Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook

Tried this, kind of to eliminate chicken funk, but it tasted good in the end. Chicken thighs marinaded overnight in white vinegar, sesame oil, salt, soy sauce, white pepper and grated garlic (a little of each). Then fried Ruhlman except with an egg wash and panko and no salt or pepper (on account of the marinade). Really good, unaccountably so. The sesame flavor comes through like it’s some wonderful Asian dish. I looked up vinegar and chicken and vinegar and meat just to make sure this wasn’t some fluke and I guess it’s not. Do again.

Eat What You Clean With

At home we use cleaner made from a mixture of water, vinegar and a little essential oil. It’s a homemade mixture. And if you’re not familiar with water and vinegar, it’s actually very good for cleaning. The essential oil just makes it smell nicer (though when vinegar dries it stops smelling like vinegar, meaning it’s impossible to have your place smelling like vinegar all the time).

Sometimes, usually when I’m cleaning up after breakfast, lunch or dinner, I start thinking about how neat it’d be to use the same thing both to season food and clean tables, and how it’d confound the Health Department, and what the place would feel like when there was this scent floating about.

All of which is to set up what happened tonight when I used vinegar to deglaze the skillet we cooked pork chops in. Jen grabbed the pan and dipped the roasted broccoli in the vinegary fat mixture. It was good — the vinegar made it almost lemony tasting.