Banquet Chicken Fried Beef Steak Meal

I must have this inner masochistic streak that manifests itself whenever I go into the frozen foods aisle at the supermarket.  I just can't resist the urge to buy cheap Banquet frozen meals. So what if they're not even Denny's-quality kibble?  It's a hot lunch for a buck or less and they're usually under 400 calories to boot.  

Today's culinary adventure is Banquet's Chicken Fried Beef Steak Meal.  This particular meal was irresistible to me because I simply had to find out what that big breaded patty was actually going to be - you just know that for 88 cents on sale (seriously) you're not going to get anything that remotely resembles a real "beef steak."

The centerpiece of the meal is a somewhat irregularly-shaped breaded patty which ConAgra lists in the ingredients as a "Beef Patty Fritter" made primarily of beef, water, breading, and textured soy protein.  It's hard to tell where the breading ends and the beef begins, and cutting into it offers no further clues; it's sort of like those strange "veal patties" you sometimes get when you order veal parmigiana at a low-rent Italian restaurant, except with a lot more bread.  The texture is somewhat loose and wet and would be disconcerting anywhere except in a Banquet meal, but the flavor is tasty - somewhat beefy, a little salty, but well-seasoned and even a bit spicy, just like you'd expect from a decent fried chicken.  The patty is accompanied by a bargain-bin "country gravy" which is flavorful enough to be tasty and bland enough to cut some of the salt in the patty.  It's roughly equivalent to any powdered country gravy mix you've tried, and I have to admit some fondness for it.

Sides are typical of Banquet meals - standard-issue yellow corn, tender but still manly enough to fight back a little when you try to chew it; and a small plop of reconstituted dehydrated potatoes, which are - as always - delicious.  I love it when I get a Banquet meal with mashed potatoes as the side dish because I freely admit that I love the flavor of instant mashed potatoes.

When all is said and done, I can accept this meal and the "Beef Steak Patty" it's built around on its own terms and enjoy it for the cheap, tasty, and relatively fast lunch it provides.  I'd buy it again.

But you know what I'd really like?  A frozen Banquet meal with nothing but a big-ass pile of those mashed potatoes and a sea of that white gravy.  ConAgra, if you're reading this:  How about it? 'Cos I'd buy that for a dollar!

Saint Angel Brie

Here's a fast review of Saint Angel brie, made in France by Fromagerie Guilloteau:

Soft-ripened cheese with a gorgeous and decadent velvety smoothness; it's like eating a cheese made from cured butter. The white edible rind has that typical mushroomy-like flavor, but it's much less pronounced than on other brands.

I really loved it and would certainly buy it again.

Breakfast with the Q: Quisp Cereal and a Quisp Omelet

If you're an old fart like me, you might have fond childhood memories of the original Quisp cereal. It was introduced in 1965 along with a companion cereal called Quake. Both of them were actually knock-offs of Cap'n Crunch - the same ingredients, flavor, and crunch as in the Cap'n, but in different shapes (Quisp was formed into little "flying saucers" and Quake was in the form of letter Qs.)  

Although eventually Quisp's popularity faded in the early 1970's and the cereal faded out of the national market, fans have long been nostalgic about it, and Quaker has never really pulled the plug on it.  Quisp has been available sporadically in test markets since the early 1980's, and it has also been "pop up marketed" by Quaker in an unusual way for a large corporation since the 1990's - A freestanding display would be set up in the cereal aisle of a supermarket, filled with boxes of Quisp, and remain until the display was sold out.  Quaker was able to keep interest in the cereal alive for quite awhile with this teasing sort of marketing unitl finally, in the early 2000s with the widespread use of this intertube doubleya-doubleya-doubleya-thing, Quisp became one of the first online-marketed cereals, consistently available through an online store.

