cooking @ home

©2007 Harry Kenney

Welcome to the second installment of a continuing series. If you missed the first one, you can find it here: Answers to Your Questions Not Asked. This is where you the surfer asked questions without actually asking me. You — or, I should say, “they” — placed search terms in the various engines and found themselves at my site. And through my server logs I found what they were searching for.

Most found the answers here they were looking for. That’s what search engines supposedly do well. However some of these searches, these questions, were not found on my site, but Google and the others sent them here anyways. It’s to those searches that as a community service, knowing there are folks looking for these answers, that I now direct myself to. And, as before, some searches are truely bizarre, and out there, and for fun, I will at the end of this article have some wise (or is it wise-guy?) answers for those sincerely confused folks.

Food, Wine, Recipes, Chefs

“how to get crispy skin on barbeque oven chicken” – I refer you to my very first recipe on this site: Roasted Orange-BBQ Chicken Leg Quarters where I deal with this, including a photograph on scoring chicken. To answer it simply though. Crispy skin comes from scoring the fat, salting it within a rub, making certain you don’t accidentally (or purposely) baste it in any way while it’s cooking, and high heat, either at the end or at the start.

“iron chef ramsey” – Gordon Ramsey is one of the primo chefs in the world, but he is not an Iron Chef. There is Iron Chef America and a decade ago there was the original Iron Chef in Japan. As there is no Iron Chef UK or Iron Chef Britain television show, Gordon Ramsey is not an iron chef.

“eggplant lasagna without noodles” – I’ve seen this search phrase as least twice. If it has no noodles in it then it can no longer be called a lasagna, it is then called Eggplant Parmagen.

“how to reheat meat and cheese stromboli?” – In an oven or in a microwave. Ovens are always the best to reheat something breaded, pizza included. Use 300 degrees Farenheit and place on a cooking sheet or baking sheet on the top shelf. Usually taks about 10 minutes for a few slices of pizza. Closer to 14-16 for stromboli, but every oven is different so check before these times given to be certain.

If using a microwave, see my article on Keeping Food Fresh – Wrapping with Common Sense espcially the section called “What Microwaving Taught Me”. In short, wrap in a paper towel for microwaving anything breaded. For stromboli, anywhere from 50 t0 90 seconds, depending on size of slice, how packed it is and if it’s a low- or high-powered (wattage) microwave.

“godiva chocolate liquor shelf life?” – This question keeps coming up over and over, oddly. I’ve seen it asked at least once a week! Are there folks are there who have or who plan to just never open this bottle for decades? Don’t get it.

Anyways, I stumbled across something talking about Bailey’s Irish Cream which was mentioning how it should be used up within 24 months as it had no preservatives “unlike Godiva”. So, if something without preservatives can last two years. And Godiva has preservatives, then I’m guessing yes you can bury it along with the Pharoah for his drinking in the after life.

A better answer would be, just drink the stuff already! Or find some good recipes to use it in. Or both. As I’ve said prevously, I like Godiva chocloate licquor in my chocolate chip pancakes. Seriously.

“do you drink red wine with lasagna?” – You can drink red wine with anything you want. Same with white wine. Same with a blush. In all seriousness red wine does go well with lasagna, even vegetable lasagna. You see, besides my mantra of do whatever you want, wine drinkers are starting to realize that besides red with meat, white with fish, that there are other ingredients that are, like meat and fish, heavy and light.

Lasagna with it’s rich zesty tomato sauce and heavy layers (even without meat) seems to ask for a heavier wine to go with it, in this case the general classification of red. So yes, go with it. I’d pick a merlot myself. And yes I think a nice dry, medium white like pino grigio would go well with it too.

And if you want to contrast instead of complliment (you can you know) go with a white zinfandel which despite the name is actually a blush and very sweet; you might find the sweet crispness counterbalances against the tomato acidity well.

This next one should almost go to the strange section. Why? It seems like a normal question. Well, it is for someone who watches too many television commercials or eats at malls primarily. I save it here at the end of the serious questions so I can rant a bit though.

“stuffed chicken florentine recipe with tomatoes” – You are obviously watching waaay too many Olive Garden commericals. Florentine does not have tomatoes in it. And don’t get me or any other cook and most certainly not any chef on the topic of “Olive Garden”, aka the degarlicizing and homogenizing of any robust or true ingredients to fit into some body’s idea of a warped 21st century version of Ozzie and Harriet’s limited and bland pallete for the American masses. The same kind of pallete that eats a nacho and the person thinks they have truely experienced real Mexican food.

I recall watching one of Ming Tsai’s programs, probably it was “Simply Ming”. And he had another chef on and they got discussing their early days and how both of them when they were younger chefs heard about this new chain of restaurants called Olive Garden and how they were both impressed … until they heard about how one of the rules was to use very little or no garlic in any of the Italian dishes. I recall Ming saying to his friend, who agreed, “Whew, we dodged that bullet, didn’t we.” Think that sums it up nicely.

Oh and if you want a real recipe on the subject, sans tomato bits, go here: Chicken Florentine

Strange But True Searches

“do buttermilk and milk have the same volume?” – No, buttermilk tends to like the dulcet sounds of Yanni and John Tesh, where as whole milk is a lot rowdier and listens to Finger Eleven and so it’s much louder.

Why this one came here, no idea … unless it got confused with my series on Cooking Math, still …

“is 2 equal to 1?” – Only on Tuesdays in which case you now have a Royal Fizbin … Or at least that what Kirk tells me. Spock however says this is a non sequitur.

“where do apple turn overs come from?” – Ok, if a Mommy Apple Turnover and a Daddy Apple Turnover really love each other, they put on some Barry White music, and ….

I swear these two below came two months apart. Same person? I hope not.

“london broil deep fried cook time?” – If you’re actually capable of deep-frying London broil could you teach me how to saute some boiled water?

“london broil comes from what part of the turkey?” – The British side of the turkey; usually on it’s mother’s side.