Dejah

Made my first vegetarian Thai dish last week for a Sri Lankan student in my class. I was happy after to find out that eggplant was her favourite vegetable. I gave her 2 containers of the curry and one of jasmine rice. She rushed out and bought a loaf of bread for the second feed. I combined a couple of recipes and used Thai eggplant, sliced carrots, cauliflower, babycorn, lime leaves, coconut milk, palm sugar. I also made my own red curry paste with cooking onion, lemongrass, lots of red chillies, garlic, galangal, coriander seeds, regular soy sauce, kaffir lime leaves, brown sugar, and turmeric. I found the coconut milk cancelled some of the heat, and will reduce the amount next time. Also, I will leave out the palm sugar. Here are pictures of the prep. and results.

My parents, sibling and I all have ivory chopsticks with our names on them. Mine are in my curio cabinet with other ivory objects (boats, pagodas) that came with us when we immigrated. We used them for a long time, but when ivory was no longer allowed, we decided to put them away as keepsakes. Friends have given us metal chopsticks. I can't stand them against my teeth. Most of the time, we use plastic or bamboo chopsticks. I kept many packages of chopsticks from my restaurant days. Bamboo ones are great for guests who use chopsticks infrequently. Most of the time, I don't re-use them. They are great for propping up plants or as kindling. I do prefer ivory chopsticks. We sometimes bring them out for special occasions. I was checking out a couple of Chinese products websites, and her is a link for black wooden chopsticks. It doesn't give much detail tho'. http://www.goodorient.com/Black_Wooden_Chopsticks_Set_P18521

Peony, That bao skin looks perfect! I want to try your recipe, but what is Hong Kong/ bao flour? My pleats always disappear after steaming. I will have to try and reduce the liquid in the mix and see if it would make a difference with my recipe.

I taught acouple of high school home economics classes back in the 70s. One of the first Asian dishes I showed the students was ramen. Sapporo was the brand that was avalable in our small grocery store. Several have had them before, but the product was new to 75% of the kids. How I cooked it was new to all. The students were from farm families, beef and potatoes. I showed them how to slice up semi frozen beef to add to the soup just before the noodles are cooked through. For vegetables, it was whole leaves of iceberg lettuce and scallion. Sesame oil was a whole new experience for these kids, as was eating this with chopsticks! I see a few of them in the city now, and they tell me this is how they still cook ramen - for their kids too! I still prefer Sapporo original flavour as it is a good basic ingredient. When not in a hurry, and in need of quick comfort food, I add blanched Shanghai bak choy or gai lan, sliced pork or Chinese sausage, shrimp, whole stalks of scallions or cilantro, and top the steaming bowl with preserved chili radish and sesame oil

I've got a pot of Thai eggplant curry cooking on the stove. Used a recipe from importfood.com, and another recipe to make my own red curry paste. The recipe called for 3 tbsp. palm sugar. Tasting it, I found it a bit too sweet for me. Next time, I may reduce the sugar as there was a tbsp of brown sugar in the red curry paste. There is way too much broth: 3 cups vegetable stock and 3 cups coconut milk. I think I may also reduce that next time, or I might use a bit of slurry just so the broth will coat the rice rather than drowning it. The heat is just there. I thought it would be quite hot with 1/4 cup of chopped chilis, and 4 sliced chilis. The dish is suppose to get better after a couple of days. I'm taking it to Duleeka tomorrow with some jasmine rice. Took pictures of the ingredients, and I'll take pics of the finished product tomorrow. For ourselves, I may add some chicken.

I've found it helpful to give the soaked/blanched rice noodles a very light coating of oil, if you have problems with the noodles sticking when stir-frying. ← You DO have to soak or boil dried rice noodles. I have some soaking in hot water for the last 2 hours. They will be ready for stir-frying come supper time. A poster in another thread mentioned spraying the noodles with Pam or something similar. Maybe it was sanrensho.