I've always really like Quisp in no small part because, while it shares flavor and crunchability with Cap'n Crunch, it does not have the Cap'n's roof-of-the-mouth-destroying qualities (fans of Cap'n Crunch will know what I mean.)  I noticed the Quisp seemed to be returning to stores a couple of weeks ago, first appearing at the local Shop Rite and then showing up in Stop & Shop.  The box art references Quisp's reputation as a hard-to-find cereal, but also promises that it's going into wider distribution again, which is good news for fans.

It's also good news if you want to make a Quisp omelet.  Stop laughing.

Quisp Omelet
Serves 1

1 tablespoon butter
2 or 3 eggs as desired
Milk
Salt and pepper to taste
Mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup Quisp cereal

Melt butter in a skillet over medium-low heat until foamy.  Meanwhile, beat the eggs together with a splash of milk - just enough to temper the eggs, but not to dilute them.  Pour the eggs into the heated skillet and allow them to set slightly, pulling back the edges of the eggs to allow liquid egg to flow under the edges and start to cook.  Season the eggs to taste with salt and pepper.

When the eggs are starting to set and the top is getting tacky, sprinkle a line of mozzarella cheese down the center of the eggs.

Add half a cup of Quisp cereal.

Fold the sides of the omelet in to the center, wrapping the cereal and the cheese in a comfy blanket of egg.

Flip the omelet over briefly to cook the side with the fold, then remove to a plate and serve.

Enjoy your delicious Quisp omelet.

Ideally, the Quisp cereal should stay at least somewhat crunchy as it's folded into the omelet, but unfortunately the wet egg does have a bit of a tendency to seep in and soften the crunchiness out a bit.  Still, the sweetness of the Quisp lends a brown-sugar/honey sort of flavor to the omelet, which is really good served with sausage or ham.

Spinach: Ideal for Cooking

When I got to the store, the "Ideal for Target Practice" and "Ideal For Stuffing Up Pooper" spinach was sold out.  So I had to settle for the "Ideal for cooking" variety.

Fishy Delights 42: Crunchy Whole Green Mussels

"Crispy Tahong," aka Crunchy Whole Green Mussels, are made by the same company which packages Crispy Squid Heads (previously reviewed here.) I try never to assume that I'm going to like a given product based on a different product by the same company, but I was thinking something like, "What the hell, it's just a buck, what have I got to lose?" when I put a packet of Crispy Tahong into my cart.

When I opened the bag, I  first started to suspect I might not be enjoying these as much as the squid.  The murky smell of low tide on the salt flats flooded my face. It wasn't just a briny seaweedy smell, either - it was more of a concentrated and slightly rancid nori odor that carries hints of salt water and seaweed slowly dessicating in the sun, of dead shellfish yawning in the sun as seagulls pick at them, of fish heads rolling up and down the shingle with the tide.

The flavor wasn't horrific, though.  Extremely strong and concentrated essence of shellfish.  Old shellfish right on the cusp of being where I wouldn't want to eat it, but shellfish nonetheless. The little mussels had been dried not fried, and they were certainly crunchy, but in a brittle and shattery way that spread tiny mussel crumbles around my mouth, over and under my tongue, between cheek and gum like some sort of algaenated snuff. Crispy Tahong overloaded my Shellfish Sensors and sent them into a death spiral.

While I'm probably never going to enjoy them as a snack, I did find that they weren't bad as an addition to a bowl of seafood ramen (just sprinkle a few of them into the bowl before added the water - the mussels will plump up and rehydrate with the water and add their noriness to the soup.)  Remember to just sprinkle a few, because believe me that will be all you need.

A Whisper of Summer

The snowbank at the foot of my driveway is still five feet high, and there's still a couple of feet of snowpack remaining in the yard. The temperature got down to 10 degrees last night, and I'm still pouring pellets into the stove to keep the house warm.  But thanks to some awesome heirloom tomatoes sliced for BLTs, we can pretend it's summer for a little while.

