Mortar and Pestle

I picked this mortar and pestle up from 2000 Plus Restaurant Equipment a couple months ago. I wandered into the store simply because I was near and it was open. When I saw this, I grabbed it. It's heavy porcelain, all slick and shiny, except for the mortar interior and heavy end of the pestle where all of the grinding action happens. That part's gritty.

Just over 4" across, the mortar isn't too large or too tiny. I'm excited about using it to grind up some dried rosemary. I've missed having a mortar and pestle since my last pestle died a humpty-dumpty death by throwing itself from the countertop.

Available at 2000 Plus Restaurant Equipment, where they'll wrap it in newsprint (hooray for reusing!), for $8.64 out the door.

Roasted Garlic

I first learned that I loved roasted garlic when I made that Roasted Potatoes and Green Beans recipe. Following that up with Roasted Garlic and New Potatoes confirmed the love. Getting ready to make some potato soup, a sudden realization came on: the soup should have roasted garlic. And thus I go forth.

Roasted Garlic

adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

click to print

4 garlic bulbs, halved

olive oil

salt

fresh ground pepper

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Rub the garlic bulbs to loosen the outermost papers, leaving the cloves encased in paper.

The bulbs before papery skins removed.

Halve the bulbs. Place the bulb halves on a baking sheet.

Drizzle the bulbs with oil and season to taste with salt and pepper, tossing to coat.

Cover with foil and bake the garlic for 45 minutes. Remove the foil.

Bake another 30 minutes until garlic is completely soft.

Man, the aroma of garlic roasting is mind-boggling as you can smell the hotness become sweet. The soft cloves are so butter-like in texture that it was nearly impossible to stop myself from smearing them on toast and consuming all four bulbs while standing there in the kitchen. Oh hey, that's how I polished off those previously-mentioned potatoes and green beans -- standing in my kitchen! Yep, roasted garlic is simply dreamy.

Cost:

• garlic: $1.50

Here's an excerpt about garlic "Use in cooking" from my Larousse Gastronomique:

The bulbs must be thoroughly dry. They can be stored in a cold place (from -0.5 C to +1 C, 31-34 F) or at a moderate temperature (18 C, 64 F), either laid out flat or hanging in bunches to improve aeration. If spots appear on them or the cloves become soft, the garlic is no longer usable. Generally speaking, white garlic keeps for about six months, pink garlic for nearly a year. 

Add garlic at the end of the cooking time, as it introduces a bitter flavour if fried for too long.

I used to buy containers of minced garlic, which is offered at a really great price and keeps for a very long time in the fridge. But I've come to appreciate smashing the cloves with the flat side of my santoku knife* and have satisfaction in finding the paper coming off with great ease. Mincing the whole cloves forces me to execute knife skills which I could always practice for improvement. Anyway, I was just going to tell you that I keep my bulbs in a bowl in the dark of my pantry at room temperature but until now didn't know how to tell when it was bad. I simply guessed that if it was a month or two old it was "too" old. How do you keep yours and how long do you keep it?

*Place flat edge of wide knife on clove. While holding knife steady, bring heel of your other hand down forcefully on knife, flattening clove slightly and breaking the garlic skin. The skin should peel off in it's entirety with ease. I'm right-handed and tend to hold the knife in my left and smashing with my right -- if that helps.

Lodge Skillet Cleaned After First Use, Frying Chicken

Before going to bed last night I drained the oil left in the Lodge skillet from frying some chicken. And I realized that I still need to buy a funnel specifically to drain oil from skillets.

While the garlic roasted I decided the skillet should really be cleaned.

So I followed the Lodge directions, for the most-part. I don't have a brush except the hard-core steel-bristled one, which I worried might do away with the manufacturer seasoning so used a Pampered Chef spatula to just scrape away the chunkies and majority of fat under hot tap water.

The skillet was placed on the stove-top and heated gently to cook off some of the water and wiped with paper towel.

As the skillet was still pretty slick with residual chicken grease and shortening, I didn't wipe it down with additional oil. Look at this beauty.

I am wondering if the steel-bristled brush was why I had to keep season my other skillets every single time. Was it scrubbing away the seasoning? Further experiments will be administered. I'll keep you posted.

Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes

Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes

from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

click to print

3 lbs Yukon Gold potatoes, scrubbed

4-8 tbsp butter

1 c buttermilk, warmed

salt

fresh ground pepper

Place the whole potatoes in a large saucepan, cover with cold water, add 2 teaspoons (or more) salt, and boil until tender, 15-30 minutes, depending on the size of the potatoes.

Drain the potatoes once fork tender and add butter.

I peeled some of the loose skin from the potatoes with my fingers, but didn't make any attempt toward peeling off all of the skin.

Mash the potatoes and butter with a masher (or a hand mixer, food mill or ricer, though if you use a hand mixer please don't do it in your non-stick teflon-coated pan. That black non-stick will come off in a hurry and will wind up in your potatoes. Gross.)

Gradually mash in the warm buttermilk until the potatoes are smooth, moist, and fluffy.

Season with salt and pepper before serving.

Straightforward recipe and tasty. Buttermilk mashed potatoes have a little bit of a twang not normally tasted in mashed potatoes and I liked it. Definitely going to use buttermilk with potatoes again. Next time I'll use more than 4 tbsp of butter. Mashed potatoes should be buttery and these were slim there.

