Hot Tub Chickens

I wish I had taken this picture, but it's ganked from here.

Beer + Clamato = WTF

I was at the package store, buying vodka for Jello Shots, and they had these "Cheladas" on the counter by the cash register. I guess they were hoping for someone to pick them up on an impulse buy. I asked the guy at the register about them, and he just laughed. "I put them there hoping someone would want them out of curiosity," he said, "They taste really bad. Plus everyone sees Clamato on the label and they're like 'Man that shit's nasty.'"

Rumor has it that "Cheladas" are popular with Latinos, but we have a pretty sizeable Hispanic population around here and none of my Latino friends has ever tasted a Bud Chelada. I wonder who the hell ever thought that this would be such a popular product that it had to be produced commercially. There are two main things wrong with it:

• Budweiser (and Bud Light) are not, despite all the money they pour into marketing, "premium" beers. They're lowest-common-denominator suds which, by virtue of brand identity, are able to command a slightly higher price for quality and taste that is not all that much better than Pabst Blue Ribbon.
• Clamato is, all by itself, fairly disgusting. Originally made by Mott's, it was once upon a time a decent drink - tomato juice, clam broth, a touch of seaoning - that made a killer Bloody Mary (called a "Clammy Mary" around here, or a "Caesar" in Canada, eh.) But those days are gone forever. Mott's was bought out by Cadbury-Schweppes in 1982, and now Clamato is made with tomato juice, "clam powder," and high-fructose corn syrup. It's not the same drink, and it doesn't taste the same.

The actual Budweiser Chelata Experience far exceeded my horrific expectations. For starters, the color is a bloody-phlegm pinky/amber. Kind of translucent, with tiny suspended reddish particulate (Bud says the can should be gently spun between your palms before opening to mix the sediment with the beverage.) There's no head. In fact, there's very little carbonation; it's a lot like soda pop that's been left in an open cup overnight. I have to admit that the smell is a little enticing: a bit briny, a bit tomatoey, a bit yeasty. So I took a sip.

Big mistake. The mouthfeel is thin and watery. The flavor is vomitous: reminiscent of rotted tomatoes in a salt flat at low tide. Gah. Horrid. I'd almost be willing to eat a bite of dogshit just to get the flavor of Chelada out of my mouth.

'Man that shit's nasty.' Yes, that sums it up quite tidily, I'd say.

Naughty Cherry Pepper

LOL THIS PEPPER HAS A SCR0TUM!!!!!!11!1one!!1!

Farewell, Zoe's...

Zoe's Fish and Chop House has been operating on Route 10 in Easthampton since 1996. My wife and I first started going there a couple of years ago, lured by their wonderful Sunday brunch buffet which featured marvelously fresh iced oysters on the half shell, large plump peel-and-eat shrimp, roast beef and roast turkey breast at the carving station, and a variety of breakfast foods, seafood entrees, and desserts. Elegant and inexpensive, Zoe's was well worth the 40-minute drive even on icy winter mornings.

Unfortunately, early in January, the owners announced that Zoe's would be closing on 5 February 2008; the large, roomy, rambling building had been sold (and will be torn down for redevelopment) and that they hoped to resurrect Zoe's in a new location soon. The rising cost of fuel, food, labor, and maintenance have made it difficult to manage in the current location.

We made our final visit to Zoe's last Sunday, having made reservations a week earlier (the restaurant is so busy that they no longer take walk-ins for Brunch seatings.) The oysters, as always, were simply perfect -- beautifully fresh New England oysters, glistening in their half-shells on a bed of cracked ice. With them, I enjoyed one of Zoe's most excellent Bloody Marys - made with cracked black pepper and a dollop of horseradish stirred in, there is no finer drink to accompany raw shellfish. Other seafoods on offer included Cajun-style snapper (mild but still tasty), herbed salmon (a tad overcooked, but still moist, topped with a flavorful herbed crumbing that enhanced rather than overpowered the fish), hazlenut schrod (a favorite of my dining companions, though I don't care for hazlenuts at all), and mussels in garlic sauce (marvelous wild-caught Northeastern mussels, steamed open and dressed with a sauce that was little more than garlic and onion gently sauteed in butter - stellar.) Although I concentrated my attentions on the seafood, I did do some sampling around of the other offerings. As always, the fresh (and wherever possible, locally-sourced) ingredients were top-notch, from the delicately steamed mixed vegetables to the kielbasa made in nearby Chicopee MA. An extra touch that is often unnoticed and underappreciated: The kitchen staff kept the vegetables refreshed throughout the morning so that they never lost their marvelous al dente texture. And, of course, the service was every bit as good as the food. Our waitress was friendly and attentive without being annoying.

I hope that the owner finds a suitable location for a grand reopening. Zoe's Steak and Chop house will be fondly missed.

G2 Gatorade

Read the sign carefully and then figure out what a good deal you're getting.

Tastes Like...What?

It doesn't taste like butter. It tastes like salt and slightly rancid vegetable oil with just a hint of that sour smell babies make when they spit up.

How To Make Scallion Pancakes

Scallion pancakes are a delicious appetizer and dim sum treat found in many Chinese restaurants. A kind of fried bread, they are crispy and flaky on the outside, tender and a bit chewy on the inside, with shreds of finely diced scallions between the savory layers of pancake. And surprisingly enough, they aren't that hard to make.

