Category: Food & Wine

Shad Season Starts  — Despite the miserable climate change — the Ice Age was climate change after all– in southeastern Pennsylvania, an absolutely wondrous season has started.

It is shad time.

The fish, also known as the river herring as it is part of the herring family, is now being sold at fish mongers and supermarkets throughout the region as their harvest has begun down south.  The spawning starts when the temperature hits 51 degrees F.

Pennsylvania has an historic connection to the fish, which is sometimes credited for saving the American Revolution. It is said that they fed the Continental Army at its most desperate time as the spawning on the Schuylkill in the spring of 1778 occurred just about the time the  army had run out of food at Valley Forge.

The illustration above is Shad Fishing at Gloucester on the Delaware River by the great Thomas Eakins painted in 1881.

Yes, it is delicious. Keep an eye on these pages. Maybe Chef Bill Sr. will explain how to cook it.

Shad Season Starts

Here might be the easiest way of all time to separate egg yolks.

Hat tip Cathy Craddock

 Separating Egg Yolks Easiest Way

Have you ever had a Popeye’s apple pie? It’s said to be delicious and “old school, deep fried like the one McDonald’s ones used to be 20 years ago.”

How about Burger King’s Rodeo Burger called the “best thing ever”.

Business Insider queried fast food workers about the best things on their menus that nobody ordered. Here’s the list.

Hat tip Stephen Kruiser at PJMedia.com

Best Fast Food Nobody Orders

As you ponder the previous article about the benefits of eating an ounce-and-a-half of nuts a day, we will describe tonight’s meal — honey glazed fried chicken. The side was french fries. The chef was Bill Jr. The wine was a box white.

The recipe was based on something seen on America’s Test Kitchen.

Brine the chicken — in this case four legs and four thighs —  for 30 minutes in a mix of a half cup of sugar and a half cup of salt in a quart of water. Make the batter which is simply 1.5 cups corn starch and a cup of water with two teaspoons of pepper and one of salt. Whisk it and let it sit in the refrigerator as the chicken brines.

Fill a Dutch oven with 2.5 quarts of vegetable oil and let it sit on the stove until it reaches 350 degrees F. I believe it took about 20 minutes to reach this point with the burner on high.

After the brining, dry the chicken — thoroughly  — with paper towels. Dip four pieces in dry corn starch, then in the batter. Place them in the hot oil. After seven minutes pull them out and place them on a wire rack, which is best placed inside a rimmed baking tray. Put the other four in after likewise dipping them in the  dry corn starch then the batter. After seven minutes pull them out and return the first batch to the oil. Seven minutes should be enough for the meat to reach 175 degrees F. Return the second batch to the oil and cook until done.

When the chicken is frying, make the glaze which is 3/4 cup of honey and two tablespoons of hot sauce cooked in a microwave for a minute and a half. Dip the finished chicken piece by piece in the glaze then pile the fowl on a serving plate and dribble the rest atop.

The french fries were from scratch and fried in the oil along with chicken during round two. Cover each fry in dry corn starch before placing in the oil.

Dessert was ripe Ukrainian persimmons and medlars straight from the tree courtesy of Karen Palinko of Oxford.

Medlars and persimmons, the perfect dessert for honey glazed friend chicken.

Honey Glazed Fried Chicken, Tonight’s Meal,

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The New England Journal of Medicine, Nov. 19, reported that those participants in a study who daily ate a 1.5 ounce  serving of nuts had a 29 percent reduction in the number of deaths from heart disease and an 11 percent reduction in the risk of dying from cancer.

More surprisingly, the nut eaters were skinnier. Those who ate nuts seven or more times a week had an average body mass index score of 24.9 verses 26.0 for the non-nutters, according to the report.

And yes, this includes peanuts along with the tree nuts such as walnuts and pistachios.

“There’s something unique about nuts,” said Charles Fuchs, director of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Treatment Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and a senior author of the report. ” We’re trying to understand why, what’s the mechanism by which these things reduce the risk of dying from heart disease and cancer, as well as reducing the risk of diabetes, and we believe that there are substances within nuts that seem to affect energy or caloric pathways that alter metabolism in a positive way that allows you to contribute to weight loss.”

Eating Nuts Means Magical Healthy Life

Tonight’s meal by Chef Bill Sr. was Italian meatloaf stuffed with hard-boiled egg and boiled ham, smothered with a special tomato sauce, with pasta on the side.

It was served with a simple garden salad by Mrs. Chef Bill with a homemade Merlot. The dessert, apple crisp with fresh apples, was also by Mrs. Chef Bill.

The meatloaf fresh from the oven.

The stuffing in the meatloaf

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Tonight’s meal by Chef Bill Sr. was a birthday fest for his number one son featuring fried oyster and mussels steamed in his special sauce, and his special Chef Bill salad. The fried potatoes were by Mrs. Chef Bill as was the chocolate cake.

The wine was cold and white.

The seafood came from Hill’s in Media.

Tonight’s meal by Chef Bill Sr. was barbecued ham steak and grilled string beans with corn fritters homemade by Mrs. Chef Bill.

The wine was an inexpensive Chablis.

For great recipes go here.

Tonight’s meal by Chef Bill Sr. was grilled pork chops with homemade corn fritters and a side of cream spinach.  The wine was homemade Valpolicella. The dessert was cannolis with the filling by Mrs. Chef Bill.