Last year I brined a turkey. I kept hearing about the process on the The Food Network (Yes, I know I always mention The Food Network. Yes, I do watch it that much. It’s like my kids and Spongebob). The brine is supposed to yield a moister bird. It’s a scientific process wherein the salt causes the muscle cells of the turkey to absorb water through osmosis. This hydrates the bird and denaturing seals that moisture into the meat when it’s cooked.

My biggest concern before brining, was how to keep my kitchen from being flooded with nasty-salty turkey water. It never happened. I filled the bottom of my cooler with ice, then put it on top of two thick beach towels in case it leaked.

I cleaned my turkey and placed it in a cooking bag, that I placed on top of the ice in the cooler. I mixed my brine, cooled it, then poured it over the turkey. I sealed the bag completely, then put another bag over it, sealed well. I poured more ice over the top of the turkey. I closed the lid and went to bed.

In the morning, I turned the turkey bag over, added more ice, and left for a turkey trot-type event with my youngest. When we got home, I rinsed the turkey completely and got it ready for the oven. I threw the bags away and cleaned my cooler out. The whole process was pretty easy and everyone loved the results.

If you are interested in giving a brine a try here are a couple brine recipes:

*Alton Brown’s Good Eats Roast Turkey
*Advice from the folks at Foster Farms

Here’s a peek at Alton’s brining advice in action.

Image credit: Sxc.hu

Post from: Blisstree

Thanksgiving: How About A Brine?

This season, the show, hosted by Alton Brown,  will be judged by Anya Fernald, Donatella Arapai, and Jeffrey Steingarten (my least favorite Iron Chef judge). Fans of the Iron Chefshow will be familiar with Arapai and Steingarten, but I was unfamiliar with Frenald until last night. I liked her. She sounds knowledgeable, but she remains polite. I love reality tv, but I’m not a fan of rudeness and so many reality tv shows seem to exist for the purpose of sharing bad behavior with the world.

 
Competing chefs included Amanda Freitag, Brad Farmerie, Dominique Crenn, Eric Greenspan, Holly Smith, Jehangir Mehta, Jose Garces, Nate Appleman, Roberto Trevino, and Seamus Mullen. The show started off with two separate challenges – one a memory food item that the chefs were familiar with and the other something new and……well icky. I have no interest in ever trying something made with cockscombs or unlaid eggs. Bleech.

A problem that I have with many reality shows is that the judging can be a bit uneven. A chef can be penalized for both embracing an ingredient too much or not embracing it enough. Who determines what the correct balance is to be?  With something like stinky tofu (that’s actually what it was called, not my opinion of tofu), would it be better for the chef to serve the tofu in a way that shared the unpleasant side of it or to mask that aspect?

I can’t wait to see what the chefs come up with this season, but so far I think my favorite is either Chef Garces or Chef Trevino. How about you? Do you have a favorite yet? Did you agree that Chef Greenspan was the best choice to go home first?

Image credit: Zuma Press

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The Next Iron Chef Search Has Begun

~ The first item of the giveaway is a The Next Iron Chef prize pack containing a The Next Iron Chef t-shirt, a poster and a postcard — any of which would be great to hang onto or give as a gift to the Food Network and/or Iron Chef fan in your life.

The Next Iron Chef season two premieres Sunday, October 4th at 9:00 pm Eastern/8:00 Central on Food Network with Culinary Commentator Alton Brown, and airs every Sunday until the finale on Sunday, November 22.

~ The second item is a copy of Alton Brown’s upcoming cookbook “Good Eats: The Early Years,” which won’t hit store shelves until October 1. It offers up over 140 recipes from The Next Iron Chef host, and represents episodes from the earlier years of his very popular series on the Food Network, Good Eats. To make things even better, this is only the first book in a two-part series, with the second coming out next fall.

To Enter:

To enter the giveaway, simply leave a comment here telling me who is your favorite celebrity chef/cook on the Food Network.

Note: entries that do not follow the submission guideline above will not be qualified (for example, anything that says just “enter me” will be deleted). Please take a minute and think about it!

…..

~ Contest ends Thursday, October 1 at 5:00pm PDT. Any entries after this cut-off will not be eligible. Winner will be randomly drawn and notified by email, and will have 24 hours to respond before a new winner is chosen.

