r/seriouseats

I have been reading about the soapy taste thing for years and I honestly thought it was genetic, like cilantro. I avoided Chinese pepper because I assumed I was one of those people. Last week I was cleaning out my spice drawer and I found two things. A jar of green Sichuan pepper from 50Hertz that I ordered a while back and forgot about. And a bag of bulk bin red peppercorns from Whole Foods that I bought last year. I cracked them both open and smelled them side by side.

The old bulk bin stuff smelled like soap and dust. The 50Hertz one smelled like citrus and pine. I bloomed both oil and tasted them. The old staff was bitter metallic. The new staff made my tongue go numb. I think I might have been blaming my genetics when I was actually just eating rancid peppercorns.

But I am not sure. I also have some sansho pepper that I picked recently and it has a similar bright lemon note but no soap smell at all. So now I am wondering if the soap thing is mostly just old spice. Has any person here done a side by side with fresh and old sichuan pepper? Is there a way to test if your peppercorns are still good before you cook with them? I feel like I wasted years avoiding an ingredient because of a bad bulk bin purchase.

I grilled wings for a world cup party this week and -- without realizing it at the time -- roughly followed Kenji's oven roasted wings recipe with the baking powder, temp, and timing. They came out great and I can't wait to make them again. (I tried making the oven wings once before but the oven created so much smoke that I never wanted to make them indoors again. The grill solves that problem.)

My one question on this recipe: for people who don't like saucy wings, how would you dry rub them? I'm thinking I'd make a salt-free rub (since the wings already have plenty of sodium from the dry brine) and would like to toss it onto the wings *after cooking* so that I can be flexible about how many wings get sauced vs dry rubbed.

Has anybody done this? Any recommendations for a dry rub recipe that will adhere to cooked wings?

So I had planned on making a few pounds of wings while at the beach with my extended family. Unfortunately, once we arrived I realized that I did not plan ahead enough and there's no wire rack for the wings at the house. There is a baking sheet that has slightly raised grid, which I'm using to rest them after defrosting/drying/seasoning, but I'm guessing I would fare better to cook them on a (gas) grill than trying to oven fry them in what's basically a sheet pan. Does that make sense?

Recipe here for anyone not familiar with it. It's a consistent winner for me.

https://www.seriouseats.com/history-of-sinaloan-sushi-12007498

seafood is not just cuisine—it's culture

Too many uses of 3 in a row adjectives. Tons of em dashes. And more than that its the sentence structure.

It just doesn't read right.

I love Chili Verde, but can’t get the peppers and tomatillos unless I’m really lucky. If I get the peppers, the tomatillos suck, etc.

My solution is to grow my own dang peppers and tomatillos. The problem? Preservation. Or else I’ll eat nothing but chili verde in the months of Aug and Sept.

I’m alternating between freezing the roasted, skinned and seeded peppers, or making the sauce sans meat and canning it.

Once my crop comes in I’ll experiment, but I thought I’d see if others had any insight.

As above - I'm an American who's been living in the UK for the past 5 years and has pretty much given up on finding a pie crust I trust as much as the Stella Parks recipe. I'm aware that the Stella Parks recipe doesn't work with the additional 2% of butterfat based on many (many, many) failed attempts - at least without some sort of alteration that has thus far eluded me!

I usually end up using some sort of easy shortcrust recipe (in a pinch/as contextually appropriate) and have tried the Four & Twenty Blackbirds recipe (with apple cider vinegar) but would love to find an equally reliable American-style flaky pastry crust recipe that calls for European butter or a successful alteration of Stella's recipe to incorporate European butter.

Hey all,

I was planning on making Kenji’s cochinita pibil recipe this weekend and had a question about an ingredient. He says to use 1/4 cup Achiote seeds for the marinade. Would using Achiote paste be okay for this, or do you think using whole annatto/Achiote seeds would be better? Thanks!