Fred12fred
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Posts posted by Fred12fred
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Coming into this late...(but that just means I can get the english subtitles!
)Thanks for the links. This is fantastic!
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Get the Grace Young cookbook, "The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen".
She has a great recipe in there that works very well.
I think it works better than the recipe that Will linked to above. The main difference looks to be that Grace's recipe calls for cooking the rice flour in with the daikon before steaming. I think that makes a world of difference.
Also, note that it is VERY time consuming. Expect to take 3 hours to get it all done. But, it's well worth it!
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This sounds really interesting and I will definitely give this a try.
I've been trying to make banh mi baguettes for a while now, but haven't really found a recipe that I like. All of my efforts have resulted in nice loaves, but not the light, crispy loaf that you need for banh mi.
I'm especially intrigued by the use of vitamin C in the dough. I really want to see if that will make a difference for me.
Thanks!
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Interesting to read the McGee quote above because that is exactly what I have learned to do over the years...buy a bag of avocados, let them ripen on the counter, then throw them in the fridge if I'm not going to eat them right away.
I find that they can sit in the fridge for at least a week before I notice any appreciable degredation.
It's great to do this when they have the 3 for $1 weekly sales and you want to stock up.
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Forgot to add that on Tuesday from (I think) 4 - 7pm, there's the Mira Mesa Farmer's Market near the high school.
There's a couple that has a truck and they sell local crab and uni. They sometimes have whole fish and oysters.
And, there's guy there that sells filets over by the food stalls as well.
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Been to Lucky Seafood and Seafood City. All the fish eyes are dull and gills are brown. Anyone have ideas where some fresh stuff is available. I'd love to make some ceviche.
Well, you might be out of luck...as those two, in my experience, had better quality fish than the big chain stores (Vons, Ralphs, etc). I like Lucky Seafood, but their quality really depends on the day that you go.
You also don't mention exactly what kind of fish you are looking for, but you can try to see if The Fish Boutique (near Trader Joes) has what you need. I can't vouch for the fish counter, but their crab cake sandwiches are very good.
Similarly, if you go up the 15 a little bit, there's FireGrille on Scripps Poway which also sells fish separately. Again, never bought the fish there, but the meals I've eaten at the restaurant were good and the fish fresh.
Those two are more of your mainstream fish (salmon, tuna, etc) fillets. You won't get whole fish from them.
If you're willing to go a little further south, I always like the awesome Mitsuwa market down in Kearney Mesa for my sushi fish needs. And, Zion Marketplace which is right there too is also good.
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Probably preaching to the choir, but fast food isn't really all that fast anyway...
10 min to get ready to go out and drive to the neighborhood burger joint.
15 min to stand in line, order, and get my bag of food.
10 min to get home.
Who here couldn't put something together that's 10x tastier and 100x better for you in that time?
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I must have done something wrong. I love broccoli. So does DH. The soup was like cooked broccoli. Boring. We gave up eating it and put it into the dogs' vegetable container. (They eat pulped greens). I don't know whether to be embarrassed or confused or what?
I'm sorry it didn't work..I doubt you did anything wrong. Maybe it's just that you and your DH were such ardent broccoli-lovers before that you were less surprised than the rest of us at how good broccoli can taste.
Me too. The soup is nice, but not mind blowing to me.
This broccoli soup recipe is right up there with the roasted cauliflower recipe from last(?) year.
Simply wonderful!
I think the key thing is to add enough salt to the water when you cook it. Without enough salt, it is just boiled boring broccoli.
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Last night, I took a stab at cooking this dish.
I don't have a 8,000,000 BTU stove, and I knew going into it that this would be the key issue, but I've had some success in getting that great smokyness that you would get from a wok by using a cast iron pan, so I wasn't too concerned.
So, I got all set by opening all the windows that I could, turning on the fan, and, most importantly, disconnecting the smoke alarm! I put my pan on the stove and got it blazing hot.
I kept it really simple, just noodles, bean sprouts, mushroom soy and brown sugar.
My wife declared it: "Tasty and good...but...not what I remembered" Which is about what I expected.
Now the trick will be for me to somehow turn this into a trip to Hong Kong to get the real thing...
My personal post-mortem is that I think I fried the noodles a bit too much as they turned pretty crispy. I would prefer noodles that had some crunchy bits but still had a softness to them. Also, I think the austerity of just using soy is a bit too bland for me. I'll probably throw in some scallions and garlic if I try this again.
Thanks again for everyone's input! That's what I love about eGullet.
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- I can't help it; I have a viscerally negative reaction whenever Jamie (Jaime?) comes on screen. But I was glad she didn't unintentionally sabotage Mike's chances and that she really worked for him.
Mike should have had her do scallops instead of salad...might have made the difference last night.
I thought the episode was the absolute best ever and am very happy that Richard won!
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Thanks for all the comments.
