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salt content should be 6% for brines. not sure if injected birds carry the same percentage.

This soup is so easy that I would'nt worry about making it in advance. It tastes just fine using water as a base. No fancy chicken stock or veg stock needed. Trust me. All you need is:

5 Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled, chopped and boiled in salted water until tender
1 leek, white and pale green parts only, sliced thin
1 clove garlic, peeled and sliced thin
1 small to medium onion, peeled and sliced thin
A couple sprigs of fresh thyme
Olive oil, to sweat the leek and onion
The water you used to boil the potatoes (about 2 quarts)
A few knobs unsalted butter
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Boil the potatoes. Sweat the veg in olive oil with thyme. Add the boiled potatoes and the potato water into the pan with the veg. Reduce to desired consistency. Remove the thyme stems and puree in a blender. Pour back into the pan and check the consistency, reducing further if necessary. Season to taste and add some butter at the very end of cooking.

Brussels sprouts are tough to cook perfectly if left whole. They are tightly bound that the inside will never cook at the same rate as the exterior. This leaves you with a soggy, overcooked exterior which is why most people despise brussels sprouts. In most high quailty restaurants, they chop of the ends and peel off the individual leaves. They are then boiled shortly in heavily salted water, cooled immediately with ice water to stop the cooking, and then drained and tossed in a pan, as needed, with butter and seasoning. Brussels sprouts pair particularly well with pork and a rich cream-peppercorn sauce.

Lol... you guys are all ridiculous. I'm done with this lame thread.

Homemade mayo with sriracha sauce to taste and some extra lemon juice if needed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sriracha_sauce

You have the mayonnaise base with some acidity from the lemon and a nice balanced heat from the sriracha sauce. It's a very simple cold sauce with complex flavors.

Bechamel is better for thickening macaroni and cheese than for use in lasagna. You really need soft cheese for the traditional flavor of lasagna. I think the problem with the watery-ness commonly associated with using ricotta results from improper preparations or maybe just cheap ricotta. Everyone has their own way, but that's just my humble two sense.

There you go trashing my posts again sbelle... nothing better to do today or just like hearing yourself talk? Last time I checked the majority of these type of people come from Southeast Central USA and the majority of that crowd fits into these schemas.

Sbelle... your only contribution to this post was to mock me? I think you need to work on your temper. Keller is one of the few chefs that I actually trust because he is close to perfect. I don't blindly follow him, but I have faith in him. I read all of his books, attended culinary school, understand his methods. I know that the advice he gives is sound. Batali is and never will be on the same level as Keller for general food knowledge and preparation.

To finish, I provided a recipe from an esteemed chef instead of a family recipe (which seems quite average by the way) handed down from my grandmother who I claimed to be the best chef in the world. YOU take a chill pill, sbelle.

"We gonna inject him like a junkie on 42nd street!"

This recipe is by Chef Thomas Keller.

Lasagna
Yield: 9 servings

For the Sauce:
½ cup olive oil
1 ½ cups minced yellow onions
2 tablespoons minced garlic
½ cup tomato paste
8 cups peeled, chopped tomatoes (about 12 to 14 medium tomatoes cut into rough 1-inch pieces)
¼ cup chopped oregano
2 tablespoons chopped basil (optional)

For the Filling:
1 ½ pounds whole-milk ricotta
3 large eggs
½ cup chopped parsley
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

To assemble:
1 pound lasagna noodles
½ pound fresh mozzarella, grated
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the Sauce:

Heat the oil in a large, heavy pot. Add the onions and garlic and cook gently for 4 to 5 minutes, or until translucent. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes (the tomato paste will separate from the oil and the oil will turn a vivid orange). Add the tomatoes and stir to combine.

