Linguini alla Carbonara Attempt 1

I do not believe I have had pasta alla Carbonara in any sort of restaurant setting, or ever for that matter, and as such I have no idea how it is supposed to taste.  What I made certainly tasted good, but I can not speak to whether it tasted proper.  Regardless the recipe is an interesting one which breaks some of the safety norms my Mother and Father instilled in me at an early age.

The preparation of linguini Carbonara shown in a recently watched Diners Driveins and Dives episode inspired me to try this dish out for myself.  I have very little to say about the recipe itself which is not already said on the Food Network site since I followed it fairly closely.  For those like myself who are accustom to cooking our eggs before eating them out of fear of salmonella, dropping raw eggs into the pasta after it is off the heat was rather counter-intuitive.  Doing so however leads to a very rich velvety texture and taste.  It's definitely a heavy dish however and I would not advise having it along side a meat course (or if you do, have a very limited amount).

I am definitely no food photographer.  Not the most colorful plate either.  If you are going for presentation value I'd suggest getting some greens to sprinkle on the dish.  If you're going for taste, it doesn't matter as much.

Also, if you are making it for your wife, I advise waiting until after she has eaten it to tell her that it contains raw egg.  If I had told Laura before hand I question whether she would have had it in her to actually consume the dish.


-PCM

Fried Chicken Revisited

Tonight I revisited my Fried Chicken post.  Since the initial post I've found some reasonable gluten free flour so now I toss the legs in a flour spice mix.  To date however I've been working primarily with rosemary and thyme.  Today I wanted to take a stab at the "11 herbs and spices" variation on fried chicken and thus used a little more than the two spices. 

I was actually going to count out 11, but around 6 I forgot to continue counting, because I was yelling about something ridiculous happening on The Bachelor in the other room.  Some of the spice highlights are:

• Cinnamon
• Cayenne
• Paprika
• Sage
• Basil
• Oregano
• Thyme

The chicken did not turn out tasting like KFC, but it did turn out quite nice.  

I've read that many chickens are rushed to market, a scant 20-some days after hatching, which evidently is too short a time for them to develop full flavor.  This being said I have no idea how to find more mature chickens, but if I do find out I would love to do a side-by-side comparison.

Hashbrowns - One and Done

I've seen a variety of recipes for hashbrowns, though there's not a lot of room for variation in the basic recipe as far as I can tell.  You're dealing with potatoes obviously, not much more. Regardless of the recipe however I have yet to be successful in the making of hashbrowns.

Once, I made potato crusted salmon which basically meant I coated the salmon with hashbrowns.  On that particular occasion, said browns turned out as expected.  Since then, whether making straight hashbrowns or making the same salmon recipe again, the hashbrowns have not turned out right.

The general technique I follow is based on recipes I've read online.  I grate a russet potato in a cheese grater.  After that I try to dry the result with towels since there's a lot of liquid in the potato which will cause it to basically steam or boil instead of fry if I don't get rid of it.  Finally I throw it into a pan with some oil and butter to fry it up.

It seems the primary problems arise in the drying process.  Typically this process is a mess.  Pressing paper towels into the grated potatoes in order to soak the liquid out takes at least 5 minutes and I have to deal with the potatoes getting stuck to the towels and visa versa.   Further, if the potatoes are grated too long before cooking, oxidation takes place making the potatoes red and just a mess after cooked.  Even when dried, I just don't get the fluff out of them post cooking that I would expect.

Open to any input on this front