Big Bunny

If you don't use enough water, the water gets slimy and sticks to the pasta. BB

I don't have the book here, but her tofu recipes are great, especially "ma po", and "yu xiang." I really liked her beef stew with "lo bok"/daikon. The street food and dumpling recipes are good, too. I have done about three dozen recipes from this book, all were at least quite good. It will give you practice in finding ingredients, though. BB

I have to tell this story. Years ago, I would spend Saturday cooking - making "leftovers" for the rest of the week. Sometimes this would lead to a good Saturday lunch. One time, I had made a steamed whole fish, and had to put half of it into the frij. Knowing the tradition, I paused for a second to decide whether or not to flip the fish as I put it into the container. I did NOT flip the fish. This became important to me later on that afternoon. There was a news story on the radio that the boat of two local fisherman had flipped over. One of them drowned. If I HAD flipped the fish, I probably would never have gotten over it. BB

I made this yesterday with home-salted chicken eggs, but no shrimp or other salt. I left the eggs out over night with the soaking con poy. Everything was room temperature and ready in the morning. I made two minor mistakes: 1) used a too-small bowl 2) hade the heat a bit too high It was still delicious over rice. I intend to experiment with this a bit more, although I really shouldn't eat so many eggs. BB

A good Mocha-Java will work. BB

I usually blanch in batches. I have never timed myself, but two or three batches seems just as fast as waiting for the water to boil when I thow in everything at once. A Chinese-style "chicken wire" strainer makes the whole process fairly efficient. The thing I blanch most ofteen is string beans for stir-frying. The change to bright green is pretty clear. BB

I think that part of the "lesson" of this thread is that one cookbook rarely covers a subject. Mexico is too big for one cookbook, or one author. I have a good selection of books by Bayless and Kennedy (as well as others), but I really enjoy cooking from "The New Complete Book of Mexican Cooking" by Elizabeth Lambert Ortiz. It is a reprint of the classic paperback. Although I have a good selection of books, I only actually "cook Mexican" occasionally. Ortiz' book often has the recipe I like best. Unfortunately it is out of print, and getting expensve. BB

Spam quesadillas: Use whatever cheese you like, julienned spam, chopped scallions, sliced black olives and hots to taste. Latin friends give me a really funny look whan I mention these. BB

Thank you for your insight, v. gautam. I have seen Lazeeza brand at my local Halal butcher. I will give them a try. These packages are quite useful to someone who doesn't usually keep all of the spices on hand. BB

Thank you. BB

I picked up a couple of packages of Shan brand spice mixes for a friend to experiment with. The instructions call for so-many "glasses" of water. How many ounces might that be? Is there some standard? Thanks, BB

I just picked it up at lunch time. There are 200 recipes, and they don't look very complicated. I'll report back when I have studied them for a while and have chosen a menu to try. BB

Ditto jo-mel. It is easy to flip food in a wok. In a skillet it tends to just scoot around. BB

I get a kick out of this discussion. My father was a professional photographer and would give me cameras in the hope that I would become interested. One of two things would happen: 1) I would shoot one or two rolls and lose the camera. 2) I would take the camera apart to see how it worked. Some people just love to photograph, and some don't. I really enjoy seeing photos of food, but can't imagine that I would ever take pictures myself. BB

http://www.vietworldkitchen.com/features/mi_quang.htm This is a great site in general: http://www.vietworldkitchen.com/ BB