Cooking 02 Oct 2021 21:53:22

Spicy Crispy Chicken

I made an incidental chili bread roll.

What I actually cooked tonight was spicy crispy chicken. We are all rather fond of the KFC-style spicy crispy chicken, but we also don’t actually go to KFC or similar fast food places more than about once every half year. So I figured I’d try making it myself, because surely it couldn’t be that hard. The recipe that I found for it called for brining and an egg mixture and a way of preparing that would take way too long, so I took shortcuts.

The chicken strips that we buy in Denmark comes pre-brined, so that cut away the 3 hour brining step. The recipe also calls for putting the seasoning blend on the chicken, then doing the whole egg and flour thing. I skipped straight to the egg.

Ingredients that I used:

  • 375 g pre-brined chicken strips
  • 1 egg
  • 160 g flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 heaping teaspoon garlic powder
  • random amounts of black pepper powder, paprika powder, cayenne pepper powder, and chili powder

And fats for frying:

  • salted butter
  • salted easy spread “butter”
  • olive oil

Steps that I took, in order:

  1. Crack the egg in a hermetically sealable container capable of holding all 2-3 times the combined ingredients. It should be the right size where shaking it would aerate and cover all the chicken.
  2. Drain the brine from the chicken.
  3. Put the chicken in the container.
  4. Seal and shake the container until there’s egg on all the chicken.
  5. In a separate open container, mix the flour, baking powder, and garlic powder.
  6. Mix in spices until the flour mix tastes good and strong enough to your liking. I found that the initial amount of garlic tasted through even when I added more of the various peppers, so I did not add more of that.
  7. Dump it all in the sealable container.
  8. Seal the container and shake until there’s mix on all the chicken.
  9. Heat frying pan to 7 of 9 and put a spoon of salted butter on it.
  10. When all the butter is melted, put all the chicken on the pan.
  11. Realize that the butter got absorbed almost instantly by the flour mix and that you’re out of butter, so add a spoon of easy spread “butter”.
  12. Realize that also got absorbed almost instantly, so give in and use oil like the recipe tells you to.
  13. Reapply oil when it dries out.
  14. Cook until done.
  15. Eat.

I had no idea what to expect from this. First time I’ve attempted something like this, so I figured it was a neat experiment, and if it didn’t taste good then it’s a learning opportunity. But oh wow, it was almost perfect. Tasted exactly like fast food spicy crispy chicken, just slightly less spicy. Was just as juicy. We ate it all, so didn’t get a picture of it.

I also realized that the leftover egg and flour mix in the container was basically bread dough, if I just added water. So I stirred (with a fork) in 250ml water, put it in a ceramic bowl, and put it in the cold oven, then turned it to 200 ℃ for 25 minutes. What came out is pictured above: A chili bread roll. Not great, but totally edible, and I look forward to having a slice with melted cheddar.

Mistakes made and corrections for future cooking:

  • Salt: The recipe calls for adding a teaspoon salt to the flour mix. I intended to do that, but I plain forgot. I figure the fact that I fried it in salted butter made up for that fact, because it all tasted great.
  • Water: I think that adding 100ml of water to the flour mix during the final shake could cause more of it to bind to the chicken. Today’s version was somewhat flat compared to fast food variants, but more batter should naturally rise more. Will try that next time.
  • Butter: Just don’t use butter. My mistake here was that I usually fry in a little bit of butter for the flavour, but actually the meat fries in its own fats. But the flour mix absorbs all the fats here, so there is nothing to fry in. I can’t recall when I last fried in oil, but this would’ve been unhealthy to keep slathering butter or “butter” on. Use oil.

So next time I make this, it will be perfect.

C++ &Rants 15 Jun 2021 22:25:00

Freenode

I registered on Freenode on 2009-03-21 at 17:25:41 UTC, to participate in the Apertium channel #apertium. I also joined the C++ channel ##C++.

On 2011-06-29 at 11:06:39 UTC, I created ##C++-general with the blessing of the ##C++ operators. This quickly grew to be the 2nd largest C++ channel on Freenode, and indeed on any network at the time.

On 2015-04-15 at 13:32:10 UTC, I was granted operator status for the main ##C++ – the largest C++ channel on any IRC network at the time.

On 2021-05-19 at 07:54 UTC, this happened: ChanServ (ChanServ@services.) Quit (Killed (grumble (My fellow staff so-called 'friends' are about to hand over account data to a non-staff member. If you care about your data, drop your NickServ account NOW before that happens.)))

Immediately thereafter, I contacted my fellow Apertium PMC members so that we could prepare in case Freenode was actually taken over by non-free interests.

A few hours later, Freenode was taken over and most of the staff resigned. I got on Libera.chat as soon as it opened up and registered #Apertium, #C++, #C++-general, and #geordi.

On 2021-05-24, I applied for a Community Registration for the C++ channels on Libera.chat. However, the C++ channels’ policy was to maintain both networks and not get involved with the politics of the situation.

On 2021-05-27, Apertium officially moved from Freenode to OFTC.

On 2021-06-14 at 21:37:09 UTC, Freenode intentionally split the network in two, leaving an old Freenode with existing channels and nicks, and a new Freenode with no registered channels or nicks.

On 2021-06-15 at 07:42:07 UTC, I joined the new Freenode and kicked everyone from ##C++-general with a message to go to Libera.chat.

At 08:05:53 UTC, I kicked root and f from ##C++-general.

I was k-lined from the new Freenode on 2021-06-15 at 08:06 UTC.

At 09:13 UTC, I joined the old Freenode and kicked everyone from ##C++ and ##C++-general with a message to go to Libera.chat instead.

At 19:17 UTC, the remaining oper on old Freenode removed me from ##C++-general.

At 19:38 UTC, the old Freenode was shut down.

Danish &Rants 15 Jun 2018 14:02:41

Borgerforslag

Jeg støtter disse Borgerforslag:

Reviews 22 Mar 2018 23:36:56

Stellaris, Redux

Since so many love Stellaris and Paradox’s grand strategy games, I put another 25 hours into a game I otherwise concluded wasn’t very good. You’ll be happy to know that after those many more hours, I can now conclude that Stellaris is actually just bad.


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Reviews 27 Feb 2018 12:12:25

Endless Space 2

Endless Space 2 is from what I can see an upgrade over Endless Space in every way they intended. Unfortunately not in the ways I wanted, though. Like ES1, ES2 uses the simultaneous turn system and lacks turn-based tactical combat.

Simultaneous turns is what really kills this game for me. I loathe that the AI gets to perform actions on my turn, and even worse gets to react to my actions. E.g. if you are blockading a system, a single misclick that you immediately rectify will still let all your enemies through as they react to your mistake. Or that AI actions will pop up during your turn, sometimes after you’ve moved other ships so now you can’t react to it. This forces you to wait each turn until the AI is probably done with their actions, then perform your own. With a real turn-based system, these and many other quirks wouldn’t happen.

The AI only respects fleet size. Even if you are objectively the most powerful empire, if you don’t have a sizable standing fleet the AI will attack you. Doesn’t matter that you can then just buy a huge fleet and utterly crush them the turn after – they don’t think that far ahead.

Speaking of attacking, the AI will bundle up on your planet, declare war, invade, and thanks to simul-turns you don’t get to react or prepare. This shouldn’t be possible.

And combat…is boring. You get to set overall plan, then just watch it auto-resolve. There’s no tactical combat.

A damn shame. Endless Space 2 is so close to being great, if only a few tweaks were made. Sadly, those issues ruin the game.

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