ultralaser

SANTA CLARITA DIET ⇢ 3x02

Broccoli Chicken Mac and Cheese

oh god i need some of this right now

Say hello to mechanically separated chicken. It’s what all fast-food chicken is made from — things like chicken nuggets and patties. Also, the processed frozen chicken in the stores is made from it. 

Basically, the entire chicken is smashed and pressed through a sieve — bones, eyes, guts, and all. it comes out looking like this. 

There’s more: because it’s crawling with bacteria, it will be washed with ammonia, soaked in it, actually. Then, because it tastes gross, it will be reflavored artificially. Then, because it is weirdly green, it will be dyed with artificial color. 

But, hey, at least it tastes good, right?

I can’t believe you’re exploiting pain this isn’t mechanically separated chicken, it’s a human brain at the moment of death c’mon, check your sources

mechanically separated chicken has some moves

All the flavor, none of the bigotry!

I must try this.

Same. To the pantry! (tomorrow-ish)

its littttt

sex

that’s a lot of ingredients to re-create an over-seasoned and overrated sandwich

Jules, how could you say such a thing about the chickfila sandwich?

because it’s overseasoned as fuck

even the most basic storebought pickle juice has enough spices in it that you shouldn’t have to add anymore to the flour after you brine and fry this chicken

turn lime juice, red wine vinegar and whatever spices you want into a brine for the chicken and you will make something that tastes better

the heavy cream is also completely unnecessary, you can make an egg wash with eggs and water.

Last night’s kitchen creation, a Zuky original, which I posted about during last year’s abundant collard harvests, inspired by Hawaiian, Southern US, and Chinese cuisine: collard wraps! Two large collard leaves are washed, trimmed, and laid out on the cutting board. About a third of a cup of pre-soaked white rice goes right in the middle, topped with marinated dark chicken meat, a couple slices of shiitake mushroom, ginger slivers, serrano pepper slices, and a chunk of homemade bacon. Then more rice to cover the meat, and then the leaves are carefully rolled and tied into a bundle with twine. Steamed for 45 minutes. Served with soy sauce, hot sauce, and cold beer. Something uniquely Asian American, tasty and surprisingly hearty.

“When it all goes quiet behind my eyes, I see everything that made me. Flyin’ around in invisible pieces.”

anedumacation:

Counting on Uncommon Chickens [part 1]

Brunch blogging: one of the best food perks I’ve discovered living where I do is that you can get some of the best eggs I’ve ever had. Maybe not quite as good as when I was in China as a young boy and was shown how to reach into the chicken coop and pick up eggs from right underneath the hens, but still, damn fine specimens far better than anything I could get while living in New York, incredibly fresh, radiant orange yolk, proteins still firm not runny, good solid shells, tasty as hell. This is a 6-egg frittata with potatoes and yellow squash, finished under the broiler with a crust of bread crumbs and parmesan, with a side of freshly-harvested arugula softened with olive oil and smoked turkey sausage. 

This takes me back to the summer I spent living in a a grand-uncle’s farm in the probinsiya. The eggs were such a revalation. I was used to smooth, white commercial eggs, so grand-uncle’s speckled eggs seemed tiny, with disproportionately large, deep orange yolks. I had never tasted anything like them! I ate those eggs all summer. Hard boiled. Scrambled. Soft boiled. Torta. Sunny side with yolks super over easy on a bed of pandanrice.

Grand-uncle passed away when I was in my twenties. His children sold the farm to a firm that consolidated small pieces of land together and implemented efficiency measures to increase the yield. My distant cousins who remained on the farm continued to send us sacks of rice and baskets of eggs as gifts. But the chickens now receive supplements, so the eggs were never the same. They were larger, all egg whites with pale yolks. Much less tasty too.

Exactly. The chickens in China are scrawny compared to plumped up North American specimens, and the eggs are small, speckled, bumpy, with very hard shells. The flavor can’t be replicated. Same with ducks and duck eggs. My favorite as a kid was salted eggs (i.e. preserved) with rice porridge.

Sorry to hear about what happened to your grand-uncle’s farm. But at least you got to enjoy it in its heyday! Those kinds of experiences never fade away.