[Sca-cooks] This 'n that

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Robin Carroll-Mann:
>With previous feasts, I didn't prepare anything in advance.  This
>time around, I want to avoid the panic and chaos of trying to
>accomplish everything in one day.  Which brings me to a few
>questions.
>
>I need to make simple syrup (2:1) for a beverage.  Some websites
>insist that it will keep fine for a few days or for months at room
>temperature in a clean, well-sealed bottle.  Others say it must be
>refrigerated.  Who do I believe?

Believe the former, with emphasis on clean and well-sealed. This is
not supposed to be brewing, and there's no reason bacteria, yeasts or
molds should get into your bottle of syrup and mess with it. Also, I
would wonder whether sucrose (which is, I believe, a complex sugar)
would do anything in that concentration other than to cause most
bacteria to explode on contact (plasmolysis). I wouldnae worry about
it.

>What is the best way to wrap large quantities of chicken parts for
>the freezer?

It kind of depends on what you're doing with them. If you need to
cook them from a frozen state (which _is_ doable), you should
probably pack them with something like parchment between them, if
appearance matters, so they can be easily separated. Maybe you could
lay them out flat on a sheet pan (or reasonable, freezer-sized,
equivalent), freeze, and then remove and bag them. If for stock, you
could probably just put them in large, heavy zip-lock bags and be
just fine.

Adamantius