Food: Puritan Chocolate Chip Cookies

OK, it's not exactly a recipe, it's a minor modification.

I'm never entirely happy with chocolate chip cookies. I always find myself wanting more soft, chewy dough with fewer of those annoying chocolate interruptions. And I want more flavor beyond the sugar and chocolate - specifically, more salt and vanilla. And those big chocolate chips interrupt the structural integrity of the aforementioned soft, chewy dough, and that annoys me.

It took me this long to realize, hey, I'm making the things, I can make them how I want. (Or, well, I can then the way I want if I make two batches. It's cruelty to Himself if I don't also make the traditional ones.)

So I took the standard Tollhouse Cookie recipe. I put in about fifty percent more salt. (Next time I'll double the salt. The salt will continue to increase until I'm completely happy.) I put in double the vanilla. I tossed in a handful of itty bitty mini chocolate chips. (Next time I may make it two handfuls; I do want to be able to taste a little chocolate.) And I squished it all into a nine by thirteen glass baking pan to make cookie squares. And I underbaked it just a tiny bit to make sure they'd be soft.

Yum.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Link: Chicken Karaage

It's been far too long since I offered a fried chicken post. I ran across this delicious looking post for  Chicken Karaage on Monster Munching, which points to a recipe on Chowhound. I'll be returning to update when I try it.

Photo: By Sergi Larripa. Wikimedia Commons

Food: 90-Minute Carrots

Marcella Hazen's Essentials of Classic Italian cooking has a wonderful recipe for Braised Carrots with Parmesan Cheese. We call them 90-minute carrots, because that's how long they cook. These were a success at our Bacchanal party this summer, so I wanted to offer the recipe. I found it reproduced here, on RecipeZaar.

Photo from WikiMedia Commons.

Wrong Food: Chicken Chips

There are few things more fundamentally unhealthy than this. Perhaps deep fried Mars Bars would qualify. Or just sitting down and eating a stick of butter with a knife and fork.

So, to make chicken chips:

• Preheat the oven to about 250.
• Get a bunch of chicken thighs with skin still attached.
• Remove the skin and place it, fat side down, in a single layer in a baking pan with sufficiently high sides to keep the chicken fat in when it starts to render out.
• Put the rest of the thighs away to do something else with.
• Put the pan in the oven and bake it very slowly until the chicken skin is brown and fully crisp.
• Remove the chicken skin and salt it. Do whatever you want with the chicken fat left behind.
• Eat the chicken skin.
• Bask in your utter dietary irresponsibility.
• Prepare for the chicken-fat hangover the next day.

Mmmmm.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Food: Slow Fried Chicken

Fried chicken is special.

It's delicious. It's evil. It's fattening. It's saltycrunchygreasy. It's got all that going for it.

It's also a food that cannot successfully be mass-produced. Real fried chicken is pan-fried in shallow fat, watched intently by a focused cook who dodges grease splatters while waiting to turn the pieces at exactly the right moment.

Deep fried chicken can be a perfectly edible, even enjoyable food, but it's just not in the same class.

And the crunch isn't about batter - it's about getting the skin rendered to perfect crispness, without destroying the meat in the process. Just dredging the pieces in flour is plenty, for breading. And the flavor isn't about spices - salt, preferably applied an hour or so before cooking, is plenty for seasoning. Fried chicken is simple ingredients transformed by careful cooking into full-on luxury gluttony.

Click Read More to, er, read more: