Sylvia writes from Switzerland buried by an avalanche of cornstarch: “Here’s a foodie who has seen the recipe for Korean fried chicken. When reading the ingredients I see that a kilo of cornstarch is needed. That’s right? Thank you for confirming the amount. I ran to check the pantry to figure out how many packets of cornstarch we should use to make the Korean fried chicken and, doing calculations with my sunglasses secretary of 1,2,3, I get 2 and a half packages. I think they would be enough to throw a Halloween party and dress up as dusty mummies, but perhaps to cook a lonely chicken it is excessive.
It is clearly a foodie bum and this website does not intend to upload GDP based on emptying supermarket shelves of fine corn flour. Clara P. Villalón, mother of this fried chicken, tells us this while shaking out her jacket: “It has to be abundant to coat well and handle well in the deep plate. We are not going to put all the cornstarch between our chest and back, but let’s not be stingy when it comes to putting it in the bowl/deep plate”. As the author has not given us an exact amount for the recipe to be profitable and sustainable, this defender takes it out of her sleeve and recommends using 100 g of cornstarch when making the mixture for flouring. I witheringly order my minions to change the amount in the recipe and run to change my apron for one without a trace of flour.
A transformist parsley
Verónica writes a few letters to this defender with a magnifying glass embedded in her right eye: “I just read the recipe for roasted courgettes with vinaigrette and the green leaves in the photo look more like arugula than parsley. Can you confirm please?” See that you like to turn things around and look where there are none. In the preparation instructions of the recipe it is indicated that the parsley should be added “not very chopped”, hence large pieces are seen. Parsley leaves are not always small, some bunches have large leaves and, being coarsely chopped, these and their stems can be confused – with a lot of mistrust, enthusiasm and imagination – with arugula.
Doesn’t look like parsley either. GIPHY
But let me talk about the parsleygate Mònica Escudero, author of the recipe and cutter of various herbs: “Dear Verónica, I am afraid that your sense of herbal physiognomist –herbonomist?– has failed you because, as it says in the text, it is about parsley. It is not minced thoroughly and it may not be the format you usually see it in recipes, but it is. If you want to use arugula go for it, but I’m afraid in five minutes you’ll have faint bits of military green dying vegetable.”
some poisonous branches
Jana writes to us with this red alert: “In the recipe for Vegan rice from La Zorra you put as an ingredient “tomato with its branches”. Tomato branches are not edible, they are poisonous, they contain an alkaloid called solanine and other toxic components. Correct it as soon as possible”.
As this defender of alkaloids knows what is right, I have consulted Beatrice Oaks, food technologist and food safety auditor, who provides more information on the subject: “The tomato belongs to the Solanaceae family. These plants contain different alkaloids, some of them very toxic. For example, belladonna or jimsonweed contain atropine or scopolamine (scopolamine is the active ingredient in burundanga)”.
“In the tomato we can find alpha-tomatine, an alkaloid that is toxic to fungi and is used as a natural fungicide. This compound appears in greater quantity in the leaves, stems and immature tomatoes. The EFSA has studied the risk of this alkaloid and has not found enough data to allow us to know if it is toxic to humans. Another alkaloid that appears in the tomato is callistegin (although it is found in greater quantities in aubergines and potatoes). Again, the EFSA has recently published a scientific review in which it states that there are no experimental studies on the toxicity of calisthegin and that predictive models do not suggest that it may be a worrying compound, although it indicates that more data is needed to characterize its toxicity”.
In short, in the absence of conclusive data, it seems reasonable not to encourage the consumption of the stems, which is where the alkaloids are most concentrated. At El Comidista we take food safety very seriously. Therefore, Beatriz’s final words are commands for us, and we remove the indication to use the branches of the recipe.
Some very salty crumbs
Jose Luis sends a complaint with his blood pressure through the roof: “The article on how to make crumbs has a typo on the amount of salt. People have said it in the comments, but since they were doing it in a funny way, you don’t seem to realize that they were complaining about a bug. Following the recipe they are salty like dogs, and after a few bites you can’t eat any more”.
Sacrificed as I am, and with the complete certainty that our reader was absolutely right, I made the brine, soaked the bread and tasted a tiny crumb. I immediately became a pillar of salt. Overcoming the awkwardness of the situation, I wrote as best I could to Mikel López Iturriaga, who answered me this: “The 100 g of salt is nonsense that I don’t know how we could sneak into the written recipe. Maybe we drank too much or ate too much potato on that trip to Extremadura, who knows, but what is clear is that our brains were clouded. I apologize to those affected, hoping that their blood pressure has not risen to 200 after suffering our crumbs. And we corrected the figure leaving it in five grams”.
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