~ Giveaway is open to U.S. residents only.

~ One winner will receive a prize pack containing a Next Iron Chef gift pack and a copy of Alton Brown’s “Good Eats: The Early Years” cookbook.

[image: amazon]

Post from: Blisstree

Giveaway: Next Iron Chef and Alton Brown

This second season features ten new chefs competing for the top spot as the new Iron Chef on the series. The line-up includes:

1. Amanda Freitag from The Harrison in New York City
2. Brad Farmerie from Double Crown, Madam Geneva, Public, and The Monday Room in New York City
3. Dominique Crenn from Luce @ InterContinental in San Francisco
4. Eric Greenspan from The Foundry on Melrose in Los Angeles
5. Holly Smith from Café Juanita in Kirkland, WA
6. Jehangir Mehta from Graffiti in New York City
7. Jose Garces from Amada, Tinto in Philadelphia
8. Nate Appleman, Chef and butcher in New York City
9. Roberto Trevino from Budatai in Puerto Rico
10. Seamus Mullen from Boqueria in New York City

The competitions will take place around the globe, including locales like Tokyo, Japan and Los Angeles, California, where the chefs will be put through the wringer to complete dishes with unusual local ingredients, such as jelly fish and crickets, in a limited amount of time. Each week one chef is eliminated from the competition by judges Anya Fernald, Donatella Arpaia, and Jeffrey Steingarten. The remaining two will battle it out Iron Chef-style in Kitchen Stadium.

The winner will join the ranks of the current Iron Chefs Bobby Flay, Mario Batali, Masaharu Morimoto, Cat Cora and The Next Iron Chef Season 1 winner Michael Symon, on the popular series Iron Chef: America, hosted by Alton Brown.

Post from: Blisstree

The Next Iron Chef Preview

This recipe for Masa Tots comes from Alton Brown, and is made by using shredded corn tortillas and jalapenos (among other things!) and forming them into little balls for frying.

Masa Tots

10 ounces corn tortillas, approximately 20
1/2 cup whole milk
1 whole egg
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup diced onions
2 tablespoons minced jalapenos
2 quarts peanut oil

Tear the tortillas into small pieces and place in a food processor. Add the milk, egg, salt and pepper. Process until a chunky paste forms and you are able to squeeze a ball together in your hand, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl, as needed. Transfer to a mixing bowl and stir in the onions and jalapenos. Set aside.

Place the oil into a 5-quart pot or Dutch oven and heat to 365 to 375 degrees F.

Roll the dough into 1 to 1 1/2-inch balls or scoop with a small, 2-teaspoon ice cream scoop. Fry 6 to 8 at a time in the oil until crisp and golden brown, approximately 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack set over a sheet pan and allow to cool 1 to 2 minutes before serving.

[image: flickr]

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Masa Tots for Cinco de Mayo

Thankfully, Alton Brown has come to the rescue with his delicious overnight cinnamon rolls, which you make the evening before, stick in the fridge overnight, and bake in the morning.

The combination of the melted butter, brown sugar and cinnamon filling create a delicious caramel-y filling, and the cream cheese in the icing actually seems to tone down the sugar overload!

Post from: Blisstree

Alton Brown’s Overnight Cinnamon Rolls

One of our favorite Saturday morning breakfasts is German pancakes. I’ve seen them called a lot of different things — Dutch babies, puff pancakes, etc., but I grew up calling them German pancakes so that’s what they are here! The kids still love standing at the oven to watch them rise and still get a kick over how big they get.

They’re very easy to make: 4 eggs beaten well, add one cup of milk, and then one cup of flour. You can add a tablespoon of sugar and a dash of vanilla for a little sweetness, or if you’re going to put something sweet over them already (syrup, fruit sauce, powdered sugar, etc) you can leave that out.

Put half a stick of butter in a 9×13 casserole dish and put it in the oven while the oven warms to 350 so that the butter melts. When it’s completely melted and the oven has reached temperature, pour the batter in and cook for 20-25 minutes (mine come out perfectly at 23 minutes).

