Cook: Tea-brined Fried Chicken & Meal Delivery v. Meal Kit Services

My husband’s birthday is on Halloween, and normally we don’t get any trick or treaters in our gated complex. However, this year the few families with young children in our condo community got together en masse to hold a costume contest and go door to door for candy. Patrick bought full size chocolate bars, and I dressed Sadie in her usual fall outfit of a Halloween sweater.                            

Golly is she cute, and I so love her. I lounge in bed Saturday mornings just so she can sleep in (her favorite—hubs will take her out for her morning constitutional after which she’ll scamper as quickly as she can before I get up to snuggle in bed some more).

The birthday dinner I’d planned of fried chicken was swapped for the convenience of bockwurst in brioche buns and baked beans while we waited for the little goblins to arrive. Earlier that day, I'd put chicken breasts in brine.  

The next day an hour before cooking, I removed the water brine and replaced it with buttermilk with poultry seasoning and hot sauce. I should've maybe stuck to using the rice flour in Mochiko Fried Chicken. Or stuck to a traditional Southern or pickle-brined buttermilk fried chicken.                           

And then I combined rice flour, potato starch, and Italian bread crumbs. I think the breading was where I messed up. I probably should haves dredged the breasts in beaten eggs too, but I thought the buttermilk was enough for the flours and crumbs to cling to. It's okay. Like anything, I'm going to make mistakes and just need more experience to use all my other senses like smell, sound and feel besides sight and taste to make the perfect fried chicken.    

And I had the vegetable oil a bit too hot. Then lowered the heat too much. The chicken took forever to come to a 165 degrees. I worried that they were too dry.                                    

The breasts were just okay, not too dry, but also not great. I thought the fried chicken a bit too salty. And some of the crumb topping fell off while frying.    

But I loved the mashed potatoes and roasted vegetables of sweet potato, carrot and Brussels sprouts. And I enjoyed my dessert of fresh figs with more Chardonnay.                          

Darn now I have leftover fried chicken that I’m not thrilled about. And so I took out bacon from the freezer to make Cobb salads with it for lunch or dinner. Patrick is okay with leftovers, but from now on I buy chicken thighs instead of breasts. And I'll cook a piccata with the breasts that are left in my freezer.

This week, I also decided to order a meal service from a company called Thistle, which prepares mostly plant-based meals. I've previously cooked omnivorous meals from kits by Blue Apron and Hello Fresh, which were convenient and great for giving me ideas for changing up my meal rotation. However, too many of the ingredients delivered were vegetables we already grew in our garden, and the meals all seemed to comprise mostly boring proteins of chicken breasts and ground beef. Raves to Blue Apron for Asian lettuce wraps and salmon burgers. Kudos to Hello Fresh for Sriracha mayo to drizzle on meatballs. Both meal kit companies have given me solid ideas for meals, but I hate all the packaging and materials that go into shipping the ingredients. I may YET however, try other meal kits later from Sun Basket and Purple Carrot. But this time, I went for a plan with lunches that I don't have to pack with an animal protein and the occasional vegan dinner.                      

I'm excited for chorizo in salad, an ingredient I usually incorporate into chili or chile rellenos.

I'm a sucker for rice and beans, but I never thought to include chipotle into their flavor profile.

And I've never eaten a gado gado ever, nor khow suey and am excited for these untraveled in my world-inspired dishes.

And I also ordered salads in a jar just to taste. Patrick wanted no part of any vegan meals (he is a good sport though when I do serve vegetarian twice a week), but I'm integrating ideas of no face in a meal anyway into our dinners.