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Comment by xiaomai | Hacker News Reader

I found it interesting that the chef claimed that frozen food could taste better than restaurant food. I recently bought a few frozen dinners to see what they taste like. The more expensive ones definitely taste better than the $0.88 Banquet dinners. Claim Jumper was the best, IMHO. One area where the dinners consistently fail though, is texture. Things that should be crispy (like a deep-fried steak), are soft and mushy. Can you accomplish the wide-variety of textures in frozen-dinner format without additional preparation?

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There are different things you can do to affect texture with the wrapping. For instance, some microwave paninis come with a special plastic-foil thing that helps crisp them (they're still inedible because of the sodium content but they are crisp). I imagine it'd be hard to make crispy and a steamed soft mushy food at the same time, which holds them back from using it in full meals.

Also some of the complicated steamed or crispy microwave meals produce so much garbage it's embarrassing to cook them.

The lack of textural variety is the main thing that puts me off frozen foods as well. Choosing a frozen meal over a restaurant meal is like choosing to eat at an old folks home instead of accepting a friend's home-cooked dinner invite.

Also, people deep fry steak? Mind blown. I didn't know people did that.

also called "chicken fried steak" - usually it's 'cube steak" which looks a lot more like ground meat than like actual steak, then it's breaded, deep fried and smothered in gravy. It's a very traditional dish in the south, though it doesn't taste very much at all like what most Americans would call a 'steak'

Fascinating, first the concept of deep fried steak and then chicken steak? ... American food never ceases to surprise me (a pescetarian from New Zealand). So different :)

no, chicken fried steak is beef cube steak breaded and fried. it's "chicken fried" meaning fried in the same manner as chicken. That said, like fried chicken it doesn't have to be made in a deep fryer it can be made with a good solid layer of very hot oil in a pan.

Oh, thanks! Steak, fried 'chicken style'. Hah.

Oops, yeah, meant to say "chicken-fried steak" (also "country-fried steak")

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