The sauce can be completed on the stove top or in the oven. The oven method requires less attention but a longer cooking time. For the stove-top, simmer the sauce gently for 1 ½ to 2 hours, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pot every 10 minutes to prevent scorching. For the oven method, preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Bring the tomatoes to a simmer on top of the stove, cover the pot with a parchment-paper lid, and place the pot in the oven for 3 to 4 hours. The indirect, even heat from the oven allows the sauce to cook without scraping the bottom of the pan.
When the sauce is done, it should be thick, slightly chunky, and reduced to about 1 quart. Add the oregano and let cool to room temperature (about 1 hour) before assembling the lasagna.

For the Filling:

In a large bowl, whisk together the ricotta and eggs until completely blended. Add the parsley and salt and pepper to taste and mix until well combined. Refrigerate until you are ready to assemble the lasagna. Cook the noodles in a large pot of boiling salted water according to the package directions. Drain the noodles and allow them to cool slightly. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

To Assemble:

Spread a thin layer (¾ to 1 cup) of the sauce over the bottom of a 9- by 13-inch baking pan. Place a layer of noodles (no more than one quarter of them) in the pan, slightly overlapping them. Spread half of the ricotta mixture evenly over the noodles and top with another layer of noodles. Reserve 1 cup of the remaining sauce and spread the rest over the noodles, completely covering them. Arrange another layer of noodles on top and cover with the remaining ricotta mixture. Top with a final layer of noodles and spoon the reserved sauce over them. Toss the grated mozzarella with salt and pepper to taste. (to give the cheese more flavor) and sprinkle it over the top.

Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until the mozzarella is a spotted golden brown and the lasagna is hot throughout.

You could also make a Bolongnaise base. Look up "Ramsay Bolongaise" in YouTube and omit the ground beef for your vegetarian friends. It should probably be subsituted with something with a likeness to meat though.

Granny Smith and Braeburns are also good.

There are several types of BBQ sauce. Most traditional BBQ sauces either use tomato sauce, mustard, or vinegar as a base, and they come a variety of thicknesses. Each state also specializes in certain types of meat.

Kansas City barbecue typically consists of brisket and burnt ends, pork, lamb, and beef ribs, steaks, chicken and turkey. Their barbecue sauces are tomato based, thick, sweet, spicy and sticky.

Meat used in South Carolina is consistent throughout the state, slow-cooked, hickory-smoked pulled pork. They are more mustard based, but feature some vinegar too. North Carolina also uses much pork but their barbecue sauce is usually vinegar based, thin and runny.

Memphis-style barbecue is known for wet ribs made with a mild, sweet BBQ sauce that's basted on the ribs before and after smoking; dry-rub crusted ribs, made with a spice rub that forms a crust on the surface, applied during or right after they've been cooked; and pulled pork.

East Texas barbecue is an extension of traditional southern barbecue, similar to that found in Tennessee and Arkansas. It is primarily pork-based, with cuts such as pork shoulder and pork ribs, indirectly slow smoked over primarily hickory wood. The sauce is tomato-based, sweet, and thick. It's most common in Houston and Dallas. West Texas features "Cowboy" barbecue, cooked over an open pit using direct heat from mesquite. The meat is primarily beef, shoulder clods and brisket being favorite cuts, mutton and goat.

Barbecue in St. Louis often uses pork and features a sauce that is typically tangier and thinner than its Kansas City cousin, with less vinegar taste. It somewhat resembles the Memphis style sauce.

While barbecue is typically associated with tough cuts of meat, barbecue ribs in Chicago BBQ tends to be from very good cuts of pork, perhaps because of the abundance of good meat and resulting higher expectations in this meat industry town. South- and West-side Chicago is noted for smoked ribs and Deep South style rib sauce.

Of course this is all American BBQ. Brasilians and people of other Latin heritage are disgusted at all the sweet sauces we mop on our BBQ. Look up Rodizio in google if you aren't familiar with it yet. There are many Churrascarias that come to your table every 5 minutes and serve up to 15 types of BBQ meat that Americans don't normally define as BBQ. But it's so good that it doesn't need sauce!