Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I really like this guy. TJ and I once spent an entire evening watching him construct and "play" his entire range of vegetable ocarinas. They all sound kind of awful, but his futile passion is winning and contagious.

Kenji, it's not pronounced bah-yo-tine. It's bal-o-tine. And aioli and mayonnaise are, as I'm sure you know, different things.

I have a couple of questions about how your findings apply to an actual Thanksgiving turkey, since most of us will not be eating just the breast :)

1. How does brining affect the skin of the bird? I notice that you sear the breast to crisp the skin. That's not really possible with a whole bird, so what would you recommend in that case?

2. Certainly a breast is at its juiciest at 140-150F, but, if the breast part on a whole bird is at 145F, then the thigh is almost certainly still a little undercooked, right? (That's true for a chicken, at any rate.) How would you get around this? In school, we'd sometimes remove the cooked chicken breast and return the rest of the bird to cook for a little longer, but this doesn't seem practical with a whole turkey.

Thanks!

If you just dolloped circles of muffin batter on a regular sheet pan, do you think they might come out sort of like domed tops anyway?

There was an opportunity here to post the Muffin Top song clip from 30 Rock, and it was missed :)

I don't know the exact ratio used, but I've been known to ask for my martinis "wet." I like vermouth! Where's the fun in a glass of neat gin?

My belief is that people are ever more concerned with appearing sophisticated and making the "correct," tasteful choice--which generally ends up meaning the dryer the better, whether it's chocolate that's 1 million % cacao, or avoiding rieslings, or, in this case, dispensing with the vermouth. It's all very silly.

@delilah I've actually only found them at a very expensive "gourmet" store we have called Dean & DeLuca. If anyone has any other sources for Zapp's, please speak up!

@jammin83 Come back and let us know how it went!

@daemon Yes, assuming your boss is wearing a laser monocle. Please.

@dpisping I don't dispute that a wide range of dry wines, both red and white, can be used. But cab and shiraz are far more tannic than merlot, which could potentially lead to a really astringent sauce.

@realhound Shiraz and Cab are too full-bodied for a stew like this, which uses only wine for the braising liquid. Merlot is a lighter varietal and better suited to this dish.

I tried this yesterday and they were so stingy with the syrup and cherries :( It's a nice flavor with good potential but they're not really executing it properly.

We also got a lime/lemongrass one, which was so sour and bitter that we threw it away after a few bites.

@carriebwc That was a bad call on my part. In the UK, where I lived last, the two varieties are commonly available side by side. In fact, smoked bacon will work just fine.

I've never had gizzards any other way than confit-style or in Chinese watercress soup (those were duck gizzards, I believe). But I have Southern-fried innard experience with chicken livers, marinated and breaded much as these are, but bigger and meatier.

What with all the upskirt leopard-spotting, this is starting to sound like an over-cougarization of the pizza lexicon.

(a) Surprised "Californication" pun has not been made in some form.

(b) They're not even flat. Not. Even. Flat.