"What just went 'boom' in the kitchen?"

[unixronin]

"What just went 'Boom' in the kitchen?" cymrullewes asked as she put the Kitchenaid mixer back in the pantry.  I looked behind her and saw nothing but Wen the Eternally Surprised lying on the floor.

"Well," I said, "there's a small person on the floor behind you...."

"No," she said, "a real 'Boom'.  Something just went 'Boom' in the kitchen.  Near the oven."

So I opened the oven...

"Oh no," said cymrullewes.  "I forgot to prick them!"

I know geeks are supposed to like blowing things up, and women are supposed to like cooking, but I'm not so sure combining the two is such a good idea....

(Eggplant.  It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.)

Comments

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Nothing wrong with exploded potato. They come out very dry and fluffy, sort of like popcorn does, which makes sense, same reaction and all.

The trick with it is to immediately grab them out of the oven using a spatula so they don't bake on to your tiles. (You do have terra cotta tiles covering the bottom rack of your oven, right? :-) I wouldn't try it on the rack because it could fall through and cause messy cleanup.

[batchfile.livejournal.com]

i don't have terra cotta tiles. i have a vague idea what they are for. but could you elaborate?

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Heat sink.

It evens out the heat distribution in the oven and it holds a lot of heat too.

The main reason for having them in the oven is to bake pizza on. The other reasons are baked potatoes and that even heat distribution for cookies and cakes and pies.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

What she said.

You can find them at any decent hardware store -- six-inch unglazed terracotta tile, 24 to a box for about $10. A single layer on the lowest rack of the oven, set as low as it will go and left there, will give you a surface that works better and lasts longer than a pizza stone for a third of the price, and you'll have plenty of spare tiles left over; most ovens will hold nine to twelve tiles.

[robbat2.livejournal.com]

how much does it affect oven start-up times when cooking stuff?

Depends

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

How hot are you going for and how much does what you are baking need an initial blast of heat?

For pizza, I let it pre-heat for half an hour while the dough proofs. For things like baked potatoes, I just put them in right after I turn the oven on. Other stuff, the normal 10 minute preheat time, maybe 15 minutes if I misjudged where I am in getting the food ready for the oven.

Re: Depends

[robbat2.livejournal.com]

Ok thanks for that.

I cook most of my pizza's from frozen, but only because I get a really good 'Texan Spicy Chicken' pizza locally.

Re: Depends

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Describe this Texan Spicy Chicken pizza, please.

Anything like this (http://community.livejournal.com/caerllewys/2606.html)?

Re: Depends

[robbat2.livejournal.com]

No, not really.

- It has a sweet BBQ sauce (not a strong flavour one, more towards the sweet of sweet'n'sour sauce) as the pizza sauce. Ingredients list for sauce is: salt, sugar, corn starch, smoke flavour, spices, tomato paste, chilli powder, onion powder, garlic powder.
Toppings:
- pre-grilled chicken 1cm strips (grill lines visible), marinated in some basting sauce - basting sauce ingredients noted as sugar, salt, spices, soy sauce, lemon juice.
- pineapple roasted in olive oil
- red/yellow/green peppers
- topped with mozzarella and chedder.

The McCain brand makes a 'Pizza International Thin Crust Texa Chicken', that's a wimpier version of this, but still very tasty.

[jilara.livejournal.com]

I chuckled when I saw the tiles there. All the best ovens have them. :-)

[robbat2.livejournal.com]

exploded potatoes are best done in clay ovenware, easier to remove them afterwards :-).