Last Sunday found me in the kitchen wearing a toga and a tinfoil hat. I was wearing the toga because I don’t own an apron. I was wearing the hat because I wanted to feel stylish. I was wearing both items because I was attempting to cook.
‘Attempt’ is the proper word, as the pan in front of me was covered in a thick, black, charred substance that at one time had been a chicken. Smoke was rising and for once I was thankful that the ninjas had replaced my smoke alarm with a fugu fish.
NOTE: I don’t quite know why they did it. I can only surmise that they assumed I wouldn’t notice it was a fugu fish when I went to change the battery and I would somehow eat one of the poisonous bits. It was a cunning plan, foiled only because I don’t like seafood. Or generally eat bits of smoke detectors.
You see, Saturday for lunch I had a ‘burrito bowl,’ which is what you get when you dump everything that normally goes inside a burrito into a bowl. As I ate, I happened to notice what my burrito bowl consisted of: namely, chicken, cheese, corn, rice, beans, and some salsa.
And then I had an idea.
I could, given the proper tools and ingredients, make this myself. The next few minutes were kind of hazy. I may have shouted ‘Eureka!’ I may also have leaped onto the table and done some sort of dance. Said dance may have involved ‘groinal gyrations.’ As I mentioned earlier, I don’t really remember. I guess I’ll just have to check the police report.
Tomorrow: Part 2
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Oooh, cooking. I usually buy my chicken pre-roasted. That way I haven't had to learn how to properly cook a chicken. I can just put it in the microwave oven and eat everything but the terribly dry breast, which gets chopped up into bits that go with the rice and the rest of the stuff. I don't really call it "cooking", but it's cheap and it tastes good.
I find cooking chicken to be fairly easy. Just perform the following steps:
1. No-stick the cooking surface. Many options for this exist; easy choices include PAM and other no-stick cooking sprays.
2. Turn the burner under the cooking surface, or the cooking surface, as appropriate, on. If it has a numeric setting, 5 may be a good choice. Or 350. Something that'll get the chicken's internal temperature up to about 170 degrees Fahrenheit or so. If you want to cook the chicken more slowly without burning it, a lower number may be a good idea - so long as you don't go too low.
3. Put the chicken on the cooking surface.
4. Wash your hands, they're probably now covered with salmonella. Wash anything other than the cooking surface that touched the raw chicken; it probably is covered with salmonella. Oh, crap, having touched that stuff, your hands are now probably again covered with salmonella, so wash them again.
5. Occasionally push the chicken around so the same bits aren't touching the cooking surface for too long, or they'll burn before the rest of the meat.
6. If the chicken dries out, travel back in time a minute or so, and baste it. Alternatively, you may travel back in time to the start, and raise the temperature, to cook it faster.
7. If just part of the chicken burns, despite your pushing it around every so often and basting as appropriate, travel back in time to the start of the process, and cook it a bit slower.
8. If the chicken suddenly burns fairly evenly, travel back in time about 30 seconds, and take it off the heat. It's done.
Please note: Basting is only appropriate with some cooking modalities. For example, basting may not work very well on a George Foreman grill. Of course, if you're more skilled than I, you may still be able to get it to work for you.
This method of chicken preparation generally works for me. Most of the other methods I've tried (especially those not involving time travel) generally end up with burnt chicken.
'Pre-roasted chicken?' Why has no one told me of this? Someone will pay! Probably me! :)
Thanks for the tips, Ed. I have not yet mastered going back in time, but I think I can do the rest :)
Oh. Well, if you can't easily travel back in time a minute or so, I'd recommend going with the pre-roasted chicken.
Post a Comment