It's hard not to be drawn to the heirloom tomato display at Stop & Shop when I walk through the produce department.  The GOOD tomatoes (as opposed to all the flavorless pink billiard balls in the standard produce section) just call out my name whenever I go by. Finding little stickers on the fruit identifying them as "UglyRipe" tomatoes piqued my interest and I thought I'd find out a little more about them.

UglyRipe tomatoes are an heirloom hybrid grown in Florida. Unlike many "winter tomatoes" sent to New England markets, UglyRipes are as flavorful as a backyard-grown summer tomato.  Because they were developed from heirloom tomato strains, they also have the classic ridges and "wrinkles" of old-fashioned backyard varieties as well, and this characteristic has historically pissed off the Florida Tomato Committee, a state regulatory board that for years prevented UglyRipes from being shipped out of state because they didn't fit the standards for Florida tomatoes (i.e. they aren't perfectly round, smooth, and indistinguishable from the tomatoes around it.)  The Florida Tomato Committee's rules are probably to blame for all those cellophane-wrapped unripe balls of nastiness which used to pass for tomatoes in northern markets when I was a kid.

Anyway, UglyRipe growers finally were able to get the courts to overturn the shipping ban in 2007.  For those of us tired of Big Agriculture breeding the flavor out of fruits and vegetables in favor of uniform appearance and "shippability," that was good news.  UglyRipes are as excellent a tomato as you can find in the dead of winter, and are one of the few acceptable tomatoes available to us before we can start picking fresh field-grown tomatoes out of our own gardens in July.

Slice one of these babies and awesomeness ensues.  You don't even need to dirty a frying pan for the bacon if you use some of the Hormel ready-to-eat stuff (which I still contend is the best of the pre-cooked bacons out there.)

Link:

SantaSweets, Inc. website - home of the UglyRipe tomato.

Russian Soft Drinks 3: Kvas

Kvas (квас) is a soft drink made from fermented dark or light rye bread.  It is wildly popular not only in Russia, but all across Eastern Europe, where it has been a traditional drink for over a thousand years.  Real kvas is brewed like beer and has a very mild alcohol content (usually around 1% or so - hardly enough to mention) due to the fermentation process.  Most of the kvas available in the US, however, is made more like modern commercial soft drinks using carbonated water, sugar, and malt extracts for flavor.  This method more or less duplicates the flavor but serves to eliminate the alcohol content completely.

There is a huge variation in the flavors of kvas depending upon the brand and the method used to make it.  Some are sweeter and some dry, some extremely "beery," some that taste like carbonated rye bread.  Some are sweet, mild, and have a flavor that I can only describe as "chocolaty." The best way to find one that you like is to find a store that carries a variety of them and buy several different small bottles to taste, but be warned:  if you think that Moxie is an acquired taste, you may find kvas really difficult to enjoy.

Dunkin Donuts Big n Toasty

Photo by Dunkin' Donuts

Even though Dunkin' Donuts shops are all over the place (there are four of them in my hometown alone, for example) it might be a little hard for you to find their new Big N' Toasty breakfast sandwich. When I walked into the Dunkies around the corner from my house this morning at 7:00 to order one, the pleasant young lady behind the counter said, "You're just in time - we're just about sold out, and our delivery hasn't gotten here yet."  Apparently, Big N' Toasties are hugely popular, with many DD locations running out of them long before the morning rush is over. Looking at DD's promotional photo, it's easy to see why the sandwich is making such a splash - the A La Carte blog at CTnow.com remarked that with it's big golden slices of Texas Toast and stylized arrangement of bacon and cheese, the Big N' Toasty looked more like an offering from the Sonic menu than something available at Dunkies (home of the flavorless and remarkably unsatisfying egg-white flatbread sandwiches.)

