All Activity

I am unsurprised. Nearly everyone who buys a CF does so believing it's absolutely correct, constant and precise. Good luck convincing them otherwise. The spring-loaded button thermocouple is good, but it's not that good, and the thermal contact isn't that great. Just for fun, you might try a dab of thermal grease on the button to improve contact, and compare. Also, the button is in the center, not above the coil. The field falls off rapidly with distance, too, so you have both less heat being applied dead center AND you have heat piling up there in an empty pan (Visualize the heat moving both inward and outward from the coil--this happens with gas and electric, too). Add in all the variables of pan construction, and it's... imprecise.

Yes, but Haidolao is famous for having sauces from all over China. One of their selling points. All I know is I've never been served that type of sesame sauce in Sichuan/Chongqing. And it certainly it isn't served with malatang anywhere I've seen. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. It just seems strange to me in the context of that recipe and the claim about it being the "soul of hotpot". None the recipes I've seen over the last couple of days of looking even mentions it. Most mention the sesame oil dip.

In Beijing, we went to a very popular hot pot place, HaiDiLao, with about 900 restaurants world wide, definitely has a sesame based sauce and there is a bunch of ingredients you can mix into it at their self-serve area. In addition to what we made ourselves, our server made us a few of her favorite "recipes".

Manado, Indonesia style chicken rica rica. This is traditionally super spicy but I used mostly big red chillies to make it edible.

This is an attempt at recreating a dish I ate in a Thai restaurant in China owned by an Indonesian, so I'm calling it just S.E. Asian. I've done it before a few times and think I'm getting close to what I remember. Mango beef. The cubed beef was marinated in Thai fish sauce, lime juice, garlic, ginger, and chilli. The mango was cubed and set aside with more lime juice to stop oxidisation. Stir fried the beef, then added the fruit and scallions and heated through. Simple steamed asparagus and rice to keep it company.

Another year, another return to the Cape. We are not on the Outer Cape right now, that is coming later this summer, but I figured I would put this visit here rather than starting a new thread. Instead, we are in Falmouth for the week. We've never stayed on this part of the Cape before. My initial impression is that the town is charming, but much more densely populated than the Outer Cape. I imagine that in the summer it would be uncomfortably crowded. We arrived Friday night. The house we are staying in is right on the water, and not elevated up on a dune like the places we stay at in Wellfleet. I would not want to be here during a big storm. Here's the front yard. We can see Martha's Vineyard right off shore (not in this picture though), and can watch the ferries going back and forth from Woods Hole to the island. My sister and nephew joined us for the weekend. The rest of the week will be just my husband and me. I'm planning on doing some cooking to amuse myself during the day. This weekend, though, we are dining out. Unfortunately, this area is not known for its dining options. We are also working around my nephew's food allergy. Last night we went to an Italian place called Villagio at the Regatta. No menu pictures, unfortunately. We ordered a couple of appetizers to share. Clams casino Bruschetta Calamari (no fried shrimp or lobster on their menu, so my nephew could have some. He was excited) For entrees, my nephew ordered the bolognese (no picture). The rest of us had cod. I ordered cod picatta Sister ordered cod toscana and husband had cod limone. The entrees were all massive. If we had known we would have shared something. None of us enjoy leftover cod, so unfortunately a lot of it went to waste. I didn't even taste my pasta. We were too full to even look at the dessert menu. Yesterday morning, my husband and I went into town to check out the French bakery, Maison Villatte. This bakery is run by the original baker at PB Boulangerie in Wellfleet, and our understanding was that the two places are fairly similar. It did indeed look quite familiar. I took lots of pictures. Croissants Muffins Tarts Quiches Fougasse sandwiches pastries And our selections, back at the house. It would be very dangerous to have a bakery like this at home!

I very much doubt that they will. They have already paid their staff to write this clickbait. By the way, in Asia, their biggest market, McDonalds sell more chickenburgers than they do beef burgers.

Reads like a BS article designed to provoke responses. As far as liking chicken...its a vehicle for sauces or fried coatings. Naked chicken is unremarkable.

Had the granddaughters up for the day. They had a grazing tray for the afternoon, then we had medium rare beef tenderloin per their request. They had only Cavendish fries done in the air fryer and a tomato. Adults had the beef, leftover grits and shrimp, and a 3-peppercorn gravy with the beef. This was a $38.00 Sterling Silver tenderloin that I got at Safeway, with a $10.00 off coupon!

Mine didn't last long. Going back for more.

I've been through my Chinese language cookbooks for Chongqing/Sichuan cookbooks looking for sesame sauce. Some suggest dipping sauces incorporating sesame oil, which is certainly not unusual. However that recipe seems to be suggesting some kind of commercially produced sauce - it says all sesame sauces are not the same, which is true, but all Chinese sesame oils are essentially the same. The recipe seems to be advocating a factory made sauce like this. I've never seen those being used in hotpots in Chongqing or Sichuan. They are more like what is used with Japanese しゃぶしゃぶ (shabu-shabu) as ごまたれ (goma dare), made with sesame paste. Anyway I'd argue the 'soul' of those hotpots is definitely their mala flavour and sensation.

