Sleepy_Dragon

A last thought about a casual cook wanting to keep an edge on a knife without needing to deal with sharpening it themselves is to get the knife in question professionally sharpened. At the recommendation of my instructor, I shipped my knives to Bob Kramer of Bladesmiths. They came back to me crazy sharp, and he also cleaned up the horrible hatchet job I'd done to much of the edge and surface of my boning knife and paring knife after my uncoordinated attempts at sharpening them. Anyway, the specific reason why I mention Bob Kramer is because my instructor said he got his knives done by him around 5 years ago, and hasn't had to use anything other than a steel to keep them sharp since then. Don't know if getting a steel and paying for the sharpening service would be too much out of your budget after buying the knife itself, but it's something to consider at a later date. Pat

I've done it, though I may not be the best person to give advice because I've never been ruffled about going alone anywhere, whether it's movies, a meal out, street fairs, travel, etc. When I'm living by myself, it doesn't occur to me that I should have to go with anyone. So, if that describes you, then... uh, well, it probably doesn't otherwise you wouldn't ask in the first place I guess. Bring a book. Always works well for me. In fact, that time I went to Union, between courses I was reading my textbook for my finals the next day! It made perfect sense to me... got a culinary final, so study for it while eating and pondering nice and interesting things, as well as see what the big deal was about. I enjoyed my meal a lot. The staff were all nice to me, and this was during the 25 for 25 event. And I hadn't ordered any alcohol either, which I hadn't realized was something waitstaff can hold against you until recently. Glad that's never been an issue anywhere, including Union. For the other tee-totalers out there, Union has nice tea, especially the jasmine. It always makes me happy when fine dining establishments have good quality tea which is brought out in a hefty pot, with a ceramic cup for drinking, plus attentive waitstaff who keep the pot full, rather than the usual throwaway metal pot with Lipton or Stash bag. Pat

Yes, agreed about furikake's powers of turning slim pickings into a banquet. One of my favorite breakfasts or light dinner is miso soup, onigiri with furikake, cubes of tofu with ponzu and furikake, tsukemono and green tea. Sometimes I'll just make maki rolls with rice and a furikake filling if I'm especially craving the taste and want a snack. Have to make sure to stay hydrated afterwards though, the salt and dehydration headache can be unpleasant! My favorite flavors are wasabi and bonito. Pat

I noticed in Rushina's eggplant recipe that she specified Kitchen King Masala. A web search threw up several brands available. Are they all equally good? Also, is this masala based on something? I'm just wondering about its origins, as well as the possibility of making it from scratch, or is it a ubiquitous product like oyster sauce or nam pla? Pat

Well, it's my team's turn to do student lunch next week. What that means is the three of us come up with something relatively quick for Tuesday, then do prep on Wednesday for Thursday's lunch. Wednesday a more advanced class makes pizza so we only have to bake those off while prepping for Thursday. I decided to go with the following for Thursday, scaled up to feed 140 people: Murgh Musallam -- simplified Moghul chicken baked in aluminum foil, from Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking. First a yogurt marinade with ginger, garlic, turmeric, cayenne, black pepper and salt, followed by a coating of fried paste made with almonds, ginger, garlic, onions, cumin, coriander, turmeric, paprika, cayenne, lemon juice, and garam masala. We will cheat though, by using chicken legs instead of whole chicken. And there definitely will not be any silver tissue pearl stuffing! Phool Gobi aur Aloo ki Bhaji -- cauliflower with potatoes, cayenne, coriander, turmeric and green chillies with cumin three ways, out of the same book. Gujerati Sem -- Gujerati style green beans flavored with mustard seeds, garlic, crushed red chilli, salt, sugar and black pepper, also from the same book. Lal Masoor ki Daal ka Bhurta -- Mashed and stirfried red masoor daal, cayenne, turmeric, green chillies, cilantro, and a tarka of ghee and onions, from Sameen Rushdie's Indian Cookery, and also so the vegetarians will have a protein item to choose. Plus basmati rice, which I haven't decided what to do with yet, and a raita with cilantro, carrot, cucumber, roasted ground cumin seeds and kala namak. I had this wild thought to also do 300 samosas plus chutneys but decided against that, given that there's three of us second quarter students with about 10 - 12 hours total prep time. Maybe someday we'll be fast enough to do that, but not next week! This should be interesting, it will be my first time cooking on this order of scale. Any thoughts about what to do with the rice aside from whacking it in a rice cooker? And if any of the menu items seems out of place, I'd like to hear why too, and may have a chance to change it tomorrow. And of course, general advice appreciated as well! Pat

