Just got back from India yesterday, no pics of the food but I was in heaven. US restaurants just can't do chicken tikka like in country where the chicken had a fine, almost powdery crust encasing super-moist chicken. I had 3 plates of it. Of course the chicken also tasted like chicken, not the bland, factory-manufactured chicken so prevalent here.

nice!

much better than lobster

don't you have free- range chickens back East?

I've been trying to learn how to make bread. Here is my latest effort.

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It is (supposed to be) a ciabatta with chewy crumb, large holes, and a dark crisp crust. Well, it isn't, but close enough that I'll try again. Specs: bread flour, 97% hydration, 500F on a stone.

Well, it certainly looks good.

Ian

yes, I only get Whole Foods chickens which are substantially better than the average chains, Shaws/Star/StopNShop.

I've been finding that restaurant chicken has absolutely no flavor these days, it's almost like they use chemicals to bleach out the flavor, and soften it to a mush.

Got that authentic Chinese restaurant eye-popping RED char siu. Using authentic red food coloring, just like they do. Next time I'll use beet juice.

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It is to the point that a standard supermarket boneless chicken breast is quite the test of one's cooking.

How do you get this thick lump of grainless bland white meat, so massive that the chicken's legs would have broken had he not been slaughtered at 10 weeks, to be tasty?

To me, you need a sauce, a marinade, or heavy searing of smallish pieces.

The standard "grill a boneless chicken breast to 160F" produces something that tastes, I think, like a boiled potato with a beak.

And if you read about the conditions in factory chicken plants, it makes you, me at least, ill.

you just have to watch Food, Inc. to stop eating mainstream supermarket food of any kind from meat produced in factories to the nearly synthetic food in beautiful, wasteful packaging. With some lapses and exceptions here and there, I haven't bought processed food of any kind for probably a year now. Definitely feel better, a little trimmer. If I could reduce my own portion size, I'd be another 5-10 lbs lighter better still.

I don't eat processed food - well, there are a few minor exceptions, like sausages and dried tofu. Also condiments like soy sauce and nutella and hoisin sauce, let's not forget beverages like juice and wine. I don't mill my own grains or extrude my own pasta either. Otherwise, everything is scratch cooked, from bread to stock to entrees. I don't mind that, it is fun. What bugs me is when the raw ingredients themselves are untrustworthy. A Whole Foods chicken is about 2X the price of a Tyson chicken. I need to find a source for good bird that doesn't have the highest gross margins in the grocery industry.

In general, for me processed = taking food(s) and changing them or adding to them by chemical means.

Sausage (Whole Foods) = grinding together meat and fat and natural herbs and spices = not processed

Pop tarts = processed (see below), though I take this to the extreme and anything with corn syrup, I typically don't buy.

ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE [VITAMIN B1], RIBOFLAVIN [VITAMIN B2], FOLIC ACID), CORN SYRUP, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, DEXTROSE, SOYBEAN AND PALM OIL (WITH TBHQ FOR FRESHNESS), CRACKER MEAL, CONTAINS TWO PERCENT OR LESS OF WHEAT STARCH, SALT, DRIED BLUEBERRIES, DRIED GRAPES, DRIED APPLES, LEAVENING (BAKING SODA, SODIUM ACID PYROPHOSPHATE, MONOCALCIUM PHOSPHATE), CITRIC ACID, CORNSTARCH, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL BLUEBERRY FLAVOR, MODIFIED WHEAT STARCH, SOY LECITHIN, XANTHAN GUM, CARAMEL COLOR, RED #40, BLUE #1, BLUE #2, VITAMIN A PALMITATE, NIACINAMIDE, REDUCED IRON, PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B6), RIBOFLAVIN (VITAMIN B2), THIAMIN HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B1), FOLIC ACID.


WF here has chickens on sale for $1.79/lb at least once every two weeks, normally $3.79/lb. Star Market will have factory raised chicken as low at $.99/lb on a regular basis. But then they taste terrible in comparison.

i don't buy anything with an ingredient list that lists more chemical compounds than foodstuffs.

In general, for me processed = taking food(s) and changing them or adding to them by chemical means.

Sausage (Whole Foods) = grinding together meat and fat and natural herbs and spices = not processed

Pop tarts = processed (see below), though I take this to the extreme and anything with corn syrup, I typically don't buy.

That is a good way to think about it.

I avoid HFCS too. It is amazing, food companies are selling stuff that is very harmful to Americans' health, contributing to an epidemic of diabetes, with hundred of millions of dollars' worth of highly effective propaganda aka advertising to drive purchasing. With no regulatory controls at all - as long as it won't kill lab rats in short order, you can sell it.

I'm with Shaun. Sausage = not processed in my book. Also Maple Syrup, while not "healthy" per se, is a whole food and significantly preferred to corn or alcohol syrups.

I actually view all breads and pastas as "processed", since they typically use flour. Flour can certainly be "whole" if ground from whole grains and not adulterated by a bunch of chemicals, but that is difficult and time-consuming to do.

And chickens/eggs/beef, etc... are hard to "classify", since they are all certainly "whole", that is where you have to focus on things like "free-range", grass-fed, "cage-free", etc... Same with fish..."wild-caught" vs "farmed".

It's interesting...even many of our fruits and vegetables are so "nutritionally diluted", due to high-pressure, non-rotational farming, that you end up getting cheated there as well. I have a friend who moved here from India and took a look at a huge, over-sized head of faded-green "broccoli" in a grocery store and said, "what the heck is that; ....that ain't broccoli".

"Organic" is certainly the way to go, but even then you have to be careful to avoid marketing hype around the organic terminology, and pay more attention to what you are actually buying. For example, I had some organic eggs this morning that were labeled as "laid by organic-fed, cage-free hens that HAVE ACCESS to the outdoors". While that sounds good, I don't necessarily believe that this is the same as a "farm-chicken".

Maybe we have strayed off-topic, and we should start a thread about "truly nutritious food".

JA

that would include brining

also, cooking -- as that denatures proteins and causes those wonderful Maillard rxns

it's not very easy to define "processed" tho I know what you mean...

good lord man, :rolleyes:

i have some pork and chicken marinading right now with a bit of beet juice in hoisin sauce i made from scratch (its not very accurate, but should be good). it sure doesn't take much of the beet juice. i'll post results this afternoon/evening.

If there is not a Whole Foods nearby, get a Kosher chicken from the supermarket..Much more tasty than the soylent green Purdue sells..