I'm Just Here for the Food_ Version 2.0 - Alton Brown [138]
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1
Followers of Horace Fletcher (1849-1919), American businessman and mastication promoter who believed that the secret to health lay in chewing each bite of food until no discernable mass remained. Fletcher himself claimed to chew every bite thirty-two times.
2
Nineteenth-century foodie/philosopher whose 1822 The Spirit of Cookery kicks the pants off anything Brillat “you-are-what-you-eat” Savarin ever wrote.
3
a fancy French way of saying “good to go.”
4
Rock is a very slow conductor but it does get the job done. Several years ago, I was doing a poolside grilling demo at a nice home in Atlanta. I looked around for a place to fire up my chimney starter and settled on the middle of a wide gravel path that ran around the yard. So confident was I in the wisdom of my placement that I was quite shocked to return half an hour later to find that the heat radiated through 4 feet of gravel, melted a sprinkler line and set a railroad tie on fire. While I stood there marveling at the sight of thermodynamics at work, the soles of my sneakers melted.
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“With a grain of salt.”—Pliny the Elder
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The life expectancy of the average Japanese female is eighty-three years; male, seventy-seven.
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Since the handles on cast-iron pans get almost as hot as the rest of the vessel, I strongly suggest turning the handle away from the edge of the stove, especially if children are about. (I’ve burned myself on the handle of a cast-iron pan half an hour after it came off the heat.) The density of iron at 293k = 7.86 g/mc3.
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Almost 85 percent of American families own a grill.
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If wood actually burned, there wouldn’t be anything left after combustion—which there is.
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I’m not trying to imply that chimney starters are dangerous, but I think that anytime you’re holding, moving, and pouring something that’s glowing red, there’s a potential for trouble.
11
Grate temp doesn’t matter very much with a wire-style grate like those that come standard with Weber kettles. But I already knew that dense, heavy iron grates did a much better job of searing the meat, so I use an iron grate.
12
I also took the opportunity to try another experiment at the same time. I had always thought that a thin sheen of oil on the meat was necessary for a good char and to ensure a stick-free grilling experience. But I was suspicious: If meat proteins brown so well, why not rely on them alone? By heavily salting the meat several minutes before cooking, water-soluble proteins had a chance to gather at the surface of the steak. As it turned out, they were all I needed to produce great color, nice grill marks, and no sticking. I won’t be oiling my steaks anymore.
13
When a fully lit charcoal fire develops wisps of transparent flame, it’s hot—really hot.
14
Industry word for the little plastic boxes that berries are often packaged in for sale in the produce department.
15
These nuggets were indeed broiling but since the chicken fat was acting as the heat conduit, the end product was more fried than anything else.
16
The only problem I’ve encountered is that my oven (like most) has an automatic door lock that won’t let me in while the oven’s in this mode even if I turn the oven off. So since my oven’s usually a mess anyway, I add the bricks and run the shortest clean cycle possible, three hours. When the lock disengages, the bricks are still as hot as a space shuttle belly during reentry.
17
I don’t quite trust my oven, so when it beeps at me to say that it’s heated, I always give it at least 5 minutes more.
18
Yes, holding chicken in the zone can promote bacterial growth, but if you cook the chicken properly you’ll nuke every one of the little nasties. This doesn’t mean it’s okay to leave raw meat lying around the house, but it does mean you can take the time to do what’s right for the food, as long as you keep it isolated from any work surfaces and/or other raw or cooked foods.
19
Whenever I work with poultry,