I’ve tried mixing it two different ways, with a whisk and with an electric beater and the pancakes I’ve made with a beater always stay flat, but the ones I’ve just mixed with the whisk always rise like crazy. I’ve seen Alton make his in a blender and beat the heck out of it, but mine don’t like that for some reason so a gentle mix with a whisk works best in my experience.

Post from: Blisstree

German Pancakes

How was your Thanksgiving?

Except for a couple of sickies (including me!) ours went pretty well! We stuck with our Foot Network-inspired menu and while it was fun to try new things we’ll probably stick to our traditional dishes next year.

The brining that we did for the turkey was a hit. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a moist turkey, it was awesome. We found some brining bags at Whole Foods the day before, which was good because my husband was reluctant to use one of his beer making buckets (I don’t blame him!). I made the brine early Wednesday afternoon and got it in the fridge so it’d be cold enough for the turkey, and the whole process was pretty painless. This’ll definitely be part of our yearly prep!

The turkey turned out beautifully but with the hustle and bustle I didn’t get a decent picture of it (this picture was in the background of a shot my husband took, right before we took the turkey out).

The one thing that didn’t turn out was the gravy. I’ve made gravy a lot and never had a problem, but this time it separated and looked awful but tasted fine. I even had Alton’s segment on the DVR and rewatched it a few times and did everything he did, so I’m not sure what happened.

Tyler’s dressing was ok. My husband’s really the only one crazy about Italian sausage but it added a really nice flavor to the bread anyway and while it wasn’t a pain to make there was some juggling getting what should be a simple side dish going. Oddly enough the chestnuts really didn’t add anything to the dish and I’m glad we didn’t spend anymore time trying to find them fresh, roasting them ourselves, etc.

Giada’s potatoes were delicious and we’ll probably make them again in a non-holiday meal. Make sure you don’t add any extra salt to it while making it – the cheeses definitely take care of that for you!

I also made my usual dinner rolls, some steamed veggies, and pumpkin pie. Overall it was a fun day (I love trying new recipes!) and everyone enjoyed the food.

Did you try anything new yesterday? How did it turn out?

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The Day After

With the U.S. Thanksgiving just days away, it’s time to start thinking about turkey prep!

We’ve been wanting to try brining for a while now and saw Alton do it over the weekend on the Dear Food Network Thanksgiving. Alton has yet to let us down so we went out yesterday to get the spices and broth that we need. Our biggest issue now is finding something big enough to keep the turkey in and also have it fit in the fridge overnight.

I think we might also try Tyler’s dressing and Giada’s mashed potatoes. We always stick with the basics but this year we’re in the mood to switch things up a bit and since it’ll be just us we won’t feel bad if it doesn’t turn out too well!

So what’s on your Thanksgiving menu? How are you preparing your turkey? Or what have you been assigned to bring to a big get-together?

[image: flickr]

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How Are You Preparing Your Turkey?

Alton Brown decided to stick-it out with the Food Network and re-upped for three more years.  A little militant sounding perhaps, but we are talking about the Food Network.  With a the networks campaign to rid itself of the Titans of the culinary world who built the Network one often wonders what will happen next, or rather who will be deployed to the Nether-Reaches.

I am not surprised that Alton will continue to be a Food Network fixture.  He has a successful TV series with Good Eats and is the host of what I do consider to be great TV in Iron Chef America.  He has had a successful run with his mini-series Feasting on Asphalt and will continue his tour with a stint in the Caribbean (poor thing) with Feasting on Waves to be aired this Summer.

From TV Week:

“We are thrilled to continue our long-standing relationship with Alton and look forward to creating compelling programs with him,” said Brooke Johnson, president of Food Network, in a statement. “’Good Eats’ launched in 1999, its popularity and that of Alton is a testament to the creativity and longevity of our talent and programming.”

“Food Network is my home and I am staying home,” said Mr. Brown. “I’m looking forward to producing more and varied shows with the network and am especially excited about ‘Feasting on Waves,’ which will bring a whole new perspective to food.”

I am happy to see Alton Brown still on the airwaves, but I wonder if the screws are being turned for Food Network to get a little piece of his action as well.  Hey, Alton, watch-out, the Food Execs got your ”Science…It’s What for Dinner” t-shirts in their sites. 

I tell you…I smell a Culinary Union in the works.

Post from: Blisstree

Alton Brown Re-enlists for Three More Years