Austin, Peter, anyone: I bought a bag of Thai eggplant, those little green fellas that look like a green tomato or oversized gooseberry. I want to make a vegetarian curry for a student of mine. I've never used these before, so when I cut one open today, I noticed there were a lot of seeds in that little itsy bitsy eggplant. My question is - do I scoop out the seeds? What do I do with them? Do I salt them like regular eggplant? Do I slice them? Do I cut them in half? I want to make this dish sometime next week, so any help would be greatly appreciated!

← Not only is he a "specialist", now he wants to be known as a comedian too!

It's taken me some time to discover this thread! I'm hooked on lime leaves, lemongrass, galangal, and coconut milk, but not belacan. I like it but just can't handle the strong aroma that lingers in the house. A couple of weeks ago, I had hor mok talay for the first time (really the first taste of Thai in a restaurant). Austin and another eGulleteer, Peter have given me recipes for a grilled and steamed version. I'll be trying them out at home as soon as I get some free time. If you haven't tried, this, do so. It's wonderful!

With the dry noodles, I soak them in hot water. When they are soft, rinse them under cold water then drain them well before frying. With packaged fresh ones, bring to room temperature, then separate and warm them up in the microwave before stir-frying. Make sure the pan you're using is well oiled and hot before you add the noodles. You don't want to stir them too much or they will break up and turn into a clump. I find the dry ones hold up better for someone new to stir-frying these noodles.

Austin and Peter: Thanks so much for both of your versions. I'll have to wait until Xmas break( in 4 weeks) from teaching before I can do them both properly. My kids will be home then, so I can surprise them! I have all the ingredients except for fresh tumeric. Tumeric powder would be ok? We don't get mackerel here, but I suppose any mild flavoured fish would work? I have pickerel ( delicious local fish), basa, sole, tilapia, etc. Both would be great for a dinner party. I'll have to get a couple of practice sessions in before the festive party season!

Bo jai fan literally means "little pot rice". You don't need a clay pot to make this at home, nor do you need millions of BTU. Sometimes, I just use my stainless steel pot (which I prefer rather than the electric ones for cooking rice most of the time). I use the stove top method of cooking rice because it always gives me the toasty crust at the bottom. I add sliced lap cheung, lap yuk, lap gnap, and sometimes a salted egg in the shell to the pot just after it comes to a boil. Turn the heat down to low and let it cook for about 30 minutes. The longer you leave it, the more crust at the bottom. I always leave the skin on the duck and lap yuk. The fat oozes down throughout the rice ...soooo good... With the lap yuk, I trim off the skin before I slice the meat. You have to eat the skin as soon as it is out of the pot or it will get really tough. Once the rice is polished off, I usually heat the pot up again before I add plain hot water, or some broth from a soup we had along with supper - if it is a clear soup. It makes a lovely sizzling sound. Scrape the bottom up, let it simmer just a couple of minutes and enjoy. Or, you can add acouple of small chunks of sweet potato in with the rest of the ingredients as you cook the rice. Before you add the liquid to the rice crust, mash in the sweet potato - delicious dessert! I do use the clay pot more for show when I cook it for company. I also have a cast iron one, just the size for two people.

I also found that if you don't "fry" the curry powder first, it can leave a gritty texture. I think it has to mix in with the oil to get the full flavour. And, I like my onion in big chunks, no peas or carrots, thank you. I've been too busy making Malaysian and Thai curries lately. It's the lemongrass and lime leaves!

I love bitter melon stir fried with tender slices of beef and black bean garlic sauce. I prefer using smashed fermented soy beans to the bottled sauce. There's got to be chopped garlic and ginger in the sauce. I never salt and squeeze to get rid of the bitterness. That's what I love the most! That bitterness leaves a "cooling" feel in the mouth after eating. For soup, there has to be rehydrated oysters, and lots of ginger in with the meaty pork bones. I cut the melon into big chunks. So good!

Thanks Tepee, Mui Mui. I have the recipe you suggested already printed out! And Peter, all your suggestions look delicious. I'll look forward to your recipes.

