A busy scientist cooks from scratch.
Delicious, easy, fuss-free roast whole chicken recipe that you can make on a weeknight. And no, you don’t need a cast-iron pan. Any oven-safe pan or baking pan will do.
The goal of every roast chicken recipe is to produce a bird that is crispy outside, perfectly cooked inside, and has succulent breast meat. Every cookbook author claims they know the secret to roasting a chicken that protects the breast meat from drying out into something resembling the texture of an old shoe. …
No carb buffalo wings. Chicken wings baked in the oven until crispy and then slathered with buffalo sauce. Works for keto and paleo diets.
Are buffalo wings more American than barbecue wings?
I pondered this question as I debated which kind to make for my Super Bowl wings blog post. Ultimately, I decided that buffalo sauce is both marginally more American than barbecue sauce, and definitely more appropriate for the Super Bowl. Because hot wings are more…manly? Hot chilli peppers dissolved in vinegar and all that.
A friend revived last year’s Super Bowl email thread which contained a summary of my understanding of how American Football is played. It is a bit simplistic, but I have reproduced it here:
Each team tries to move a misshapen ball to the opposing team’s side and through their goal post before the opposition manages to murder the player with the “ball” by hurling themselves at the poor chap with the ball all at once, resulting in a massive body pile up. You get points for surviving these attempts on your life and getting the ball to the other side. The team with the most points wins. However, both teams take many scheduled breaks from the murdering to catch their breath, swap players, or allow television channels to show viewers at home advertisements.
My understanding of the sport has not changed since. I also enjoy the fact that American football is played wearing more body armour than US soldiers are outfitted in as they go in to raid buildings allegedly housing notorious terrorist bigwigs. I mean, you won’t catch rugby players wearing full kevlar armour on the field.
It’s not all hate though. When Gronkowski is not too busy fighting off the opposition, he can be quite charming. But then, I’m biased in favour of the New England Patriots. And of course, if you are from Boston, you love Tom Brady. I think that is on the super-secret, informal test to qualify as a New Englander. Each year, on the day of the Super Bowl, I set aside my apathy for the sport and go to a Super Bowl party and back my side. I don’t want to jinx it, but the Pats have generally done pretty well in the recent past.
My favourite part about the Super Bowl though is the food. Nachos loaded with meat topped with cheese that stretches almost a foot as you pull a single chip out. Mmmm. Artichoke-spinach dip. Messy, messy wings. Fake-crab tartlets. Stuffed mushrooms. I eat a lot on Super Bowl night. Good thing it happens only once each year.
Way back when in 2006, I grudgingly conceded that I would have to learn to cook a few things if I were to stave off starvation. I could not keep eating out, or continue living on the charity of others forever.
In a perfectly romantic world, I would have rushed to the phone and called my mother. Excellent cook that she is, she would rattle off family recipe after family recipe. I would make notes on index cards, my pen flying in pursuit of her words. And, before you could spell “India”, I’d be in the kitchen, stirring simmering pots of curry from which would pour forth curling clouds of vapour aerosolising the apartment with the intoxicating scents of cumin and coriander.
Ha! Now wouldn’t that have been a cozy story? Alas, no, that is not what happened. One, I did not yet have a (flip)phone (we’re in 2006, remember? Think Motorola Razr). I had still not managed to find a part-time on-campus job…which means I couldn’t acquire a social security number. So, the phone company refused me the most basic cell phone plan. That is how fresh off the boat plane, I was. Besides, I owned just one cooking pot – an old, Indian (whistling) pressure cooker – so cooking multiple curries at once, even if I had known how to make them, was out of the question. No, what I did do, is join an email list called “Recipe du Jour” aimed at novice cooks. …