Boy, that's the truth about the lack of fried food or visible meat item. It was interesting observing some of the students in my school on the day one of the teams in my class prepared sukiyaki for everyone. The majority of the students liked it, but there was a group that simply wasn't going to eat it; it's brown and stewed glop with too many vegetables to them. More's the pity. And these were adults. In culinary school no less. I can see elementary school kids reacting the same way in the US, unfortunately. Pat

The cheaper yet good knife brands of choice in my class seems to be either Forschner (stamped, made by the swiss army knife folks) or Ludwig Schiff (forged). I like them both, though the Ludwig Schiff knives have a slightly thicker blade and thus are heavier. Most of us got our kits at Southwest Cutlery (edit: though upon browsing the site, we got ours at student pricing, so it looks like it would be more expensive for anyone else). Never liked Henckels anything, every type I've used always came across as a product with too many corners cut for the price asked. Beyond that... you'll generally have a choice between 8" or 10" chef's knife. The size you pick depends on how big a person you are. There's a knife sharpening tutorial under the eCGI section worth checking out too, it goes into detail about knives themselves as well as how to sharpen them. Of course, for cheapest of all, you could go with a carbon steel Chinese cleaver! Chops, mashes, scrapes and scoops. Dulls faster so you'd need a stone, though what my mother used to do is use the unvarnished bottoms of rice bowls to sharpen hers, hehe. Pat

...nevermind, just read the chole thread! Pat

So why kabli channa instead of chole? Is it just different dialects? Pat

I find comfort in big bags of rice at home as well. As for the difference between basmati and jasmine, basmati is nuttier, and jasmine is nutty with floral overtones. Rushina has already mentioned how to cook basmati; for jasmine it's about 1.2 parts water to 1 part rice, with a cooked yield of around 3 times the original raw quantity. Of course, ideally I'd know how much to dunk my pinky finger into the water above the rice to measure the correct amount, but that method only seems to work for Chinese and Japanese rice (water level is from the pinky tip to the first joint encountered, from surface of water to surface of rice). Pat

That 100 samosa marathon sounded like fun. I conked out after 40, though I had enough potato and pea filling to easily make another 40. Had to stop on account of exhaustion, hehe. There is a Pakistani restaurant in my area (Usmania Tikka Kabob in Seattle) that sells samosas made out of half circle pieces of dough, folded into flat triangles. I like their smaller size, plus they are easier to handle for dipping purposes. Hot fresh samosa + chai is such a great snack. Hm, now I'm craving it. What to do... I've also had Ethiopian sambusas, which were flat triangles with a thin layered crunchy wrapping. Also good. Pat

I made samosas. Once. It took several hours. After the first two dozen, I thought no coworkers are worth this kind of effort, but I finished them and ended up with around 40. They came out great but I haven't gotten up the gumption to do it again. The filling was cubed potato, spices, peas and some hare chutney mixed in. Pat

How about some fish express posted to her? The various fish mongers at Pike Place Market have 24 or 48 hour shipping available. The basket of goodies sounds good too, maybe add to that a cookbook or two from local chefs? Pat

Mochi is what daifuku is covered with, if I'm understanding which snacks you're talking about. Mochi is also made in solid cake form without fillings and can be eaten by itself. Daifuku is similar to the Chinese snack you're thinking of (jeen doy), insomuch as both are filled with sweet red bean paste, and both have that chewy rice flour coating. But the type of rice flour used is different, daifuku is made with mochiko which has a more tender texture, and jeen doy is made with glutinous rice flour, which has a chewier texture. Also, jeen doy is deep fried and covered in sesame seeds, whereas mochi and daifuku is steamed. The red beans themselves are different too, Chinese red beans vs. adzuki beans. Though I can't especially tell the difference between the two unless I taste one after the other in a taste test. They're both good. And welcome to egullet. Pat

Thanks for that info, jrufusj. After reading it, I guess technically, I am not allergic to alcohol itself. Probably what is happening is an intolerance to alcohol, and an allergic reaction to something that only occurs in beer and wine. Sake gives me the least trouble, followed by a few of the spirits, but I can only have one drink. About 3/4 the way through that one drink, it starts to taste very, very bitter. Probably my body telling me something important! But I'm generally in good spirits (hehe) while drinking it. Beer and wine make me hyperventilate, because it feels like I'm suffocating and can't get enough air into my lungs. Then after that I just throw up. It's really unpleasant and miserable, and I have no good memories of it. So whenever people make sympathetic comments from assuming my life must be empty without beer and wine, I just shrug and tell them they'll have to drink one for me. They always agree to do that! And Hiroyuki, nice to know you like 2 liters of tea, I do too! I like plain green leaf tea and the kind with toasted rice in it as well. The first time I tried the toasted rice kind, it was such a revelation. Never knew tea could be like that. Pat

