Celebrated Pitmaster Rodney Scott Shares His Tried And True Spatchcocked Thanksgiving Turkey Recipe
Image Source: Victor Protasio
James Beard Award Winner Rodney Scott knows his way around whole animal cookery. To help his holiday bird cook evenly, he likes to spatchcock the turkey, cutting straight through the breast bone. Scott prefers a ceramic kamado style cooker here, but with his smoky dry rub and spicy mop sauce, this recipe can be made on a charcoal kettle grill or dedicated wood smoker.
Uncle Ben’s Rice Rebrands As Ben’s Original To Avoid Racist Packaging
Image Source: Mars Inc.
Mars Inc. revamped the packaging for its iconic Uncle Ben’s rice brand by removing the image of a bow-tied Black man and changing the 70-year-old product name to Ben’s Original. “Times have changed,” said Mars Food Global President Fiona Dawson. The new Ben’s Original logo will appear on food packaging early next year.
Velveting Technique Improves Meat Texture In Stir-Fries And More
Cornstarch and soy sauce are the keys to a Chinese cooking method called velveting. It is essentially a marinade, sauce, and pre-cooking technique that also tenderizes meat. For every pound of meat, a typical velveting mixture consists of 1 tablespoon each cornstarch, soy sauce, and sesame oil or vegetable oil. When meat is marinated in this mixture, the sodium in the soy sauce helps break down and tenderize the meat. When cooked, the cornstarch thickens into a glaze and the oil enriches the glaze to make a smooth, velvety coating. Usually meat is marinated in the velveting mixture for about an hour, then briefly cooked in hot oil or hot water to gelatinize the starch. According to chef Lucas Sin of Junzi Kitchen, this pre-cooking step helps to create the signature velvety texture. Then the meat can finish cooking in a stir-fry, soup, or stew. For a thicker velvety coating, you can add an egg white to the cornstarch slurry. For more flavor, you can also add 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine or rice vinegar. Either way, velveting does more than tenderize protein. It also creates a smooth coating that browns meat more evenly, holds moisture, and enhances sauce adhesion.
A Peek Inside The Golden Spurtle World Porridge Championships
Every year in the village of Carrbridge, Scotland, amateur cooks around the world gather to compete for the title of hot cereal champion. In the annual Golden Spurtle World Porridge Making Championship, each bowl is reviewed by judges recruited from the culinary industry. Entries are ranked in both “traditional” and “specialty” categories by color, texture, hygiene, and taste. “Golden spurtle” refers to the winner’s trophy, a golden replica of the Scottish utensil traditionally used to make porridge. In serious porridge circles, a rounded spurtle (similar to a bar muddler) is preferred over a spoon, as the spurtle produces fewer clumps in the finished product. “When I won, I was absolutely stunned,” said last year’s winner, Lisa Williams of Suffolk, England. “My face was bright red and I almost burst into tears.” Like many porridge pros, Williams is very particular about the type of oats she uses, the oat-to-water ratio, and the amount of salt. “One part oats to three parts water,” she insists. “Soak the oats overnight and use more salt than you think you would. I use Maldon sea salt — the same salt the queen uses,” says Williams. She also prefers a mix of half steel-cut oats and half stone-ground milled oats from Hamlyns of Scotland. Due to COVID-10, the 2020 competition has moved online. Competitors will submit short video recipes, and the winners will be announced on October 10th. This year’s championship will also be a little different in that it will focus entirely on the specialty category.
Whole Foods Opens First “Dark” Store For Online Orders And Delivery Only
Whole Foods Market, the Amazon-owned grocery chain, has opened its first online-only location in Brooklyn, New York. While the move comes as grocery delivery has soared in recent months, the store had been planned pre-pandemic, according to Whole Foods Northeast president Nicole Wescoe. “We started working on this over a year ago,” said Wescoe, “and it was really an opportunity for Amazon and Whole Foods Market to come together and create this vision for the future of grocery online.” Unlike traditional Whole Foods stores, this “dark” store will not include a prepared foods department and there will not be a pickup option. The store does include familiar aisles and refrigerated sections but it is not open to the public, function more like a warehouse for staff to fulfill orders. Online orders will be delivered with Amazon drivers as well as some bike delivery, according to Wescoe.
Enterprising Vendors Sell Fair Food Despite Cancelled State Fairs
While state fairs have been casualties of the pandemic, concessionaires are going the distance to keep selling sweet, meaty, and deep-fried fair food across the country. In 36 states and the District of Columbia, state fairs have been cancelled, many for the first time since WWII. Lori Lexvold has gone to the Minnesota State Fair every summer for 53 years, and she’s 58. When it was called off in late May, she decided to do something about it. “I got on Facebook one morning and I created a group,” said Lexvold. “I invited about 100 of my friends. I just said, ‘Hey, if you see any food stands around, post it to this page, so we can all go.’” Now the group, known as Fair Food Finder, has gathered nearly 179,000 members and has a Google map of 139 Minnesota vendors as well as an app made by a fan.
Brenda Smith Parish used to open her Crazy Taters trailer at 8 a.m. every Friday during fair season. When she learned that her local state fairs were cancelled for the summer, she opened anyway, sold corn dogs and lemonade, and promoted the food truck on social media. As more and more people arrived, Parish grew her menu to roughly 20 items and made a website called FairFoodFridays.com for preorders. She has now earned nearly as much money as she normally would at the Iowa State Fair, Tulsa State Fair and Des Moines Downtown Farmers’ Market.
