Kent Wang

It is painfully difficult to find on some sites the hours and locations.

Kaiser Penguin has additional thoughts on that. He claims it also works with fruit, having tried with dates. Now I need to get another iSi whipper.

I'm living in Shanghai now and have been to quite a few restaurants. I'm a bit busy still settling but hope to contribute a few things here. There's a Chinese website called DianPing.com which covers all of China and is a bit like Yelp with reviews of restaurants (and other stuff).

How does Havana Club Blanco Anejo compare to Flor de Cana White? Now I'm in China and can get Havana Club but no longer Flor de Cana so I can't do a side by side comparison.

The trouble with fresh fruit is that you have to haul it back out. The limes might get stinky, or get desiccated so quickly so that they don't, or you could burn them.

The photography looks even better than Under Pressure. Many of the photos feature pots, pans, and other equipment cut in half -- was that done in reality or just Photoshop? I'm excited to read about the rotary evaporator, centrifuges, and other equipment I could not possibly ever afford.

I have five of the exact same size plastic cutting boards. When one gets dirty, I don't have to stop and wash it, I get another one. Then they all go in the dishwasher.

Sam, I can't buy half of the rums on your list. All these are available in New York? Still a fair amount of it on the shelves in Texas. Better snap it up.

I think it's common in Mexico. Itanoni in Oaxaca City turns out them out fresh to order, and it's a pretty cheap place. It's really beautiful and delicious and the best tortilla I've ever had. I've been told that all over the countryside in Oaxaca you can find even better.

I think it's too watery. I do 75% vinegar, 25% water.

Prop a fine mesh strainer over the jigger. This doesn't work well with smaller jiggers, but better with e.g. the OXO 2 oz jigger with markings for each increment. I use the OXO for all my jiggering but find it especially useful for juicing, because you never know how much juice you're going to get. Or you could juice into a jigger then strain it as you're pouring it into your shaker.

Just shells (and heads). It started as 2.5 lbs of whole shrimp; not sure how much just the shell weight would be. I simmered in about 3 quarts of water, which means the pot is packed pretty solid with shells. This results in a very flavorful stock. If you did 4-5 quarts, it would still be pretty good. To make the shrimp butter, it wouldn't matter how much water you use because the brains all float to the top. If you're using a short and wide stock pot (like a dutch oven) it might be a good idea to transfer to a taller and narrower pot when chilling so the brains are only spread over a small area, so you don't have to use as much fat to trap it. I think any animal fat will work well as whenever I make a duck stock, for example, the fat on top ends up pretty hard and is easy to skim off. When dropping in the fat, you'll want to make sure it melts completely and then stir it up a bit so it's evenly distributed. I've tried toasting the shells but I find it makes the stock too toasty. If you like to suck on the heads before tossing them in the stock, I used to pan fry them in a cast iron skillet but found that the brains were getting a little burnt at the end. So now I pan fry for a few minutes then pour in water and let it cook to finish.

Thanks for the tip. I made a big batch (2.5 lbs of whole shrimp) of stock with the shells and heads (which I've sucked, but they still have quite a bit brains/tomalley left in them), strained out all the shells, dropped in a few tablespoons of chicken fat (I find that animal fat congeals better (harder) than butter and oils), and chilled it in the frige. The chicken fat collected at the top, trapping all the shrimp brains, which I then skimmed off. I then cooked some pasta with this "shrimp butter" and tossed in some sous vide shrimp (140F). The "butter" was incredible. It developed a consistency similar to alfredo sauce but was insanely shrimpy. This was the absolute best shrimp pasta I've ever had, maybe even the best preparation possible.

Is kaffir lime leaf an essential component to a green curry? I always put a bunch of it when I cook a green curry at home, but restaurants in the US don't seem to use them, perhaps because of their rarity or cost?

Instead of canned green beans, why not just use fresh haricots verts? They're not entirely the same, but better in every way! I think canned green beans taste awful. They're too soft, and have that wretched canned taste. Too bad every Southern cuisine restaurant prefers to use them.

I've ordered chicken on a few occasions in Central Texas. Sam's in Austin, which is otherwise a pretty good place, regularly turns out barely edible, dry as a bone chicken. Snow's in Lexington (TX) has been the only place I've had good chicken, no sauce, smokey and juicy. But only the first time I ordered it. Second visit was sub-par and dry.

Dried fruits does seem like a good idea. The ones at the store all have sulfur dioxide added to "preserve color and taste". Is there any problem with using that stuff? The health concerns aren't a big deal to me, but does it affect the taste? Drying your own fruits sounds pretty good to me. I think a electric dehydrator would be a good way to go about it so that you don't apply any heat to it, which might change the flavor. Can you clarify this part? If you freeze concentrate, then the alcohol separates out? What do you do with the resulting syrup? I suppose you could mix it again with the infusion at service. Which press did you buy? How much did it cost?

I think it's going to be hard to predict what ABV you're going to arrive at after infusing. I double-infuse strawberries and I fill the container all the way full with them then add rum. As an estimate, at least half the volume is strawberries. Yet I don't feel the end result tastes significantly diluted. I'm mostly sure that it's above 20%. Still, I keep it all in the fridge. Are there are any other reasons to do so?

Nope. Though you think they would. Or open a branch in Houston or Dallas, or New York! A lot of these guys are pretty old-fashioned and just not interested in opening more locations.

Wait, are you saying that you eat it raw?

These are farmed American white shrimp. It's red when it's raw and even redder when cooked. I find that the redness is a good indicator of freshness. I doubt it's roe as every shrimp has them, not just females. I suppose a good appetizer would be just a bowl of these heads. I always buy head on, shell on shrimp. The shells and heads (minus the brains I've sucked out) go into a stock. Of course you can never suck all the brains out so there's always a fair amount of brain juice in the stock, making it all the more delicious. One problem with the brains in the stock is that when you boil it the brains foam up and get stuck to the side of the pot, so maybe less than half of the brains actually end up your soup or whatever.

What is the delicious red stuff in shrimp heads? I presume it's brains, but is it perhaps tomalley? The taste is similar to crab and lobster tomalley. This is why I always buy head-on shrimp. I quickly pan-fry the heads in a cast-iron skillet, suck all the brains out, and toss the remains into a shrimp stock. I wonder if it's possible to efficiently scoop out the brains in order to make some kind of extremely decadent dish. I hear it's high in cholesterol. Are there any other health concerns?

I live in Austin and I agree with you. Sam's BBQ is the best in town. I also hear good things about Franklin but haven't been yet.

Cooper's has a location in Mason that is actually the original and some say is better than the Llano. I've only been once and was very hungry and did think it was better than Llano, but would not say so authoritatively.

I often read comments saying that a certain pizzeria's dough is more flavorful than another. How is this possible? The only acceptable seasoning seems to be salt, and presumably not very much of it.