Chappie, I am envious! I have to buy lemongrass in Asian stores. In one of the stores, they have packages of ground-up lemongrass. As you have done that before for a rub, you might want to do up packages of just ground up lemongrass and freeze them. The ones I buy are in blocks about the thickenss and size of a sandwich. I usually chip off a chunk, thaw and use. It seems to retain the flavour.

My son took me to a Thai restaurant for supper. All the dishes were great, and one really stood out in my mind. It was called Ho Mok Talay. The dish contained a mixture of chopped calarmi, mussels, shrimp and crab meat. This was mixed in an egg custard and steamed in banana leave cups. It was spicy and soothing at the same time. Austin, anyone, got a recipe for this? I want to make it at home and perhaps for a dinner party sometime.

I love Lee & Perrin worchestershire sauce on my steaks, so I suppose that's like having anchovies on the steak How much do you put into the sauce, Ling? Could you post the recipe for the Sicilian calamari? That looks great! The most delicious thing I've eaten this morning is a mango muffin that I just pulled out of the oven.

I have seen Chinese food displayed in bowls in the deli section of our major supermarket chains: Safeway. Superstore, Sobey, Co-Op. The visual effect is so terrible that I couldn't make myself spend money on them. Give me a cold sandwich anytime to tie me over until I get home! I'm sure the food must come frozen then thawed for the display. The sushi is good. It is made by a local restaurant with an established reputation. I have tried them as a quick pick up lunch for myself or my daughter. They are delivered twice a day to the store. On another note about places that "serve" Asian food when they shouldn't, I checked out our university's cafeteria the other day. They listed chicken chow mein as one of the specials. One look and I wondered what was the the fridge and freezer that they were trying to get rid of! It was grey with bits of green and what looked to be crispy store bought noodles stirred in. I wanted to jump over the counter and make the "cook" go out into the dining room to apologize to everyone for serving such slop.

When you say "green cabbage with ha mie, do you mean siu choi? isn't it amazing how 2 simple ingredients can taste so good? I've never had egg custard with haum har... Add lap yuk and lap gnap to the lap cheung and triple the greasy pleasure!

I use vegetable oil, canola because it's a product of the prairies. I used some of the fat trimmed off lap yuk and lap gnap the other night. When I was ready to cook the Shanghai bak choi, I "rendered" the fat in the wok then added the vegetables. It was very good. Wouldn't pork fat detract from the flavour of seafood? I use bacon in my Boston clam chowder, but haven't tried pork fat for seafood stir-fries.

Gung Hai Sang Yut Fie Lok! Ben Sook! You waxed so poetically in your post that I had to run out and check out the moon here in Brandon. It is indeed gorgeous, especially with a piece of green tea mooncake in our hands. It was announced that the harvest moon is bigger because its orbit brought it closer to earth. Our two younger kids are home for the weekend from Winnipeg, and we had pieces of wutao goh with tea, followed by mooncake. My s-i-l had a bak sui gai, siu yuk, wutao goh, mooncakes for bai sun earlier today. It was nothing like what she used to prepare under my mom's watchful eyes, but it's harder and harder to keep up with all these traditions as one gets older.

While you're at it, dice up some sweet potato and add it to the rice at the beginning. Mash of the the sweet potato into the burnt rice before you pour in hot water. Double yum!

I made a dish with rice and cured meats in my cast iron pot yesterday. I think that's something like yao fan. With all the lap yuk, lap cheung, lap gnap, which all have lots of fatty parts, you don't need to add "heated oil!" I let most of the water boil down, just a skimming on top of the rice, then added all the above sliced, on top of the rice. The heat was then turned down to lowest setting to finish the cooking. All the fatty juices cooked down into the rice. It was a wonderful fall dish. The aroma in the kitchen was worthwhile too. After I came back from teaching my evening class, I "burned" the rice that was stuck to the bottom of the pot, add hot water and let it soften a bit. I scooped it all up into a bowl, added a square of fu yu...mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Go and buy yourself a sandpot or two, Gastro. They're cheap. Let your family buy you the expensive KitchenAide!