A most poundable wine

Not that I’m advocating this, necessarily, and many complex wines demand to be sipped and savored at a snail’s pace or you are committing a crime against the grape.  But you know what I’m talking about here…. we’ve all experienced a red that tastes perky at first sip, but becomes bitter and overly minerally as you continue. Or a white that is pleasant to begin, but gradually fades to something resembling tap water. The opposite of this is the inexpensive Black Box 2008 Cabernet  Sauvignon I have on my shelf this moment which surprises you with a sophisticated chocolate berry nose for such a cheap wine, tastes like a treat, and upholds those characteristics over an extended time. It’s a poundable wine.

Brewers have a similar concept in the “session” beer. Publicly, this is a beer with low alcohol content…. “the beer to have when you’re having more than one.” Mild, easy drinking, lightly hopped beers may be described as session beers as an excuse for their lack of taste and personality, but that doesn’t make them poundable. In fact, a visit to any college bar district (mine is located on Caroline Street, in Saratoga Springs, New York) will demonstrate that when the beer tastes like nothing you don’t notice you are drinking and therefore you may well have more than you should.  (20 light beers with 4% ABV will deliver a payload of 9.6 ounces of alcohol, the equivalent of guzzling better than a pint of Scotch.)

I would say that any true session beer should have enough personality that you want to pace yourself. This doesn’t mean higher alcohol content automatically, although the ingredients used in beer do tend to turn into alcohol or else it tastes like some other kind of beverage, or like food. But there will be a balance. You will notice what you are drinking and you won’t want to drink too fast because you don’t want to miss the flavor and the pungency of the hops. Most decent IPAs fall into this category.

One final though on this subject: a poundable beer or wine is not going to give you a hangover unless you drink so much that you deserve it. Overindulging can always give you a bad morning after, once you have reached the point where you take in more than your body can process. But you are going to feel extra bad if cheap sweeteners have been used to boost the alcohol level (typical of malt liquors) or from cheap wines that use chemicals in processing (I once tasted a wine, at a Basque winery east of Los Angeles, that generated a hangover as soon as you started drinking it).

Here’s to poundability. In moderation, of course.

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Terra Madre Day celebrated by Saratoga Slow Food

Posted on December 14, 2010 by Burnt My Fingers

Yesterday was the local observance of Slow Food’s Terra Madre (Mother Earth) Day, sponsored and beautifully organized and presented in the kitchens and dining room of Schenectady County Community College chef and Saratoga chapter president Rocco Verrigni. I sat in on a mega panel discussion followed by a mega tasting of fare prepared by rising chefs; there were also student presentations and a screening of the short film “Green Beef”.

Chefs and farmers in the kitchen on Terra Madre day

Chefs and farmers in the kitchen on Terra Madre day

The panel discussion featured local farmers (from Saratoga Springs down to the area below the Mohawk River), chefs and restaurateurs discussing their “successes, issues and stories”. Successes for me included clues of how these folks are taking small steps to become commercially viable. Tod Murphy of Vermont’s Farmer’s Diner has the goal of serving local and naturally raised meals at prices farmers can actually afford; he does this by negotiating with farmers a scale larger than boutique/retail/farmers market enterprises and by staying away from steaks. Michael Kilpatrick, a local farmer, described his success in bringing year-round vegetable growing to Saratoga; he is just 23 and I am happy he will be around far longer than me.

Slow Food snail cookies baked by SCCC students

Slow Food snail cookies baked by SCCC students

Michael was one of several to describe an “issue”: it’s difficult to follow the national standards for “Certified Organic” so as a result none of them does it. Kilpatrick Family Farm can’t be organic because they use a sheeting product called Biotelo for their winter mulching and though biodegradable, it’s not organic-approved. Noah Sheetz, executive chef of the governor’s mansion in Albany, described another problem, which is the practicality of coordinating multiple purveyors for poultry, produce, dairy etc. plus having a backup when somebody’s delivery truck breaks down. Sysco, by offering one-stop shopping for quality products, has made it too easy for many kitchens; what’s needed is a Sysco for natural producers.

Chef Christopher Tanner and his meat curing closet

Chef Christopher Tanner and his meat curing closet

The food presentations ranged from a perfect half moon of roasted acorn squash to a groaning board of charcuterie prepared by the SCCC students in Garde Manger II, which has done nothing but make sausage all semester long. Chef Christopher Tanner showed off his curing closet for prosciutto and Westphalian ham, made by stripping the shelves from a wine cabinet and adding an off-the-shelf humidifier. Local students pay just $3533 for learning all this and virtually all of them are offered jobs in the industry at the end of their two-year program.

