Sunday 23 February 2014

Grind

The last of the dinner birds were culled on Monday.  Four for us, three for Other Chap.

We;ve never had so many chickens culled in one go before, so we decided to keep one whole, and to  make chicken "quarters" out of the rest.  This is something of a luxury.  In all the years we've been raising chickens for the table (and not buying chicken), we've never done this. usualy we have a whole chicken, roast it, and then make various meals out of the cooked meat for the subsequent 3 or 4 days.

So, our culinary world is full of opportunities.  And what did I choose for our first meal? 

Southern fried chicken.

Yes. Home made "KFC".   I haven't eaten KFC since I started keeping chickens.  I used to love the taste, but once I started keeping chickens.... well, let's not go there.

I have two thighs and two drumsticks ready.  I have my book, "The Takeaway Secret", to give me the ingredients.   Fortunately I read the recipe yesterday in case I needed anything.  Just as well, because we don't have  "Dried Onion Powder" and "Dried Garlic Powder".  I searched the ssupermarket websites.   I could buy dried onions in most of them,  and a form of dried garlic in others.    I guessed that an asian supermaket would probably have them.  If not, I could buy the fried stuff and grind it myself.

And then I realised that I could make my own. 

Ha!

I sliced a couple of red onions (I only had red), really, really, really thinly, I separated the semicircles, and spread them out over four layers of the dehydrator (I told you thin. There were a lot of them).  Then I peeled and sliced some garlic.  And some more.  I spread those on additional sheets.   I then peeled some garlic and chopped it, and spread that on a sheet (might as well try it while I'm at it).

My book gave different temperatures for onion and garlic.   Under the circumstances, I went for the higher onion temperature,  and set it off.

The smell was divine.

I then forgot about it completely, DH remembered as we were watching a film we'd recorded.  I've no idea what it was in Rambo II that made him think of my onions and garlic.

They were crispy. I sampled some of each - they were delicious! - and then I turned the dehystrator off and left everything inside.  

This morning, to my surprise, the bits were still crispy.  I gathered up the onion, and blitzed it. Then I gathered up the garlic, and blitzed that.    The red onion powder is a kind of lilac colour,

I only just managed to get the required 2 teaspoons of garlic powder.    All those cloves, so little powder.

From a taste point of view - yes, defintiely!  The dried pieces of both were delicious. I can see them being great in a salad, or added as texture to other things. mmmm mmm mmm.

From a cost point of view - hmmm. 
 
Garlic: We'd grown the garlic, so probably it was marginally cheaper for us to make our own.      Definitely worth doing again,   although next time I would do many more cloves at the same time.

Onion: dried onion powder is cheap. Dried onions, which I could blitz myself, are cheap.   However, if the dehydrator is on anyway, it's probably worth doing.   Yes, I think I would do it again.  

I haven't made my chicken seasoning yet, doing it later.   Hope it works out OK!



Followers