Ben: To me, lo mein is more saucy than what I imagine this dish to be. But, then again, my experience with lo mein comes from the 1980's chop suey era Chinese restaurants...
CFT: I tried googling silver thread noodles but didn't find a recipe, but I can see that it could very well be the same dish.
heidih: kecap manis would be good in something like this. I'm filing that away as something to try. Thanks!
Chris: Thanks for your summary of how you do things. I am going to follow your "recipe" tonight. I got my mushroom soy sauce and beansprouts all set!
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Been googling everything I can think of and have come up pretty empty.
This looked promising but link they provided doesn't go anywhere helpful...but it looks like just soy plus sugar(?) and beansprouts...
The only other thing I've seen is this post which seems like a variant of the dish.
http://tastesofhome.blogspot.com/2011/01/hong-kong-soy-sauce-noodles-udon-with.html
Interestingly, he mentions using mushroom soy sauce instead of regular.
Does this sound right? I've never had the dish so I have no basis for making a judgment on that.
This might drive me to complete distraction.
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My wife and I were watching a recent tv show (I think it was Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, but could have been No Reservations (Tony Bourdain)) where the person was in Hong Kong.
In one scene, they showed someone making soy sauce noodles, which gave my wife a serious Proustian moment as she grew up in HK and misses it badly. Ever since then, she's been craving this dish.
And, I have no idea what how to go about making this for her.
From what I can tell, the dish seems to be just egg noodles, soy sauce, and bean sprouts. They're all stir fried on high heat. That's it.
Clearly, there must be something more to this. Is it just soy sauce or some special blend of things? Garlic? Onion?
I pretty much know that the "secret" is going to be in the frying part, but I'd at least like to have a small chance of recreating this by knowing what to put in the dish.
So, I turn to the great masses of eGullet and ask: does anyone know what this dish is? And, can you please help me figure out how to recreate it?
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Had my first McNuggets in about 15 years the other day and McD's should be ashamed to include the word "Chicken" in the name.
Sure, when hot and slathered with ranch sauce, they were passably inoffensive.
But, when they cooled off slightly, they took on a slightly sinister quality. I noticed that each nugget seemed unnaturally airy, as if they foamed the chicken (lets face it...mechanically separated chicken...) and nuggetized it. There was no appreciable "meat" texture. It was all coating and filler...maybe I would have been better off trying to eat one of those plastic sushi models...
I think I'll stick with In-n-out when I need my fast food fix...
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That dessert was a family staple when I was a growing up in Boulder (many many years ago)!
My brothers and I loved the spectacle of the waitstaff literally running with a plate of sizzling, molten bananas and frantically dunking them into the ice bath to harden the sugar before the whole thing fused itself onto the plate.
They were not always successful
For those interested, the Frugal Gourmet Ancient Cuisines cookbook has a very good recipe for this. Just keep that ice water really close to the stove!
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I poked around a bit more, and I found a "hoi" reference related to the "smell of mutton"...dunno if the broth in question contained mutton or sheep fat?
I'm pretty sure that there wasn't any mutton in the broth. Although, I'm pretty sure that would tie into the whole "don't like the smell of it" comment. Are you sure you've got the right word? The only one I can think of is tỏi, which is garlic.
Hổi is steam/steaming/hot.
I'm sure that I got the word right because he wrote it down for me, and it looks exactly like the word you typed above.
I think the conclusion that I have come to is that he was just giving me the runaround to protect their secrets.
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Not wasting any time, I grabbed a copy of Andrea Nguyen's cookbook and tried out her pho ga recipe over the weekend and it's really good!
Per Kerry's note, I made sure I put in enough fish sauce even though I'm always terrified by how much recipes tell me to add, and after cooking, it really mellows out.
It's not the same as what I was looking for...but it'll do quite nicely.
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Thanks for the suggestion on the cookbook. I'll definitely check that out.
And, he was talking about a specific ingredient. From the sound of it, I would have guessed it was something along the lines of star anise, but I have no clue. He just told me they stopped adding it to their broth because "Americans don't like the smell of it"
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My local Vietnamese soup noodle spot recently changed their broth recipe! Unfortunately for me, the change is for the worse. So, now it's up to me to figure out how to recreate their broth at home.
In talking with the manager of the store, he told me that the main ingredient that they stopped putting in was something called "hoi" in Vietnamese. Written, the "o" has a line on top and a "^" underneath the line. So, top to bottom, it's -, ^, o. He didn't know the English name.
Can anyone tell me what this magical ingredient is?
And, if anyone has a good Vietnamese chicken broth recipe...
Thanks!
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This is why I love eGullet!
I saw this post just the other day and I knew that I had to try it.
I've been trying for years and years (and years!) to get that fluffy, soft bread for baked baos.
The best that I came up with was using a brioche dough recipe, but hated that I was loading up on the fat.
This technique works great and it gives you a nice soft bread without a ton of butter.