This container of buttermilk? None wasted!!

Cost:

• potatoes: $2.07
• butter: $0.15
• buttermilk: $0.68

Total: $2.90 or about $0.48 for each of six 1-cup servings.

Alton Brown's Fried Chicken

Since I had some buttermilk left from the catfish dish, didn't want the buttermilk to go to waste, and since it had been so long since I fried some chicken, Alton Brown's recipe was immediately put into the food queue.

I'll tell you right now that there was one thing I should've done differently: follow the directions exactly. I should've cut the breasts-halves in half to yield 8 pieces instead of leaving them whole yielding 6 pieces. I should've monitored the oil temperature much more closely, which turned out to be what I realize now is a big deal, instead of just winging it.

Alton Brown's Fried Chicken
from Food Network
click to print

1 broiler/fryer chicken, cut into 8 6 pieces
2 c low fat buttermilk
2 tbsp kosher salt
2 tbsp Hungarian paprika
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp cayenne pepper
Flour, for dredging (2 heaping cups was much more than plenty)

Vegetable shortening, for frying (about 12 oz)

Cut up your chicken if you haven't already, saving the wings and frame for stock another day.

Place chicken pieces into a plastic container glass bowl and cover with buttermilk, stirring to ensure all pieces are coated. Cover and refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours.

Melt enough shortening (over low heat) to come just 1/8-inch up the side of a 12-inch cast iron skillet or heavy fry pan. Once shortening liquefies raise heat to 325°F. Do not allow oil to go over 325°F.

Drain chicken in a colander, propping the colander as necessary for complete drainage.

Combine salt, paprika, garlic powder, and cayenne pepper.

Liberally season chicken with this mixture.

Dredge chicken in flour and shake off excess.

Place chicken skin side down into the pan. Put thighs in the center, and breast and legs around the edge of the pan. The oil should come half way up the pan.

Cook chicken until golden brown on each side, approximately 10 to 12 minutes per side.

More importantly, the internal temperature should be right around 180 160°F. (Be careful to monitor shortening temperature every few minutes.)

Drain chicken on a rack over a sheet pan. Don't drain by setting chicken directly on paper towels or brown paper bags. If you need to hold the chicken before serving, cover loosely with foil but avoid holding in a warm oven, especially if it's a gas oven, to prevent the coating from moving from crispy to soggy.

The first image immediately above only shows four pieces of chicken, the drums and thighs. That's because the breasts weren't finished yet. They were still only at 140°F after frying 20 minutes. The breasts required another 10 minutes to get to 160°F. And that's because the breasts should've been cut in half to promote more even cooking.

Chicken darkness was either because the oil temperature wasn't monitored closely enough or because there wasn't enough oil in the skillet. Either way, I realize I didn't follow the directions.

So the big question: did the chicken taste good? Yeah, it did, though the chicken was too dark, as in burnt, for my preference, masking much of the seasonings. I had a drum while the potatoes were cooking, and then a drum and thigh with buttermilk-mashed potatoes, and those pieces were crispy and juicy. The rest of the chicken, one thigh and two breasts, are destined for soup and salads. It'll be delicious, I'm sure.

Oh, if you're wondering, the splatter screen? Totally worth it. While not perfect, I was quite surprised by how much oil was caught in it as the chicken fried. The oil that did escape, instead of becoming a slight coat over my entire kitchen, was a little more than slight coat in the immediate vicinity of the skillet. Of course, a skillet cover would've worked better, like that when I did Grandmother Paul's recipe.

Cost:

• chicken: $2.94
• buttermilk: $1.35
• seasonings: $1, SWAG
• flour:  $0.64
• shortening: $3.50

Total: $9.43, $3.14 for each of three servings or $2.36 for each of four servings.

Spectrum Organic All Vegetable Shortening

I wanted a small container of shortening and Target only had big ones. Wandering over to Sprouts next door, the only option was this Spectrum stuff.

Hmm. Non-hydrogenated. That's different from the Crisco* I used to get regularly when I baked pies to persuade Dad into giving me keys to an auto and am more familiar with, you know, the partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.

What's the difference? Well, partially hydrogenated oil is manufactured to yield oils with more hydrogen atoms on them. That generally means it has a longer shelf life. That's good, right, so what's the big deal? Not a huge deal, but studies have shown that trans-fats (trans meaning the shape the chemically partially-hydrogenated oil takes on due to where the hydrogen atoms are added) tends to give folks heart disease. And that's why there's been such a push in food industry to eliminate trans fats. Consumers, being the finicky kind that they might be, just don't want heart disease and they vote with their dollars.

So what do we have here? Mechanically pressed organic palm oil.

Does that mean it'll look like "regular" shortening? Seems so.

Even feels like it.

I'll put it to a test.

Spectrum Organic All Vegetable Shortening available in a 24-oz plastic container at Sprouts for $6.99.

*I've read that Crisco no longer partially-hydrogenates their fats and thus is essentially trans-fat free but I haven't read a label on a container recently.

Chefmate Splatter Screens 2-pack

In a video I was watching recently, Alton Brown recommended these "unless cleaning every horizontal surface of your kitchen sounds fun." Fast forward the video about 3:30. So I bought a set of 2, the large one is just over 12" and I think the smaller one is just over 8".

ChefMate splatter screen 2-pack available at Target for $12.69.