During the breaks there was plenty of time to talk with local farmers and make new friends along with lists of places to go and dine and find new food near Saratoga. The only bad news is that the season has ended for many of these folks (which is why they could take the day off) so I’ll have to wait for spring for many of my forays.

This post originally appeared on my marketing blog, Otis Regrets… or Not. If you want to read about marketing instead of eating, click here.

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The sauce that made Mr. Durkee famous

Posted on November 23, 2010 by Burnt My Fingers

THANKSGIVING 2019 UPDATE: I was unable to find Durkee’s this year at any of my local stores so ended up ordering from Amazon for delivery on Friday, in time for turkey sandwiches. Here is an affiliate link if you would like to do the same. It’s a bit pricey but the thought of being without Durkee’s is priceless, in the wrong way.

I was introduced to Durkee’s Famous Sauce as a college freshman at the home of my roommate Reynold. His mother invited a homesick boy into their home for Thanksgiving and I discovered a ritual which included eating leftovers in sandwiches the day after with turkey, cranberry sauce, last night’s wilted salad, reheated dressing and gravy if you wanted it… all served on sturdy bread with a generous slathering of Durkee’s. That day their ritual became my own tradition.

Durkee's jars through the decades. Click for a larger version to read the ingredient lists.

Duke’s Famous Sauce jars through the decades. Click for a larger version to read the ingredient lists.

Durkee’s Famous Sauce is a niche product, literally, that somehow manages to hold onto a sliver of shelf space in many supermarkets year after year. It is a mayonnaise-mustard combination with extra richness that tastes like additional egg yolks… but the effect in a sandwich is more complex than that. It’s the sauce that holds its own when a lot of flavor notes are present. And though I know there are other uses, it is such a perfect partner with turkey (smoked as well as Thanksgiving leftovers) that I have never wanted to venture further.

There is lore suggesting Durkee’s is a traditional American recipe that was served, among other places, in the White House by Mary Todd Lincoln. [There used to be a lively history on the website, but it appears the current owners of the brand have purged most of it. If you’re concerned about Durkee’s disappearing, this copycat recipe looks promising.] But in fact the recipe has been through some changes over the years, as has the provenance of the expensive little jars. During my time the proprietorship has shifted from Burnes Foods of San Francisco (but manufactured in Canada), Tone Brothers of Ankeny IA, and currently ACH Food Companies of Memphis. The ingredient list shows that corn oil has been replaced by soy oil and water has moved ahead of vinegar as the second component with subtle changes in the preservatives further down the line.

By the time I am ready to open a new jar, the old one is either empty or pretty well past its prime so I have never been able to do a head to head taste test. But I do believe that the taste has remained consistent through all these permutations. Hats off to the food chemists… and Thanksgiving leftovers!

This post originally appeared on my marketing blog, Otis Regrets… or Not. If you want to read about marketing instead of eating, click here.

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Cooking in somebody else’s kitchen, Part 2

Posted on July 29, 2010 by Burnt My Fingers

As long as it is on or near a lake or stream, an upstate NY vacation home is called a “camp”. There’s usually some concession to rusticity without really roughing it. In the case of my wife’s camp, it is a stove with only two burners (the others having been destroyed in a flood), a collection of pots inherited from her parents, and country cupboards which not only conceal their contents, but move them around when I am not looking so I can’t find an ingredient at the exact moment I need it.

I am up here with my two boys and I have learned to make weekly specials at the local market my friend; if it is advertised in the flyer they are more likely to actually have it at the lone store in town. Shopping with a preplanned meal in mind: very bad idea.

We tend to make a big pot of something and repurpose it over several days. Chicken Cacciatore (prepared with Mr. Purdue’s bargain leg quarters, not the prissy organic birds we buy “down the line”), carnitas and Texas chili (beans on the side) have figured so far. There is a steady stream of teen and preteen boys through the kitchen requesting hot chocolate, which is a good thing because I found three boxes of Nestle Cocoa in the cabinets, all expiring in 2010. Now looking for ideas to draw down a dozen half used boxes of pasta and 4 bags of lentils; when one wants to be sure something is on hand in camp, one tends to bring it up from the city forgetting one did the same thing last year, and the year before.

I have learned to successfully cook coffee in a stovetop percolator (the secret: don’t use too much coffee, or the water can’t seep through from the top grounds to the bottom) and broil on an ancient gas grill prone to flareups (always have a can of beer in your hand…. that’s to put out any leaping flames).

I look forward to being back in a kitchen where the utensils and equipment will do what I ask them to, and forgotten ingredients are five minutes away, but it is nice to have limitations and learn to stick with them. I am in awe of caterers and “secret kitchen” chefs who work like this every day.

This post originally appeared on my marketing blog, Otis Regrets… or Not. If you want to read about marketing instead of eating, click here.

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