prasantrin

Can't cook them first! That would be a sin! It works best with kernels just sliced from the cob. When I make my cornballs (not their real name, but I don't know what they are in Thai because I don't know anyone who made them except my dad, but they're fried pork and corn meatballs), the corn always pops in the oil. It doesn't pop like regular popcorn, but it splits and the released moisture causes a lot of hot oil splattering about. Sometimes the corn does actually pop out of the pan (burned my carpet!). With my cornballs, I've started chopping up the kernels before adding them to the pork, but I really want to try to keep them whole.

Has anyone ever made corn patties? (thot man khao phot) How does one prevent the corn from splattering/popping when you fry the patties? Do you chop the corn kernels? I like to keep the kernels as whole as possible, but I suppose if I have to chop them, I will! But any advice to prevent that would be appreciated!

I've been trying to help out here, but still haven't found my card reader thing for my camera, so I took a picture of my jar of salted thread fin with my cell phone, and emailed it to myself. Hope this helps!

Ah, a man after my own heart! I love using the leftover oil of whatever I've just fried. I've been doing it ever since I was a child! (garlic pepper spareribs make great oil to sprinkle on rice!) I like loosely scrambled eggs with salted fish (the chinese kind--I love scrambled eggs and salted fish for breakfast, with rice, of course!), but I've always loved Chinese sausage with sunny-side up or over-easy eggs. I usually fry my egg in the oil from the sausage, but I like the sprinkling idea better. Or maybe I'll do both. One can never have too much grease in the morning! It was really good. Hash browns would have been better, because the softer middle part of hash browns are good for soaking up broken egg yolk. But the crispiness of the chips (and the ease--no cooking involved!) make for a darn good substitute!

You can get Ketchup chips in the Middle East? I thought those were only for Canadians! Or are they imported to the ME for all those ex-pat Canadians? Can't get them in Japan, but I can get salt and vinegar!

I agree that guests should be treated respectfully, and if you're going to invite someone to dinner, then you should make efforts to make your guest comfortable even if it means catering to his/her food preferences. That being said, there's a big difference between a "problematic eater" and a "controlling eater". One or two food dislikes I can manage (as a host), but for example, I have a co-worker who has many, many, many food issues, including: no sweet things with fillings (but savoury things are OK), no sweet things with crusts (but savoury are OK), no cheesecake, no raw seafood, no onions, no dark chicken meat, no raw tomatoes, no cakes with fillings, no cakes with icing, no meat not cooked well-done...those are only the ones I remember. Sure I could create a meal that would exclude all those things (plus the ones I've forgotten), but that would decrease my own enjoyment of the meal, as well as the enjoyment of the meal by most of my other guests. I would never invite someone like my co-worker to a meal at my home. But then, I'd never have someone like my co-worker as a friend. But if that "controlling eater" is a family member, you may have no choice but to invite him/her to your home. In those cases, I don't think it's a problem to have the guest bring a dish or two that he/she will be able to eat, or if need be, I'll make one dish that I know that person will be able to eat. But beyond that, everything else is fair game. I would not create an entire meal just to placate a picky guest, unless that guest were the guest of honour (and a picky eater would not likely be the guest of honour in my home).

Sausage rolls. Everyone loves sausage rolls! Except maybe vegetarians... Fig and olive tapenade--doesn't look pretty, but it's very tasty. Little empanadas.

Take a look at the list of vendors. You'd probably have to click on quite a few of them before you find the one that you want, but if no one comes up with the vendor's name, it will at least give you a start on your search. When you click on the names, you can see which farmers market they're at and when, and also what they sell.

Does Argentina have a similar population of ethnic Japanese as, for example, Peru or Brazil? I would have thought the chef would have been more surprised at a customer speaking Japanese with him, as I never imagined Argentina would have a lot of Japanese (except perhaps Japanese ex-pat workers).

After clicking on the free sample banner, if I check the boxes next to the different products, does that mean I'm interested in them, or not interested? I couldn't really understand, so I just check them all....either they'll think I'm very greedy, or very stupid...

In terms of appearance, most of my meals have been debatable--do I post them in the breakfast/lunch/dinner topic, or under the regrettable meals one? Today's breakfast was no exception, but it was sooooo good... Fig and olive tapenade (first brought to my attention in Flocko's foodblog, I just wish he were still around to share my joy in this delicious treat) and goat cheese on a baguette. I suppose some attention to plating would help my pictures, but I don't care about looks. I just want to eat! The recipe for the tapenade, btw, is from David Lebovitz's site, courtesy of Carrie Brown of the Jimtown Store in SF (but I used the full amount of figs, and only half of everything else).

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It's a Thai thing. My dad used to make it all the time, but I've never actually seen it anywhere else. My dad's version (which is pretty much my version) is just ground pork, garlic, black pepper, fish sauce, corn (freshly cut from a cob is best), and some cornstarch to help bind it. If you can, pound the garlic and pepper with a mortar and pestle, all the better. There should also be cilantro root in there (pound together with the garlic and pepper), but we couldn't always find cilantro roots, so we would just leave them out. Mix everything up, form into balls (I made mine into little patties to make for easier frying). Then you fry them. Be careful when you fry them, though, because those corn kernels pop, and they can really sting when a hot one lands on your bare skin. Because of that, I started to chop my corn a bit before adding it to the ground pork to help release some of its moisture. The Thai version I usually see is only made of corn, but I don't know how to make those. I imagine they're made similarly to the ones I make, but without the ground pork. Here's a link to the corn version. I can't vouch for the recipe, but you can get an idea of what's in it. If you do make this version, definitely use corn kernels that are freshly cut from the cob. It will make a big difference.

