HOME COOKING: Golden Corral Buffet & Grill's Best Recipes You Can Do At Home - Seafood Salad, Bourbon Street Chicken & Brass Bakery Yeast Rolls

Golden Corral Buffet & Grill is a family restaurant that features grilled food, such as steaks, and a large buffet.

Their delicious buffet contains an array of food choices including hot meat options, pasta, pizza, fresh vegetables, salad bar and a selection of carved meats (their Carving Station is a would-be chef's delight) at dinner and on Sundays.

During breakfast service, choices range from traditional breakfast items, like omelets made-to-order, scrambled eggs (usually egg product), bacon, and biscuits and gravy; to childhood favorites, like chocolate chip pancakes and French toast with powdered sugar.

Other items include rotisserie chicken, made from scratch mashed potatoes, Bourbon Street chicken, grilled sirloin steak, their popular home-style yeast rolls, fried chicken, their signature "Awesome" pot roast, meatloaf, pizza, seafood salad, and carrot cake.

Restaurant & Institution Magazine's Consumers' Choice in Chains Awards recognizes Golden Corral for Best Buffet Restaurant in Customer Satisfaction.

The restaurant, which serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, is famous for its three-year "Frying Pan Man" advertising campaign in which a person is hit on the head with a frying pan resulting in a craving to go to the restaurant.

Golden Corral Buffet & Grill's most recent restaurant concept, called "Strata," was rolled out during the early 2000's in an effort to bring more of the food preparation into view of the guests.

So - here we go again: You've met someone special - maybe through friends - maybe on one of those Romance relationship sites like eHarmony or WUVING.com - and you want to whip up a truly romantic dinner!

You're looking for some great romantic dinner recipes to sweep that special guy or girl off his or her feet.

>>> Here is the recipe for their excellent GOLDEN CORRAL'S SEAFOOD SALAD -- and Golden Corral's BOURBON STREET CHICKEN served with their Brass Bakery Bread Rolls...

--Golden Corral's Seafood Salad--

1 lb. imitation crab meat, shredded

1 cup diced celery

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup sliced green onions (with the green too)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

3 hard boiled eggs, chopped.

Mix all ingredients. Refrigerate for about an hour to allow flavors to blend. Serve either a salad, on lettuce, or on split croissants.

--Golden Corral's Bourbon Street Chicken--

1 Pound Chicken leg or thigh meat

Cut in bite size chunks

4 oz Soy sauce

1/2 cup Brown sugar

1/2 tsp. Garlic powder

1 tsp. Powdered ginger

2 tbs. Dried minced onion

1/2 cup Jim Beam Bourbon Whiskey

2 tbs. White wine

Mix all the marinade ingredients and pour over chicken pieces in a bowl.

Cover and refrigerate (stirring often) for several hours (best overnight).

Bake chicken at 350 for one hour in a single layer, basting every 10 minutes. Remove chicken. Scrape pan juices with all the brown bits into a frying pan.

Heat, and add 2 Tbs. white wine. Stir and add chicken. Cook for 1 minute and serve.

--Golden Corral's Brass Bakery Yeast Rolls--

 1 envelope Active dry yeast

1/4 cup Very warm water

1/3 cup Sugar

1/4 cup Butter or margarine

1 teaspoon Salt

1 cup Scalding hot milk

1 Egg -- lightly beaten

4 1/2 cups Sifted all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons Melted butter or margarine -- for brushing rolls.

Sprinkle the yeast over very warm water in a large bowl (Very warm water should feel comfortably warm when dropped on wrist.)

Stir until yeast dissolves.

Add sugar, the 1/4 cup butter or margarine and salt to hot milk and stir until the sugar dissolves and butter or margarine is melted. Cool mixture to 105 to 115 degrees.

Add milk mixture to yeast, then beat in egg. Beat in 4 cups of the flour, 1 cup at a time, to form a soft dough. Use some of the remaining 1/2 cup of the flour to dust a pastry cloth.

Knead the dough lightly for 5 minutes, working in the remaining flour (use it for flouring the pastry cloth and your hands). Place dough in a warm buttered bowl; turn greased side up.

Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours. Punch dough down and knead 4 to 5 minutes on a lightly floured pastry cloth.

Dough will be sticky, but use as little flour as possible for flouring your hands and the pastry cloth, otherwise the rolls will not be as feathery light as they should be.

Pinch off small chunks of dough and shape into round rolls about 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 inches in diameter. Place in neat rows, not quite touching, in a well-buttered 13 x 9 x 2 inch pan.

Cover rolls and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, 30 to 40 minutes. Brush tops of rolls with melted butter or margarine, then bake in a 375 degree oven for 18 to 20 minutes or until nicely browned.

Serve warm with plenty of butter. This recipe yields about 2 dozen rolls.

 Bon Appetit!

- Brian Alan Burhoe brianalanburhoe.com.