Steak au poivre with a touch of dijon and smashed baby Yukon golds. Apparently left the squash at the store or it would have been served with Ina Garten's squash au gratin. Steamed broccoli was no consolation

CNN will pay you to write about your personal food aversions... https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/04/world/why-people-enjoy-eating-chicken-ijdgi-cec/index.html

I tested 3 pans using a pair of thermocouples, one that I tried to place in the pan center and one that I placed at the pan edge. I tried an off-brand of Kapton tape but it let go very quickly as the pan heated. A very large piece of blue painter's tape worked OK to hold the thermocouples in place. All tests were to 250 F on low intensity with an empty pan. The first pan was the 8.5" Heston nonstick skillet. This is a clad pan with a concave bottom (1mm concavity). When the pan temperature was stable and the CF was reporting 250 measurements at the pan center ranged from 236-238. Measurements at the pan edge ranged from 243-246. IR thermometer measurements towards the edge were 272-276. The second pan was the Analon Copper, 10 inch fry pan. This pan has a flat disk base that allegedly contains copper. The base is concave by a similar amount as the Hestan, about 1.1mm. With this pan the center measurements ranged from 246-250. I did have one low measurement at 243. The edge measurements (still over the disk base) ranged from 243-245. The IR thermometer reported 268-276. The third pan was a Demeyere Atlantis dutch oven with a 9 inch base diameter. This is the thick base style pan that has 2mm copper in the base. This pan is something like 15-20 years old. The bottom of the pan is somewhat warped, but convex, not concave. It's hard to estimate the size of a convexity, but maybe it's around 0.3mm. With this pan, the center measurement was between 248-253. The edge measurement was 241-245. For completeness I tried the IR thermometer on this pan and it read 115. (A bad reading is expected due to the stainless steel cooking surface.) In all cases when the pans were heating up the pan center seemed to outpace the sensor, reading ~8 deg F warmer than the sensor was reporting. So it seems like the CF is most likely working correctly. The big discrepancies I observed before in steady state temperature were IR thermometer readings and they seem to be high. I'm not sure what to make of the Heston pan performance. One of the questions is whether to return that pan. Why is the pan temperature lower than the CF setting? How can this happen? That implies that the CF is reading a hotter temperature than the pan actually is. Or that the pan is 12-14 degrees F colder at the top surface than the bottom in steady state. Another observation is that the Analon seems to do OK in this test despite its concave bottom. Finding pans that are not concave seems to be somewhat difficult.

Steak salad with a cilantro dressing. Salad included butter lettuce, cilantro, scallions, sliced shallots, pickled shallots, and sauteed zucchini. Dressing was cilantro, lime juice, fish sauce, palm sugar, garlic, and a little Hatch chile powder, all whizzed up in the blender. NY strip steak was marinated for about an hour with garlic, black pepper, and soy sauce. I didn't feel like grilling in the rain so the steak was "reverse seared" - baked in a 275°F oven for 20 minutes, seared on a cast iron pan, and then rested before slicing. Very tender.

OMG now I need to get goat or suckling goat meat asap!

One of my weaknesses. Never seen them at any farmers' market, so I have to go to Oakland Chinatown for my fix. Parking is horrendous, so we don't go very often, only when we really crave char siu or roasted duck or the best fresh pot sticker skins and fresh noodles.

Char sui bao I picked up at the local farmers market

Back in 2012, my wife and I took our first trip (of more than a stopover) to Singapore. After about 25 hours in transit (including changing planes in Hong Kong with some good airport dim sum and a really good loose leaf tea selection), then walking around all day, we decided to spend our first dinner at the closest restaurant to our hotel: The magic of Chongqing hot pot. This was our first hot pot experience (ever!) and our waitress was very patient in explaining everything to us. The purpose of this long winded story is that she said that the sesame dipping sauce is the "magic sauce" - maybe she was referring to the soul of it? Magical sesame sauce bottom right; bottom center is chilli sauce to add to the magical sauce - makes it more magical?

If I was there, those would be gone in less than 5 minutes... I can get them fresh here in NYC now, but they're really expensive so I feel very guilty gorging myself. Hopefully I'll find a good fruit market in Indonesia in July.

Several days ago I used half a chicken to make chicken noodle soup for my sick husband (he's down to a lingering cough now, thank goodness.) With no immediate plans for the other half, I roasted it off a day or two later. The night before last I turned it into more or less enchiladas suizas - enough for two dinners and a lunch. Here's my plate last night with "Spanish rice" and lots of garnishes to cover up that they fell apart when I plated it. They were tasty if messy the second day.

I guess a baking equivalent of "first catch your hare" might be first render some lard... With that out of the way, I kept my eyes on the prize... For those unfamiliar, Lardy Cake an English spiced bread made with dried fruit and, yup, pork fat. Mmmmmm.... laaaaarrrrrrrrd. 🤤

@ElsieD Mangosteens

Or many people with way more money than sense

I’d love the opportunity to taste all of the gorgeous goodies that you all have been posting. I’ve only got a couple and they are not as delectable as all of these! For what has turned into an annual event, Jessica and I spent the Saturday morning before Easter at church dipping strawberries, marshmallows, and pretzels in chocolate for the champagne reception after the Easter Vigil. Marshmallows and pretzels: The stuff in the center is edible (but not tasty) Easter grass. Pretzels: The bunnies are more edible decorations. They tasted for all the world like banana flavored communion wafers 😄. Platters of strawberries: Jessica and I both made desserts for Easter. Her pineapple icebox pie: My roasted strawberry cheesecake: Both of the desserts were served with dollops of Cool Whip. The cheesecake was also sprinkled with pulverized freeze dried strawberries. I made a blueberry breakfast cake for a meeting of the Episcopal Church Women at church one Saturday morning: It was very popular, as always. I was only able to save Mr. Kim and Jessica one piece to share: