Review: Five Special Recipes

[ThePieMan]

Before we jetted for Shanghai, China, I gathered up, with some help from Ken, six recipes to trial while I was away, five of which I will offer up a brief review. As is my way, I have pics, so you know that this is all very real, and not a retake of some lunar landing  

Methodology:
All spices were ground in my kitchen and passed through a fine sieve (approx. 20 Mesh) As I ran out of Ajinimoto, I picked up a substitute in a Chinese Supermarket and used this instead. I also found some "Cake Flour" and used that in the breading. I used Chicken Breast meat for the trials, and cooked everything in a Wok.

I did some photography to document seasoned flour, spices and chicken, and tasted the flour as well as the cooked chook, as some requested feedback on the taste of the flour.

No post image processing or corrections, other than downsizing, has been done. Its all as is out of the iPhone 6+.

Cookin' Some Chook!

Chinese Flavour Enhancer

Cake Flour and five, spice blends.

Cheers.

[ThePieMan]

The  five recipes under appraisal are:

1: KG-21/2017 (ASTA - Paprika & Tarragon)
2. HBEDE05/2016
3: DT20
4: KGDP-220 2016 (Original ASTA compliant recipe)
5: BJW (Latest Trial)



The sixth spice in this image is a control. There is nothing about it that particularly stands out, or dominates. With it, the chicken is flavoursome thus, making it a useful reference point.

Oh, the bottom middle? Dunno what happened there, it was the first one I cooked, no thermometer, only a chopstick in the oil for bubbles. I guess it was perhaps a tad hot. Sorry about that.

[ThePieMan]

1: KG-21/2017 (ASTA - Paprika & Tarragon)



Seasoned Flour


closeup of the spice mix

The chook was over cooked. Sorry about that. However, it was quite tasty. The most noticeable notes were salt and ginger. No other notes were recorded unfortunately. Will have to come back to this and do another trial.

[ThePieMan]

2. HBEDE05/2016


seasoned flour


closeup of the spice mix


Very nice!!

The flour had a noticeable caraway note and taste-wise we noted cayenne, peppery, sage, garlic.
On cooking, we noted salt, pepper, chilli, sage, rosemary, and mildly herby.

[ThePieMan]

3: DT20


seasoned flour



close up of the spice mix

Sage, tarragon, and nutmeg were noticeable in the aroma, and taste-wise pepper, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, reminiscent of German Christmas Cookies. Once cooked, the cloves and nutmeg became more pronounced, and we felt that it was perhaps light on for salt. 

My son said, "...its great for Spekulatius, but not for chicken."  Sorry about that.

[ThePieMan]

4: KGDP-220 2016 (Original ASTA compliant recipe)



seasoned flour


closeup of the spices

We noticed sage and garlic in the aroma, and in the taste garlic, ginger, and pepper. Once cooked, we thought of all the trials so far, this kinda smelt like it, kinda had, 'the note.' Taste-wise, pepper, salt, and sage; very cheeky upfront, aftertaste was ok, but it seems to be lacking, or missing something in the middle. Good Chook, though! 

[ThePieMan]

5: BJW (Latest Trial)



seasoned flour



close up of the spices


Aroma-wise this was kinda herby, with onion, garlic and thyme coming through. Taste-wise peppery, bitey, hints of celery, garlic and mustard to finish. After cooking, we thought it might, kinda taste like it, but it didn't smell like it, it was salty, a touch peppery, and the thyme and ginger were noticed.

[ThePieMan]

Final Comments

All these recipes were tasty, mouth wateringly so. Both I and my son enjoyed them, if there was a competiton, well we identified a couple that stood out as possible faves. What I found interesting about this was that each recipe was characteristically different, and has caused me to pause and ponder over issues like, salt levels, and peppery-ness. Is OR meant to be noticeably bitey? Savoury/meaty? Herbal? Earthy? Seasoningly understated, or noticeably cajun-istic?

Questions, questions, questions.I enjoyed trying these recipes and look forward to trialling both the new ones surfacing as well as the old ones, recovered. through this I glean a little more understanding of how the flavours interact and change the taste of chicken, but in my view, the chicken is the hero, and the seasoning should ever reinforce and support it, not take over or dominate it. Much to think about. 

Many, many thanks for your recipes and efforts. much enjoyed, very much so.

[Ken_Griffiths]

TT,

A comprehensive set of recipe tests, side by side. It shows your incredible commitment to the cause. I agree that such testing brings forward those subtle differences and helps to identify the flavour and aroma produced by many of the individual cooked ingredients such as Nutmeg, Garlic, Rosemary, Allspice etc.

Being open and honest about things being a tad overcooked and burned etc. is a very good thing and shows how you are setting aside any bias, to reach out for the the real truth. We all have those sometimes unexplained 'minor disaster' issues and it's good to mention them and not conceal, or try to cover up the problems that I'm sure we all encounter from time to time, during the frying process.

The only thing I may have done slightly differently myself in such comparison tests, would have been to also have included some shop-bought KFC chicken alongside the trial too, if it's easily available that is? ...I accept the KFC original recipe chicken today, is not as flavoursome, or maybe as salty as it used to taste, but there are still 'hints' of the old flavour that make it worthwhile to include it in the comparison. My thoughts are it may have made a better 'control' sample, for base-comparison purposes.

Anyhow, I found your remarks about the recipes very interesting and people should not underestimate the work and effort that you (and your family) have put into this exercise.

Thanks for the comprehensive feedback on all the recipes involved.

Ken

[ThePieMan]

Hi Ben,

always willing to revisit a recipe in the case I may have made an error. Its always possible, and I'm not about dissing anyone's specific recipe. I want to taste the different recipes and get to know their individual characters. If you feel I am in error, please accept my apologies and I will slate the recipe for a revisit. Cheers.

Thanks again for the kind word Ken. Still trying to nail down my method. Looks like I've got at least two recipes to redo here. Cheers.

[Deleted]

No F-16, huh?

[ThePieMan]

Mar 29, 2017 16:49:30 GMT @smallgree said:

No F-16, huh?

I'm doing F-16 this time round, Fred. As a matter of fact, I've just finished blending it and am looking forward to running it through its paces in the course of the next couple of days.

[ThePieMan]

KMF - Keep Moving Forward...

So, six mixes here. As per BJW, I've kept the turmeric out of the spice mix, and mixed his flour (so that it doesn't look like curry) according to instructions, same same for F-16 and DT 20. Redoing KG-21 because I burnt it last time, and I've added KGDP-220 for contrast. More details L8r.

[Ken_Griffiths]

TPM,

Look forward to seeing your thoughts later on all the recipes .. such a lot of work to do all six in one go.

[ThePieMan]

Mar 30, 2017 12:45:29 GMT Ken_Griffiths said:

... such a lot of work to do all six in one go.

Yeah, especially since with these recipes, meat treatment varies, the breading methodology is also different, and so to are the cooking methods.

What's under review is not just the spice mixes per se, but also the processes of making fried chicken. While this isn't Modernist Cooking, in some of the processes, it certainly feels that way. Whilst sometimes I find the fussiness of modernist cuisine challenging and fun, most of the time however, it simply annoys me. Like I mean, Slow Food's ok, but... well it reminds me of an old joke:

"Waiter! Where's my turtle soup?"
"It's coming Sir, you know how slow turtles are..."

Yeah, to me? Fussy recipes are turtle-soup-slow.