So I Didn't Catch Anything On Fire

I blogged yesterday about how I was going to attempt some new foods. Well, I did and my first effort was about a 75% success.

My main course was a new marinade for chicken breast. It was a pretty simple buttermilk marinade. For those of you interested, it came out of Master The Grill. Simply take 3/4 cup of buttermilk, add a tablespoon of olive oil, two teaspoons of kosher salt, black pepper to taste, and then your choice of herb. I used rosemary today, specifically because I took some fresh rosemary out of the beginnings of the herb garden just outside our bedroom window. Place chicken breasts in the marinade for an hour and toss 'em on the grill.

A tasty main course indeed. That dish accounted for 50% of my success this evening.

The other 25% comes from Tyler's Florence's Stirring the Pot. The recipe is too complicated to reproduce from memory, so I'll include this link to a Onion Ring Recipe by Florence that's pretty close to what I used. The main difference is that he dredges in a seasoned flour first before dipping the rings into the batter and that he uses club soda instead of beer in my recipe. (By the way, I've discovered the club soda has a tendency to explode out of a freshly opened bottle just for the sheer hell of it. Don't believe me? Well, you will.)

Now, when I mentioned to Dad that I was going to fry onion rings earlier, he asked the age old question of "Do you know what you're doing?" I'd vehemently object to him doubting me on the subject if it wasn't for the fact that the last time I tried frying anything in vegetable oil on the stove I caught the pot on fire. (It was an interesting few seconds. And when I say I caught the pot on fire, I mean I caught the pot on fire. They don't teach you skills like that in culinary school.)

This time I didn't catch anything on fire. The onion rings turned out just fine, but they could've been a lot better. I don't think that I pulled the batter off just right. It lacked a lot of flavor that I think would've been there had it worked like the recipe said it would (and I figure it was something I did or didn't do and not the fault of the recipe). It's like playing baseball and reaching first on a walk instead of a base hit. Either way, you're on base, but the base hit would be a much better way to get there.

So we've survived the first evening of something new without anything burning down. Since I'll be helping Patrick move all day tomorrow, I figure that the next evening I'll try something new will be Wednesday. Perhaps I'll try some ribs...