Well, where you see "would-be savior", I see a significant story between how she learned Shandong cuisine, and where it is now. Doesn't mean a cuisine is never allowed to change, or that Mrs. Sato is the final word on it, but there's a difference between evolution with a root to the past, and change for the sake of following trends and novelty for ever decreasing attention spans. Note carefully here that I have no idea whether or not the latter is what is really happening, but it's not something that should be taken lightly or without dialogue between past and present. Especially considering how the concepts of new and modern would have developed after something like the Cultural Revolution, and what the price was to embrace them, in both memory and humanity. I think the things we're attracted to and the things we devalue or otherwise forget reflect what kind of people we are, as well as point to what our fates will be. It's something of the past that should be documented for all to learn from, before it disappears, much like all the other destruction depicted in the movie. I hope she gets her school established, and I hope she gets many students. Then from there we can see what the next generation of chefs will do to take the cuisine in other directions along with an understanding of links to the past. At any rate, people know what the name of the movie is, and can make up their own minds about it should it play in their neck of the woods. Pat

I don't like music when cooking something either new, or requiring a lot of concentration. It's too distracting, and in a workplace I'd mostly try to tune it out if there was any being played. If on the other hand the food is familiar to me and something I could do in my sleep, I'll usually choose something cheerful like Pizzicato Five, or video game soundtracks, though the latter is also because I'm a long time gamer. This does seem to change according to season though, I like more mellow stuff when cooking at temperature extremes, and more upbeat music during the rest of the year. Similar relation between whether or not I'm in a hurry. Pat

Huh, I didn't think it was chauvinistic at all, and took it on face value; here was an important story to be told that adds another facet of much needed humanity, and I'm glad somebody told it. I think changing any of it that could have been interpreted as Japanese chauvinism (and I don't see what in this movie qualifies for that) would have meant propagandizing it via historical whitewash of individual experience. In any event, here's hoping she gets that cookbook printed. Pat

Hi William, welcome to egullet. I've been wanting to learn more about Shandong food ever since I saw Dream Cuisine, a movie about Sato Hatsue, a Japanese woman who became a Shandong certified chef during her time in China, and paradoxically is now one of the few chefs alive who still cooks it the traditional way. The movie is about the life of her and her husband running a small Shandong restaurant in Japan, as well as her attempt to find a long lost friend by returning to China, and her experiences running up against the official Shandong cooking school which is trying to change the old recipes in order to adapt to new tastes. She mentioned in the movie that she has around 1,500 recipes committed to memory, and plans to publish a cookbook, but I've not seen any sign of it yet. Hope she manages to finish it. Dream Cuisine played the indie film circuit in the US and other countries, if it's playing near any of you, do go see it, though IMO be warned there is a lot of "art shot" cinematography in it (read: lots of shots of traffic at night which drag down the length of the movie) which I wish had been edited out. Anyway, I'd love to hear more about Shandong food too, so please keep posting. edited for typos Pat

Suvir, your Tamarind Chutney is so addictive. If you're still around, thank you. I'd been making a fairly basic one prior to this and hadn't been able to get it quite there, but this is delicious. I made it with chopped dates and a half brick of jaggery to substitute for the sugar, and got a couple of my classmates addicted, hehe. I also need to order bhel mix from namaste.com at some point. There is a place I go to locally to get it, the package says it's a Kashmir style "bail mix", and it's very good but it doesn't have any papri in it. Pat

Mrs. Jaffrey's books call for both the raw and roasted version of the same spice at times, so your practice wouldn't go to waste, especially for cumin. Assuming you've got Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking, her recipe for Cauliflower with Potatoes (phool gobi aur aloo ki bhaji) uses raw whole cumin, raw ground cumin, and roasted ground cumin. So it's a chance to see and smell the difference between raw and roasted cumin as well as use both at the same time, plus I think this dish is delicious. I make it all the time, and it's my go-to for office potlucks in my previous life. Disappears like a plague of locusts descended! Pat

Thanks Monica, it's nice to be able to answer something for a change instead of asking! Pat

Ah, I see. Ok, gonna give this another shot in the next few days. Thanks for your advice, mongo. Pat

Hm, well, when I pureed before cooking, the final result was something with a lot of liquid, but maybe that's just a matter of needing to cook it for longer. I didn't want to do that though, lest I killed off all of the dish's flavor. What I'm trying to get is the happy creamy medium between clumpy greens from too coarse a chop, and watery puree with liquid that ends up separating from the solid. And yes it was saag paneer, as well as saag aloo. Pat

Freezing a bottle of water works well. You'll have it for sipping throughout the day and for keeping food cold. Pat