mamster

Short ribs--great idea! Adding blood to ground beef is illegal. Grocery stores may well do it, but I'll bet the vast majority of reputable butchers don't. Then again, when it's so easy to grind your own at home (by hand, grinder, or food processor) what's the point?

Hey, tonight I made Shaw's hand-chopped burger. I used chuck. As promised, it was easy to pick out the gristly bits. I didn't have any hamburger buns, so I used French bread. I cooked the burger between medium rare and medium in a cast-iron pan and topped it with sauteed onions and HP sauce. This was a promising trial but not quite a success: I didn't chop the meat fine enough. As a result, there were some chewy bits, and overall the patty had a unpleasantly springy texture. On the upside, there was plenty of beefy flavor, and it was easy to do. It still would have been easy if I'd taken the time to chop it fine enough (it seemed okay, but now I know to keep chopping after I think it's done). Also, I have enough chuck left to try again and to make a couple of servings of Thai curry.

When you were learning about botanical families and research for your book, were you ever surprised to find that two similar vegetables were only distantly related, or vice versa? And in a nutshell, how do you think learning a little botany can help the cook?

Maybe this would be the place to mention that I think a good name for a Japanese cooking column would be "Gohan or Go Home."

This sounds great, Jinmyo. Does the bacon end up in the gratin or are you just using the rendered fat for sauteeing?

Informationally speaking, it's a great book. As an artifact, it's a piece of junk. Mine hasn't actually fallen apart yet, but it feels like it's going to any second, which is kind of worse. I'd say that all others pale in significance except one: Joe Cummings's World Food Thailand. I have a feeling eGulleters are missing out on this incredible book because it's not shelved with cookbooks.

I thought this was the best part: This tiny business is doing incredible things for the quality of food at restaurants all over town, both by supplying expertise and fine ingredients and by raising the bar of what people expect in terms of quality. I love that! Maybe I should try making my own pancetta--it's unsmoked, so I won't be treading on col klink's territory.

Why would anyone anaesthesize a fruit fly? For goodness sake, just swat the bugger! You know, now that I think about it, the fly anaesthetic is triethylamine, not triethanolamine. And nobody corrected me!

There's nothing harmful about eating a little melted wax; it's basically fat, although psychologically the thought isn't very pleasant. If the food tastes okay, it's okay. Although (warning: random scientific fact) one of the ingredients in food grade wax, triethanolamine, is used as a fruit fly anaesthetic.

One thing to keep in mind is that parchment paper isn't particularly nonstick until after it's been heated. If you're wrapping something sticky and not then baking it, waxed paper makes more sense. I use waxed paper for wrapping cheese, for example.

As I always say, hee hee hee hee.

Laurie and I ended up at Racha and had a pretty lousy meal, albeit for a good cause. We had the "chicken in the jungle appetizer," which was white meat chicken compressed into a tetrahedron and wrapped in banana leaves, then fried. Not terrible, but rather poor texture. The "chef's special" catfish was a big mistake: it's breaded and pan-fried, then covered in bland panang curry, leaving it mushy, and the fish had a weirdly cartilaginous texture. Luckily there was also pad woon sen with shrimp, which was spicy and good. The decor was very nice; the service was mediocre--they seemed to keep forgetting us. But like I always say, if my eating a crummy meal prevents some person from getting maimed by a land mine, pass the slop.

This only makes me more determined to have thelastsupper cook spot prawns for me.

I do believe you're right, klink. As much as I loved the half-live raw ama ebi, a deep-fried shrimp head is pretty much the world's most perfect food. Malarkey, you have only made me more determined to capture the wily spot prawn and make it sing in my kitchen. Maybe this will be a future column....

Thanks for the reply, Ed. Your book sounds great--I can't wait.

Hey, Ed, if you don't mind revisiting this thread, what do you like to order at Sun Sui Wah when you're not having dim sum?

I've been to Kisaku, tls. I posted about it here.

Over on the amazing mail-order shrimp thread on General, there was a brief tip of the hat to our Northwest spot prawns. I order these whenever I see them on a menu, but let me throw myself before the mercy of the forum and admit that I've never bought them, never cooked them, and don't know when the season is (okay, I know it starts in spring). Who wants to give me a lesson? Where have you purchased spot prawns (raw or at a restaurant) and what are your favorite preparations?

Well, only one featured in a John Denver song.

We've made these before, but they're always great. Jim doesn't mention this on his page, but put in way more chili powder and cumin than you think you should. I don't have any pure chile powders on hand (although I have a nice bag of anchos that I need to do something with), so I used Penzey's hot chili powder, which is great stuff. These things get really crunchy, fast. Laurie said she would have liked some sour cream with them, too. "They'd be almost authentic," she lied.

Ed, what Chinese cookbooks do you like? What is your book going to cover?

Right, I'd argue--most salads in Thailand are crazy overdressed by Western standards, probably because the dressing has no oil.

There's a slim CIA book called "The Professional Chef's Knife" that's pretty good. There will also be knife tips in any big professional cooking textbook. But for this kind of thing I find that a few minutes with an expert (even just watching) is worth hours with a book. The CIA book is worthwhile, though, because it demonstrates techniques for cutting up a variety of different things.

Hey, n.l.l., welcome. If you were drawn out by a larb thread, you are my kind of poster. Try making a pork or beef larb; they're harder to dry out than chicken and have more flavor to start with. Then, when you're mixing the dressing, taste it and adjust as you go until you have something you like (the flavor will be very strong, though). Then put on more dressing and more rice powder than you think you need. There should be a puddle on the plate when you're done with the larb. Ben, the traditional thing to do with the Northeastern Thai sausage is to stuff it into thin casings and make one-inch links, then deep-fry those. I've never stuffed sausage, though, so I just make patties and saute them in a pan with a little peanut oil. Maybe col klink and I can have a Thai sausage-making day and write it up. There are other Thai sausages, too--the one I described is just the easiest.

tighe, maybe using sharp knives with hands trained on dull knives is the most deadly combination of them all. I just made that up, but it seems plausible enough.