Culinary Conversations

[bower]

Those are excellent points about breast vs thighs @worth1 ... unfortunately your advice came too late for this experiment or I may have gone with the lower temperature. But I totally get what you're saying about dried out breast. However I have roasted and frozen bone in breast before and it was surprisingly not dried out with the homemade seasoning I put over it (evoo +garlic +saltpepper+whatever herbs+ a vinegar or lemon/lime juice). This is a bit different from some bottled sauce, IDK but it comes out with a lot of very wet drippings in the bottom of the pan. I know what you mean though, and turkey is even far worse for that tendency to go dry. So I hope I can avoid the worst case scenario, for sure.

I did take some measures to keep it juicy - tented for 20 minutes as they always say, before I removed from the pan. All juicy as can be, but I guess we'll see how that survives the reheat. TBH it is not quite at the crispy skin stage, maybe the tenting softened that. Based on the condition of it, I may forego the foil and just brush with oil and sprinkle parmesan or crumbs, then make it a brief but hot reheat to crisp up the skin. It's not like chicken has to be piping hot to eat it, as long as it's fully cooked.

I did two different seasonings (besides the garlic oil basics) with a little dry mustard in both, the four breasts for confirmed adult guests are chipotle-thyme-summer savory and lime; the remaining breasts and thighs got fresh rosemary, dry basil, balsamic vinegar. That's in case of kids who don't like hot pepper. I did have some poblano peppers to fire in with the chipotle breasts.

So here they are after tenting and removed to some pyrex dishes - I may go ahead and reheat in those I guess. Romanesco zucchini fritters I did on the stovetop while the chicken was cooking. Lots of drippings combined from the two pans for some rice, but I'll cook the potatoes for salad first since ahem that's the only pot right size for both.
I'm sure my "well seasoned" pans look gross to some viewers but one day when I'm retired I'm gonna scour em down to the metal or glass and I'll post dainty pics of my super cookware then.

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Those drippings are gonna make some great rice for a stir fry.

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[Sue_CT]

They look delicious! I will take the chipotle one please! It sounds awesome! I am sure they will be great. Let us know.

Hmmm, I wonder if you mix some lime zest in the bread crumbs if you use them...

[bower]

That's a brilliant idea @Sue_CT , and dang I'm sorry I had already tossed the peel. (Or did I? will check the clutter corner where unfinished business got pushed while I made breakfast.)
Potato salad is done, I have a cucumber/baby carrot salad to make and a cake, before the first guests arrive around noon. Got to have cake, It is a birthday party after all . It won't be anything like the stunning cake your sister made you! Just a humble blueberry cake. But hey, I do have candles.

[worth1]

@bower
I've never been in a commercial kitchen where the baking sheets and heavy equipment looked brand new.
I cook with glass sometimes but I absolutely hate the stuff.
Tenting the top of some food like a chicken keeps the skin from burning up.
Alton Brown did a whole show cooking the so called perfect turkey.
He blasted the turkey to get the skin color and then put foil on the surfaces turned the oven down some and continued the cook.
We did it and it worked but what a lot of trouble.
If I ever cook another turkey I'm going to butcher the thing into it's basic components out in separate cooking pans and cook it accordingly.
Legs thighs and back together and breasts together.
I've tried everything I can possibly imagine to get my idea of perfect breast and the perfect legs and thighs and have never been able to accomplish it.
Breast ready thighs not cooked.
Thighs cooked breast over cooked.
Spatchcock doesn't do much better.
Whole boneless is a novelty and one heck of a lot of work, I've done it.
The whole bird looks good but in my opinion isn't up to standards when actually eating.
Set a fake turkey on the table for everyone to look at and take pictures.
Oh my it looks just like last year's bird you always do such a wonderful job.
Put it back in the closet and bring out the real bird to eat.
Remember I said my opinion.
Others opinions may be different.

[karstopography]

One trick I read about for cooking whole Turkey evenly is to zip bag up a goodly amount of loose ice and put that bag on the turkey breast for a while before cooking. The idea is to get the turkey breast all the way top to bottom right at freezing temperatures or even a notch below with the thighs being closer to 40°F at the start of the cook. I’ve done this with cooking smaller 12-14# turkeys on my BGE and it seems to work. Basically the breast is 10° colder at the start of the cook and the temperature never catches up to the thighs. Brining a bird seems to help keep the breast moist also. I usually get the turkeys that aren’t pre-brined and do my own brine or use a good brine kit if I can find one on sale.

My BIL fries turkeys whole. He injects some sort of herb, spice, liquid solution into the birds prior to frying. He’s got it down. Fries the birds in peanut oil. Peanut oil is about $17 a gallon here now.

[Sue_CT]

Had one fried bird and it was awesome. Best Turkeys I have ever made were done in a convection oven. All over golden brown.

[karstopography]

So I received recently a gift of a Ninja air fryer. Tonight is the inaugural dinner. I thawed out some bone in, skin on chicken thighs and will make either frozen french fries or frozen onion rings to go with the chicken, both with the air fryer, but done separately.

I like the idea of a quicker cook using much less oil that traditional frying and still achieving that crispy skin and fries. In theory, less overall mess and waste.

[bower]

Well the dinner has been et, and believe it or not, those chicken breasts were perfect!
I didn't have time to season crumbs (which I definitely want to try another time!) so I just sprinkled on some parmesan and then put them in the oven uncovered at 400F for 18 minutes. They were hot right through; the skin was just crispy enough; and they were super tender and juicy. So good my friends commented on it, one said the preparation was 'flawless'. This is a rare compliment for me.
Thanks all and especially @Sue_CT for excellent advice.

[worth1]

@bower
The most important thing is everyone and yourself liked it.
It doesn't really matter how my ridiculous pickiness plays into the conversation.
In my 65 years of cooking on this planet I've only deep fried the perfect bone in chicken breast one time.
That says a lot about how good I actually am.

[karstopography]

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Holy smokes, Batman! Who knew how delicious air fried chicken and onion rings could be!

[worth1]

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Holy smokes, Batman! Who knew how delicious air fried chicken and onion rings could be!

I have two ovens one conventional and one a convection oven.
Yes I know.

[Sue_CT]

Convection rocks, lol. I wish I had a place for an air fryer but I need to keep counter top area to actually work on, lol. They are not really under counter items for the most part because they are usually relatively bulky. Ahhh, the pain of having to live with a small kitchen, lol.

[pepperhead212]

I got a Farberware countertop convection oven for Christmas, back in '77, and it is still working, KOW. Back then, they were new to to the "home" market, but I got hooked on cooking in it, down at school, and also got hooked on baking bread. 6 years later, when I bought my house, and set up my kitchen, I bought a Wolf range, with a convection oven on one side, and regular oven on the other side. In '83, that was the only professional range you could get a convection oven in - even other brands didn't offer them! Many other brands of just convection ovens, but not in ranges. Now, they are everywhere! Yet most people still don't know how to cook in them - a "smart" oven has to do it for them.

[worth1]

I've been searching for the Holy Grail of soy sauce to cook with.
The Fiesta market in Austin doesn't carry what I used to buy anymore.
The Pearl River brand.
In my excitement I bought a bottle that only had 685 mg of sodium.
So I get home and taste it.
To my surprise it was still twangy but not salty.
Looking closer at the label is has vinegar and alcohol in it.
What the devil.
Not bad but wasn't expecting that at all.
This morning I tried it again and it seems better.
It's a candidate for some soy blends I have going on.

One is I had an almost gone bottle of the super salty polar soy sauce.
In it I put in some black strap molasses.
It's got a nice flavor.
I'm going to try it with the low sodium soy sauce to see how it turns out.

[worth1]

Here's a soy reduction video from someone I watch occasionally.
Born in Moscow but raised in the US.
I'm always reducing stuff it's a horrible habit I can't seem to break.

[worth1]

Here's what I came up with for a dark soy sauce so far and it's pretty good.
Not for sure anyone can duplicate it because of the brand of soy sauce I used.
But here it goes.
3 parts of the WAN JA SHAN soy sauce.
2 parts Brer Rabbit black strap molasses.
1 part granulated white sugar.
I did this measuring with a kitchen table spoon so I wouldn't have a ton of it to contend with.
In other words the three parts were three of the tablespoons and so on.
It's pretty good stuff.

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[worth1]

I'm back again.
I used to go to a Chinese restaurant in Angleton Texas.
Not an all you can eat buffet but a restaurant.
I always ordered the steamed dumplings that came with a sauce.
I asked the lady that owned the place what the recipe was for the sauce and she flat out wouldn't tell me.
She said in a happy comical way.
If I tell you you won't come back to eat here.
It had slices of fresh ginger in it but I couldn't figure out the base.
Try as I may I never could get it right.
Well by pure accident I nailed it or darn close to it.
It's this dark soy sauce I just made.
I knew I had tasted this before somewhere but couldn't remember where.
Back then I had no idea or even considered black strap molasses.
It also had a hint of spicy hot.
So I just added some of my ginger garlic paste and a shot of J-Lek brand Sriracha sauce to it.
It's practically spot on.
Now if I just had some steamed dumplings to go with it.

[worth1]

@karstopography
You might consider an air fried Cornish hen or two.
I don't have an air fryer but I can't imagine it wouldn't work out really well.
I've been tossing around the idea deep frying one for years.

[MissS]

@worth1 for an alternative low sodium soy sauce try aminos sauce. Not a perfect flavor but pretty darned close.

[worth1]

@worth1 for an alternative low sodium soy sauce try aminos sauce. Not a perfect flavor but pretty darned close.

There's a particular umami flavor I'm looking for in soy sauce.
I test it by taking a teaspoon full and swishing it around in my mouth to aireate it and breathing through my nose like you would taste a good olive oil or something.
Then the salt kicks in.
For the life of me I don't know why they don't have tasting stations at the store for olive oil and soy sauce.
They do wine and beer but not stuff like olive oil.
I watched one video where they tasted high end olive oil only to say it tasted like regular cooking oil.
The woman doing this was from Italy and knew her oil.
To be honest I was very relieved because I thought the same thing about that particular brand of oil.
I thought I wasn't sophisticated enough to know what good olive oil was.
Sort of like the emperor's new clothes.

I've been totally ripped off in my opinion by buying expensive olive oil only to find out it isn't any better than the regular cheap stuff.
To this day some of the best olive oil I've ever had came back from a private grove in Spain in a big plastic soda pop bottle.

In my journey for the best soy sauce I'll just have to start collecting and trying different ones.
A trip to China Town in Austin may get me there but I want something convenient and local.