You'll need:

3 1/2 cups of flour
1 heaping teaspoon of salt
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 1/4 cups of boiling water
Sesame oil
1 bunch of scallions (3 to 5 scallions)
Oil for frying

This is easiest with a stand mixer. If you don't have one, you can do the initial mixing and kneading by hand.

Put flour into the bowl of your mixer and add salt. Using the dough hook, turn the mixer on low speed and allow the salt to stir into the flour. Then drizzle in 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil. Allow the mixer to incorporate the oil into the flour while you bring 1 1/4 cups of water to a boil.

Turn the mixer to medium speed and add the boiling water slowly. As the water is combined with the flour, turn the mixer speed up and let the dough hook do the work. You may have to scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl a couple of times to get the water worked into the flour evenly.

When the dough holds together well, turn it out from the bowl and knead it a few times by hand on a lightly floured surface until you have a smooth, elastic dough. It will be very firm, appear silky, and not be sticky at all. Lightly oil a bowl with a little bit of sesame oil. Put the dough into the bowl and turn it a few times to coat the dough's surface and keep it from drying out. Cover with a damp towel and allow it to rest for at least twenty minutes. If you're going to do this step ahead, it's okay to let the dough rest longer - up to a couple of hours if you need to. Letting the dough rest allows the gluten in the flour to relax after the kneading, and there's no hurry.

While the dough is resting, trim the roots and nasty bits off a bunch of scallions and then chop them very finely into rings as thinly as you can manage. You'll need anywhere from three to five scallions, depending on how big they are. When they're all chopped, set them aside in a bowl.

After the dough has rested, roll it into a rough cylinder and divide that into eight equal segments. On a lightly floured surface, flatten each cylinder slightly with the palm of your hand and then roll it out to about an eighth of an inch thick. Sprinkle the pancake with flour lightly if you need to prevent sticking.

Rub a light coating of sesame oil all over the top surface of the pancake using your fingers. You don't need much; just a light glaze - enough to make the pancake shiny with oil. Then sprinkle it lightly all over with the finely chopped scallions. Don't use too many - just a tablespoon or so will do. If you put too many on, the pancakes won't cook well and the scallions will break through the flour and make a mess.

Carefully roll the pancake into a tight rope like a miniature jelly roll, making a scallion-filled dough stick. Then take that stick and form it into a coil, keeping the seams on the inside. Pinch the trailing end closed and tuck it under the coil to keep the scallions on the inside.

Gently press the top of the coil with the palm of your hand to flatten it a bit. It will look something like the picture on the left.

Dust the coil with a bit of flour on both sides to prevent sticking, and roll it out into a thin pancake. Try to get the thickness between 1/8 and 1/4 of an inch. You'll see the scallion bits through the thin layers of pancake, and some of the scallions on the edge might break through a bit. Don't worry about them, that's OK. You should end up with about a 7- or 8-inch pancake when you're all done. After each pancake is rolled out, rub the top and bottom surfaces with a bit of sesame oil and stack them up between sheets of waxed paper. You can store the stack in a plastic bag in the refrigerator until you're ready to cook them, and they can be made up to three days ahead of when you need them. If you wrap each pancake individually in waxed paper, you can even freeze them for later use.

To cook: Put less than half an inch of cooking oil in a skillet and heat it to about 350 F. Using tongs, carefully place a pancake into the oil and fry it until it is browned. As it fries, you may notice the center of the pancake lifting above the oil on the steam it generates. Use your tongs to slightly lift the edges and let the steam escape so the center browns, too. Turn the pancake over and brown the other side, too. As the pancakes cook, you'll see the trapped air bubbles in the pancakes expand and brown. The pancakes will be flaky, crisp, and all in layers. Drain on absorbent paper and serve hot, with a dipping sauce if you like. I make a simple dipping sauce of 1/4 cup soy sauce, a teaspoon of oyster sauce, 2 tablespoons of rice vinegar, a teaspoon of honey, some of the chopped scallions left over from making the pancakes, and some crushed red pepper.

John Wayne for Angus Beef

Taken at Big Y Supermarket in Enfield CT. "Howdy Pilgram." Hahahahahahaha!

Taking a Leak

Fishy Delights 8: Chicken of the Sea Premium Crab

18-01-08_1113.jpg at Flickr

When choosing crabmeat, canned has never been my first choice. Picking a crab is tedious work, but the quality of fresh-picked crab is so much better than just about any alternative that I really don't mind (though some brands of frozen crabmeat come up a close second.)

But I kept hearing good things about these new "pouched" seafood things, so when one of the local markets had a sale on their Chicken of the Sea brands, I thought maybe it was worth a try.

It would be a lie to say that I was disappointed, because I didn't have very high expectations to begin with, so let's just say that I got exactly what I thought I was going to get, no more and no less.

Even given that the picture on the front label of the pouch was most likely a highly retouched, best case scenario, the crab inside looked nothing like the photo. There were no enticingly pink edges, and far more little shreds than the package art suggested. Instead, the crabmeat was bone-white, in tiny bits that looked like they were picked from the body clusters of small crabs.

Afteer pouring off the processing water, I was left with a smidge over two ounces of the most bland and flavorless crab I have ever tasted. I might as well have been eating surimi, it was that dull. Even adding some mayo and relish to make an impromptu crab salad didn't help - it was like eating mayo and relish on a cracker. Blah.

To add insult to injury, Chicken of the Sea gives a stunningly awful recipe for "easy crab cakes" on the back of the pouch. The recipe calls more more filler than crab. Feh.