Smallgree's musings

Good wings. Better crust with 00 flour. Used new oil and it proves the oil should retain some of the seasoning flavor. I'm still going to try all of these ingredients that others propose, plus a few of my own. I've still got toasted sesame seeds in mind, as they have a powerful taste and aroma. I'm not putting cumin away at this time. As for the vials, the dark ones, the light ones, and H and J are the vials to juggle. Doesn't take much to sample the combinations of herbs.

With all of the dissension and animosity I've seen on these forums lately, I'd like to demonstrate, openly, how I experiment with ingredients. Just now, looking at the vials, I took a pinch of coriander seeds, clove, allspice, fenugreek seeds, cumin seeds, brown mustard seeds, cardamom seeds, and a double pinch of ground ginger. I put a little msg/salt mixture into this and ground with pestle and mortar.

Then I took some dehydrated onion, granular garlic, celery seeds, Italian seasoning, tarragon and bay leaf, with the msg/salt mixture, and did the same.

Then I took a better amount of black pepper, white pepper and the msg/salt mix and did the same. To use larger black pepper particles, a put some more crushed pepper into the mix afterwards.

Each of these mixes are now sitting, and I will mix them all together later tonight. This all took, conception to creation, about 30 minutes. CHS supposedly developed his OR in a day or two. This is not rocket science. The clues are far and few between. I wish I had more clues rather than speculation. I still recall the original taste, and time is running out.

Heck, this last recipe attempt is so good I had to write it down the best way I could, while I still remembered it. Wouldn't it be ironic if this was the one, after a knee jerk reaction, after years of experimenting?

I'm convinced that early on, CHS got the umami taste from tomato powder, whether separate, or in dried soup. Somewhere along the way, the shift to msg, which is a stronger source of umami, allowed KFC to reduce the size of the seasoning bags and could explain why they went from reddish, to greenish and later grayish (extracts). I've yet to see any positive proof, one way or another, how the use of msg developed. Both shouldn't be used together.