That the actual sandwich doesn't quite live up to the gorgeously styled publicity shots isn't a big surprise - the meme of "fast food not looking like the ads" has been done to death and it's not even blogworthy anymore - but for all the petty differences, this is actually a fairly hearty but not at all overwhelming breakfast. Two small eggs over hard, four short strips of decent bacon, a slice of standard-issue Fast Food Orange Cheese and, of course, two thick slices of Texas Toast. If I were to have a quibble at all, it would be about the size of the "four strips" of bacon, which are really more like two strips cut in half.

Seriously, the promos and the media hype around the Big N' Toasty made me anticipate a sandwich so big that I thought I might be better off sharing it with someone. But the actual sandwich isn't anywhere near the massive OMG BREAKFAST FEAST I was led to expect. Rather, it was much more an appropriately-sized brekkie which is approximately the same size as one I'd be likely to eat on a weekend morning (egg, toast, couple strips of bacon.)  The difference here is that the toast is somewhat thicker and the eggs somewhat smaller than what I'd make at home.

No, really, the eggs are small. Look how thin they are, stacked on one another in this cross section.  Even the yolks are thin.  You know what?  With their perfectly-circlular eggs featuring perfectly-centered yolks and perfectly uniform thickness, it would not surprise me one bit if Dunkie's isn't using real cracked-from-the-shell eggs at all, but a factory-extruded egg product, pre-cooked in cylinders and then cut into uniform slices for reheating at point of sale. No shit, that is an actual food service item.  Why has no one else noticed this?? And as long as I'm asking rhetorical questions:  How is Dunkin' Donuts managing to fit 580 calories into this sandwich?

So, bottom line:  Weird eggs notwithstanding, a decent breakfast at a fair price, and it held me over well until lunch. Dunkin' Donuts might be onto something here.

On Ad Hoc Fried Chicken

Several days ago in a post on her blog Fun With Carbs, Leeanne Griffin described recreating the amazing buttermilk fried chicken served at chef Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc restaurant in Yountville, CA. Her joyfully over-the-top account was enthusiastic and bursting with fun, and she made it obvious that the recipe produced an awesome-tasting fried chicken that was second to none.  I found it quite inspiring, in fact, and made up my mind to try the recipe myself.

Because I have long experience with both whole fowl and big batches of brine (smoking, pickling, and homemade bacon all require gallons of the stuff) I didn't find the prep work as daunting as Leeanne perhaps did. But although it's indeed time-consuming and labor intensive for such a relatively simple meal, the results are truly worth it..  The brine is absolutely the key - it imparts a wonderful flavor and juiciness to the meat and makes it more than just another fried chicken recipe.  It was so good that I consider the recipe a keeper, and one that I will certainly make again.

There are, however, a couple of changes I'd make (may Mr. Keller and Leeanne forgive me.)  Wanting to test the seasoning balance in the coating, I fried up a couple of test pieces before going all out  and found the coating a little bland.  An extra tablespoon of salt and a tablespoon of Bell's Poultry Seasoning mixed into the coating mix provided what we were looking for.  Before making any tweaks to the recipe, though, I still recommend that you fry a piece of chicken in the coating as originally formulated just to be sure you really want to tinker with what many people feel is perfection.

The other change I plan is in the cooking method.  I no longer own a deep fryer - it's one of those "single use" appliances that I shed from my kitchen a few years ago when I decided that I'd collected too many one-trick culinary ponies in the pantry.  I deep fry the way my grandmother did, with a heavy pot of oil, a frying thermometer clipped to one side, and careful regulation of the fire.  The trouble with deep frying chicken is the chicken fat which contaminates the cooking oil and renders it, for me anyway, unacceptable for further use.  Next time I make Ad Hoc chicken, it will be coated the same way as in the cookbook, but fried in shallow oil in a covered "chicken fryer," turning frequently to ensure that all sides are browned and crispy.  It will take no more time than deep-frying in batches, and the end result will be virtually indistinguishable from deep fried, but it will use far less oil (and give me a pan of drippings for whipping up some country gravy.)

Out Of The Can: Refried Beans