I don't think that particular event is really geared towards lower income families (most of my "lower income" friends don't really care much beyond red delicious vs. macintosh when it comes to apples, but that just may be the "lower income" people I hang out with), and being able to afford more than one bag would hardly make a person "elitist". Or perhaps you meant to use a different word? Had I been in your shoes, the only thing I would have complained about was that I hadn't arrived there earlier. It wouldn't have been their fault I didn't get anything, but my own.

Cornballs on a bed of rice. Tasted much better than it looked!

What kind of pringles are those in the background of the Krispy Kreme? Some kind of unusual flavour?

I'm with the not-quite-ripe camp. I used to think I hated bananas, but I really just hate yellow bananas with black spots. The smell is enough to make me want to barf, and the texture really will make me barf. My distaste for ripe bananas comes, in part, from a childhood of sensitive stomach issues (I used to throw up a lot, so anything mushy that reminds me of vomit would immediately make me want to vomit--oatmeal and rice pudding, included).

Whew! I'm glad I dodged that bullet! I almost bought those last week, but then changed my mind at the last minute. I would have hated them! When I was in Kyoto last week, I found some matcha KitKat!!! I was so excited to see them, but I didn't buy any. Just plain Uji Matcha--no anko, no fake cream flavour... Next time I go back to Kyoto (probably not until December), I'm buying some!

Make sure you get a transformer that will handle the wattage of your appliance. The higher the wattage, the more expensive the transformer (and the heavier it is, as well). Some examples--note the first one only handles up to 100W, where the second one up to 1000W.

Check out this article. I think it will explain it to you. As far as I know, the problem only exists in the US, however, and the same associations are not made elsewhere (at least not in Canada, and we're right next door). Mountain. Molehill.

The Far Side?

Last Thursday, I accompanied our S3 students (high school seniors/twelfth grade students) on their fall ensoku. We went to Arashiyama to make sweets (I made nama yatsuhashi), and then had lunch. It was the most interesting meal I've ever had on one of these trips, and the tastiest! Overview: We were provided with a menu that specified the order in which we should eat the dishes. The other chaperones and I mostly followed the order, but since I couldn't read the menu very well, I skipped around a bit. The first course: The thing in the glass was very tasty--probably my favourite of the meal. It was tofu with ikura, in a thick broth with, iirc, yuzu. The little persimmon thing was also very interesting--it wasn't persimmon at all, but fish and egg(??). Also was a little skewer of stuff. The blood-pudding looking thing was konnyaku, which I think was supposed to taste like figs. The little potatoes were not potatoes, but seed nagaimo. They were less slimy than nagaimo, and were more like taro, I thought. Next were the fried foods. Anything fried is good. Enough said. These were the garnishes on one of the plates. The puffed rice was a bit stale, but I liked it. Along with it was something that looked like sushi, but it wasn't. It was cooked fish on a ball of potato salad. Very interesting (you can kind of see it--top right of the first picture). Another favourite at the chaperones table was this cabbage-roll thing. But it wasn't a cabbage roll. It was taro mixed with other things, wrapped with yuba. Very light, very flavourful. There were a few other dishes that didn't make it onto my camera. I was told the meal was probably about Y5000, which I thought was reasonable. I wonder how other schools eat on their school trips...

In addition to canned sardines, don't discount the jarred ones. There are some jarred sardines from the Philippines that are very tasty. Ryvita crackers and peanut butter and bring some small packets of jam. Anzac cookies. Splurge for a refrigerator that you plug in to your car lighter.

Tepee, salted threadfin is my favourite! I have a couple of jars of it, and when I saw your picture, I took one out. I cooked some rice, but then got too lazy to fry the threadfin, so it will have to wait for another day. I will just admire your picture in the meantime... The other day I finally got around to making char siu bao. I made the char siu using a recipe from Andrea Nguyen that C. Sapidus was kind enough to pm me. It's a great recipe, and I'll be using it again. But I cut my strips of pork too thinly, and roasted it for too long (30 minutes, but it was probably ready after 20), so it was a tad overdone. Then I stuck it in the fridge for several days, which I think might have dried it out even more. Oh well. I used junehl's recipe for the bao dough. It calls for baking powder rather than yeast. I don't know what I did wrong, but as you'll be able to see from the pics, my dough is not smooth at all. And it has speckles of brown in it. It didn't have those speckles before I steamed them, so I don't know what they are. And the bao is a bit tough. Should I not be kneading baking powder bau dough? I kneaded mine for a bit to try to get it to look smoother. I really liked the flavour, though. Maybe I should try similar proportions but make it a yeast dough? I do prefer the convenience of a baking powder dough, though. I also used the sauce from Tepee's chicken bao to make the filling. Mine is terribly dark. Tastes great, but I'd like it to be a bit lighter. Any ideas for that? I think next time I'll add some onions or something more to the filling. I feel like it's missing something. This filling was just char siu, hoisin sauce, dark soy, light soy, oyster sauce, sugar, and the cornstarch/water thickener. And my pretty one.

Mmmmmm...that looks amazingly scrumptious! Did you make the smoked paprika oil yourself? Since I can't get decent chorizo, I'm going to do a version with Chinese sausage and chile oil, but on rice. I hope mine tastes as good as yours looks!