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In the "authentic" Chinese restaurants there probably isn't a huge difference. For instance, I've had dim sum in the East Coast, Midwest, West Coast, and in Canada and the differences are relatively minor. The bigger differences are between cities w/ larger Chinese populations and those with smaller ones.
thanks...I would have thought the same thing about "authentic" Chinese restaurants but the waitress said she and her husband simply do not like the taste of any West Coast (San Diego) Chinese restaurant food of any style of cooking...when I recently asked her again to explain why, she said that it did not taste good like NYC Chinese food!
I have also heard that Vancouver has some of the best Chinese restaurants outside of China itself...why would that be when San Francisco Chinatown has been around for so long or so much longer?
As someone who lives in San Diego and has traveled to many Chinatowns in the U.S, I have to totally agree with the waitress. San Diego chinese food does not measure up.
To make grossly exaggerated generalizations (yet perfectly valid in my mind
)...San Diego chinese food tends to be rooted in 1980's style Cantonese. Think sweet, cornstarch thickened, oyster-saucy, broccoli-studded food.We don't have a huge Chinese population in San Diego, so there isn't a great demand for authentic, regional Chinese dishes. So, you get what the (non-Chinese) public wants...orange chicken, lemon chicken, mongolian beef, peking pork chop, moo shu, etc.
My last trip to New York was a great example of the difference between the two cities. I went to a small noodle restaurant and ordered a Chow Fun. Within minutes (literally...it couldn't have been more than 5 minutes), I had a steaming plate of noodles in front of me with that wonderful smoky wok-hay smell drifing up to my nose. In San Diego, I probably would have waited 20 minutes and gotten a dish filled with pale, greasy, barely warm noodles...
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There is a small little strip mall on the corner of Lake Murray and Navajo that comprises of various business offices, donut shop, recording studio and a space for a restuarant. In recent past there have been a few that came and went and currently the space is occupied by a Thai restaurant called Basil Thai Bistro.
My wife and I were having a low key anniversary the other night and we decided to try this place out. Nicely decorated, nice table settings, friendly staff and a typical Thai menu. Neither of us were super hungry so we got the hot pot of Tom Kha with chicken, chicken larb and spicy basil beef with peppers. My wife got a Thai ice tea and I drank water. Her drink was super sweet. More so than I've tasted at other places. My water was actually refreshing and didn't taste like it came from the local lake and fortified with chemicals.
Now on to the food. First up with the Tom Kha. It was very rich compared to other places I've been. I liked it but I think it was somewhat overpowered with sweetness (trend?). I thought the balance of stock and coconut milk was very good as were the ingredients in the soup. I told my wife that this soup warms the belly. I don't feel that way too often but it really did. Had that down home cold weather cozy up to the fire with a bowl of hot soup feel to it.
Next up was the Chicken Larb. It was delicious. Chicken was not cut up as fine as I've done at home but wasn't an issue for me. The flavors were well balanced and they were not scared to make it spicy as it had a good bite to it. Finally the main item came. The sauce was tomato based (had it without a tomato type sauce before) and was very tasty. I asked for medium heat and I found small slices of probably 3-4 thai chilli peppers. Again, this place is not afriad to turn the heat up for you. I had a problem with this dish though. The beef was tough and dry...IOW, overcooked. It tasted like the beef has already been well cooked way ahead of time then thrown in the wok and cooked some more to make the complete dish. Dissapointed me.
All in all, I wouldn't mind going back to try other things. We both kinda liked this little place. It's not as good as Tamarind Thai in La Mesa but it was decent enough to try again.
My wife and I have gone to Basil Thai a couple of times. The setting is very cozy but a little dark for our taste, but would be good for a romantic night out.
The food was good the first time. We had ordered the Pad Thai with duck, which was actually very well cooked. The duck was really tender and flavorful. We also got the Mussaman curry with beef. While the curry sauce was good, the beef was overcooked and tough (a recurring theme?
)We went back a few weeks later, mainly because that duck was so good...but were disappointed when it came out tough and dry.
So, there may be some consistency problems with the kitchen.
We may go back, but probably not without one of those two-for-one coupons from the Reader.
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Don't know if this is too late or not, but for good Mexican food in the area, go to Fidel's in Solona Beach.
Probably the best sit-down Mexican restaurant in San Diego.
(Ducking down from the inevitable "Tony's better" retort...
)Fidel's
607 Valley Ave
(between Genevieve St & Juanita St)
Solana Beach, CA 92075
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Animals are sometimes injected before slaughter with substances (most often papain or other protease, or substances intended to aid the action of these proteases) to start the "tenderizing" or proteolysis of muscle protein.
That sentence may be one of the most alarming sentences that I've read in a long time!
Do you know how widespread this practice is?
The more I read about modern farm practices, the more I lean towards vegatarianism. I'm finding it harder and harder to justify eating meat when I know this kind of crap goes on...
A Bite of China
in China: Cooking & Baking
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I see it's already on youtube!
Need to brush up on my Chinese vocab though...