People just say things taste like chicken but chicken doesn’t have just one flavor when you think about it. The different parts of the bird vary based on texture and moisture. Then there’s how it’s cooked and seasoned. It’s really just an old cliche used to get less adventurous
people to try something that they might otherwise reject just because of what it looked
like while it was alive.

I’ve found most things that people say taste like chicken actually taste like whatever sauce they are served with.

We’ve got a Zojirushi x20, which is head-and-shoulders above any other breadmaker I’ve ever used.

You mix a large-ish batch, let rise for 2-3 hours, then toss it in the fridge for up to two weeks. When you want to bake, you tear off a pound of dough, quickly form it to create the gluten cloak, and let it do a second rising for 40 minutes while the oven heats. Toss it in on your baking stone, pull it out, and eat it. Never knead it (it actually makes it worse with this cycle).

So far it’s made great bread with a classic crackly crust, for an initial 10 minutes per batch and 2-3 minutes each bake day (not counting rise and bake times). It’s supposed to actually benefit from being in the fridge for longer; we’ve never had the patience to let any of it survive for more than 4 days. :-)

We saw glowing reviews of the book (and bread) in the Food section of our paper, then found it in a store. I’m sure you can find more info online if you’re interested. I’m not associated in any way with the book, I just love the results.

And on the subject of steak – Tri-tip, medium rare, grilled in garlic salt to help it crust, with no other seasoning. Mmmmmmm….

“A bit of my own snobbery – anyone who eats their steak cooked more the medium rare should just eat hamburger. And if you put “steak sauce” on it, just eat chicken instead.”

I could not agree more. Funny story, one of the first times I spent any time with my now wife, who at the time was dating another guy I knew… we went to dinner with some friends at a stakehouse. The two other guests at dinner ordered their steaks ‘well done’, which made us both cringe… and she and I ordered ours rare. In fact, she said about her’s ‘Just walk it threw a warm room on it’s way here’. We shared a look with each other then… full of knowing… ah, love at first steak.

By the way, your post got my favorite number, I’m jealous.

On the subject of steak – Fat is flavor. Different cuts taste different because of the marbling. Corn-fed beef will typically have a higher rate of marbling, the more marbling the richer the meat tastes. Canada for example has a marbling scale that goes much higher then the fat-conscious US (more the pity for US consumers – we’re already fat, might as well enjoy it). Grass-fed tastes more like bison/beefalo because they are typically more grass-fed themselves and generally have a lower marbling also. Usually it will not be as tender either (more active).

A bit of my own snobbery – anyone who eats their steak cooked more the medium rare should just eat hamburger. And if you put “steak sauce” on it, just eat chicken instead.

On the plus side, if anyone watched mythbusters last night (8/6) you know that you could take a flank steak and put in your dryer with ball bearings and it will be very very tender. (though you will need to buy a new dryer…)

It may not affect taste, but it affects the sensual experience of eating the bread: the way it breaks and pulls apart in your hands, (I wouldn’t cut Challah) the way it takes to the butter or honey.

I also tried a couple of from-scratch attempts at french bread, that were OK, but clearly required much more work at tuning than I was willing to commit to….

However, I’ve now stopped using the machine to make regular bread, though, as the sourdough baguettes the local supermarket recently introduced under the “Iggy’s” brand are better yet than that produced by the machine, even if they are not exactly Parisian — but they have super-chewy crust, which I like.

Speaking of chewy crust… As an aside, when I was a kid, there were some dedicated local bakeries that made Jewish-style rye bread with hyper-ultra-chewy crust. You could really chew them for minutes on end, and it was a bit of a challenge on the first bite into a slice to get to the actual bread. Yet the crust wasn’t brittle or hard at all, just, er, strong, I guess.

I wonder how they did it? Since those bakeries are now long gone, I haven’t tasted that kind of bread in something like 30 years….