Week 20: Diner/Drive-In Food - [Cooking]

Intro from Cooking Challenge: Now, in case you’re European or something and don’t know what a diner is, let me give you the 411. Found all over the US, but most popular in the Northeast and Midwestern parts of the country, diners are casual eateries serving up traditional American cuisine. Many are open 24 hours a day, and serve breakfast around the clock. Burgers are another staple of diner food, but the menu tends to vary in different regions. In Maine, you can get slammin’ lobster rolls, but you won’t get a pork roll, egg and cheese sandwich like you would in Jersey. Of course, here at triple D we don’t just go to the 24-hour greasy spoons. We hit up any diner, bar or food stand willing to kick it up a notch and serve up their modern takes on the classics. Check out this this and this for some recipe ideas. So whether you want to make something like mac and cheese, or recreate the tacos from that stand you visited in Arizona once, this week’s theme is wide open. If you think you’re man enough, you can really take it to the next level and try to cook Guy Fieri style. How about some Flamin’ hot Cheetos-crusted tilapia, broiled and slathered with Mountain Dew aioli? Or Slammin Sammy Haggar burger, made with all natural Pat LaFrieda angus beef, LTOP (lettuce, tomato, onion + pickle), SMC (super melty cheese) and special kickin Donkey sauce on a garlic brioche bun, deep-fried, loaded into a baseball pitching machine and hurled at your face at 55 miles per hour. Now that’s money.

Between the donuts last week and tenders and rings this week, I'm getting pretty good at frying! I went off these recipes for Fried Chicken Tenders and Buttermilk Onion Rings. Overall, surprisingly easy and delicious! The onion rings were probably my favorite, and I'm not a huge onion fan (see my post for Week 4: Ingredient You Hated as a Kid). The tenders rivaled many diner versions I've had over the years.

The onions took a few practice tries to get the coating down right. The big tip to any coating/breading/dipping is to keep a "dry" hand and "wet" hand. Line up your dipping bowls in the order your food needs to get coated. Coat the food in your flour (typically) first with your dry hand and move it to the wet middle bowl (egg wash or buttermilk in my case). Pick it up, flip, and move it with your wet hand to the final bowl (more flour or breadcrumbs for me). Real Simple has a great visual step-by-step.