Food Thread: Ranch Dressing...The Universal Ingredient!

I am a big fan of grilled chicken. And not boneless, skinless, chicken breasts either! I prefer full-fat bone-in, skin-on thighs, because I am not an effete hipster who is afraid of good food, and who politicizes his meals!

My usual plan is simple, and dependent on what herbs I have in the refrigerator. But the first thing I do is trim the excess skin from the thighs and make gribenes, which is Yiddish for chicken-skin cracklin's! As snacks go, they are hard to beat. Then I salt the thighs and put them in the refrigerator for several hours. I think of it as a dry brine, and it works quite well.

Then it is time to make a marinade, and if I have Cilantro, then I am a happy camper, because it DOES NOT TASTE LIKE SOAP! Parsley works, and so do fresh chiles, and pretty much anything else.

But that bottle of Ranch dressing was whispering to me, and not because I bought it. I think one of the brats picked it up for some weird concoction, and didn't take it with them when they finally left. And what was it whispering? Damned if I know, but I tuned it up with some garlic and chili flakes and honey and a bit of mustard and maybe some other stuff I don't remember, and it was great!

Because marinades are not complicated things. They add flavor. That's it! So anything that tastes good and can be a liquid is going to work.

No...I am not so proud that I won't use bottled dressing that has 46 ingredients. Maybe I won't make it a habit, but why not give it a shot?

That's a butter keeper, to allow one to keep butter at room temperature so that it is soft and spreadable. And that is a laudable goal, and one that I appreciate. It works...sort of. But butter will not keep indefinitely on the counter, and I noticed some mold growing in it that disturbed me. In the future I will put the butter in the refrigerator and take it out before I need it malleable. Of course that defeats the purpose, but I have never been a fan of moldy butter, unlike cheese, which is delicious!

I like veal! A good grilled veal chop is delicious. And stupidly expensive. So using it for a dish like Veal Marsala seems silly, because the meat is delicate and easily overwhelmed but the strong flavors of the dish. A much better choice is pork or chicken, at a tenth the price!

Which is what I am going to use tomorrow night!

[Hat Tip: Misanthropic Humanitarian]

For $10, this wine is hard to beat. It's a generic Sauvignon Blanc without any regional or vineyard designation, but that is at least as much the laws in France as it is a reflection of quality. This is the sort of wine that has good grapes in the bottle, but because they weren't grown on a fancy-named hillside, it is much cheaper than the named equivalent.

And that is perfectly okay with me. I would rather drink good wine from a no-name vineyard than drink overpriced swill from named vineyards that are coasting on their reputations.

It's called "Stargazy Pie," and it is made with Pilchards, thankfully only in Cornwall.

It's Canada, so not surprising. But still...that sounds disgusting!

About the Bourbon Bubble...I think it has burst, but the category is also suffering from the inflation that affected everything else (Thanks Biden!). I think the sweet spot is still $40-$60 for excellent and interesting bottles, and bumping that to $100 gets you an incremental improvement in quality, but nothing mind-blowing. More than that and I think you are paying for hype and rarity, which may look good in your liquor cabinet, but doesn't translate to more quality in the bottle.

The problem...or the solution...is to buy lots of bourbon, take tasting notes, and eventually arrive at your favorites! It should take forty or fifty years, but it is worth it!

posted by CBD at 04:00 PM

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