OnigiriFB

I love Koh Samui. I think I prefer it to Phuket. The only problem I had with Koh Samui was coming back on a teeny tiny boat in a monsoon. Ai yah. It would have been fun had my aunt let me hang out on the deck though. Instead I was stuck in the inside getting seasick. I would have loved seeing th som o in waffle cone. That sounds interesting. The bamboo leaves looks good I might have to try and recreate that one.

You just keep getting better and better.

I was thinking of making a reference to laap dancing, but I couldn't quite rise to the occasion. ← Rolls on the floor laughing until tears come out. OMG!

OMG! I love oliphaunts (bonus points if you know where that comes from). I really miss how much detail Thais can put into cutting fruit. I hated doing it when I was young because it takes time and is intricate but now I kind of wish I paid more attention. That be one NICE tent btw. Er, btw, I was surprised there was no comment on how phallic the spear looked in the laap.

LOL. I love the titles to your travelogues! Man, I miss Chiang Rai. I preferred it to Chiang Mai because it's sleepier. Peaceful. The north just smells different. I miss hearing jao where ever you went. My family always said the "sweeter" women came from the North. That sandwich was interesting. Do you know what was in it?

Hrm.. have you tried rubbing the pork skin/fat with baking soda? That's what they do in chinese pork belly. I think you rub the baking soda on and then let the pork dry in the fridge overnight. There's a good thread about it on the chinese forum. It might work for the chicarrones. I love those too so I"m interested in hearing what you come up with. Oh and the thing to help cut the pork fat/skin is to freeze it. I cuts easier when it's a bit frozen. You will still need a sharp knife though.

*shudders in horror* Tang... ewwwwww!

tripe, peaches, and cream

Ok that doesn't make sense to me. The drying in between stages. I've had better luck cooking frozen supermarket fries (sad I know) than I do really good home made ones. The fsf go straight from the freezer into the oil ice crystals and all. They still manage to come out crisp and stay crisp as opposed to my hmf. I will have to admit I'm a huge McD's fries junkie so that's the taste I'm trying to recreate when I make fries at home. The old style type pre-vegetarian outrage. God I miss those....

Knives. Hands down. I'll join AB in the don't touch my d*ck, don't touch my knives motto. I cherish my wustof. I hate cooking in someone's kitchen if they have shitty knives. I have seriously considered bringing my knives with me if I cook at other people houses. Pot and pans... could care less.

Is it possible to get a good fry by baking? Not that I am adverse to fried foods mind you but it does get messy.

I cook a lot but live alone so a lot of my food gets frozen. Do you like asian food? Most curries freeze well. So does rice.

Wow. Thank you for blogging. That was great to see. Estonia or any Russian area country hasn't been on my radar much but now I think it will have to go the list of places to go.

Do you have a good Asian market in your area? Preferably one that handles more southeast Asian cuisine than Japanese/Korean? Mae Ploy has both panang and green curry paste and simple recipes to follow. The key will be in what your area has to offer in produce and the like. The hot and sour prawn soup is simple but requires ingredients that can be hard to find. There are also pastes for it but they are not as good as from scratch, though they make a good quick tom yum goong.

Mai pen rai, kha. Is there a particular dish you are wanting to try out? I or a number of us here can help you get started.

Sawadee kha (thai for hello), Glad to hear the thai food bug has bit ya. I don't have my books out right now since I've just moved but I do use www.thaitable.com a lot. They have some good basic recipes for a lot of Thai stuff found in restaurants here and a few that aren't. I've made a few of their recipes and have no complaints. I'll be making the satay today for a super bowl party and it's always been a hit with everyone. Good luck. BTW until you get the flavors right I'd use May Ploy paste they do a very good job on their pastes.

I do it the way Batard learned. I pick up a gob (for lack of better terminology) put that in my mouth then pick up the trailing part and slurp that in. Gently and ladylike of course If you are doing soupy noodles and it comes with a chinese spoon you can also just lift out a gob, raise it high and settle the noodles into the bowl of the spoon, then eat off the spoon. My aunt, those proper hi-so ladies that they are, do this. Too knitpicky for me I can slurp with the best of them. Though the way my aunts do it is good if you want to get some soup with your noodles.

My parents have always obsessed about food. When they were living in Thailand, my father heard about a place famous for a particular dish, so he dragged my mother out to a filthy divey truck stop in the middle of nowhere to eat what turned out to be bull testicles. She was not happy. ← Wow that sounds familiar.

That sounds interesting. Is it an African recipe? I'd love to see it. I'm not a huge fan of peanut butter but I love unique flavors and different foods. I've never heard of a peanut butter soup before.

Oh? So the family is heading back to the great white expanse? Er.. ok well not so white and not so expanse in Vancouver but ya get the drift. What's Scud and Serena (and by extension you I'm sure) watching anime-wise? Has Serena seen Vampire Knight? That's my latest fav amongst the shoujo anime out. I still need to sit down and consume Bleach. It just scares me at the 180 episodes and counting thing. Put me in with the crowd that thought ya got lost... 'cept figured it was in the desert. Or I thought maybe the loss of no longer getting the food of Bkk had put you in a major funk. Good to know you are being a responsible family man instead. Quack? OOooooo duck, duck, goose? My favorite noodle dish is bamee bped second is bamee thom yum. Do you see a trend? Please tell me you are getting some bamee bped! Please????!!!!!

Mom used to make pork floss sandwiches (in white bread!) for our school lunches when I was a kid! Pork floss sushi, too! Mmmm...I think I need to open my brand new giant container of pork floss and have it with plain congee this week. That, a cube of fermented tofu, and an egg fried in a sauce of soy, water & sugar. I will eat the egg first, then pour the leftover sauce over my plain congee. Yum! ← Egg fried with water, soy and sugar? Could you elaborate a little? That sounds really good! The pork floss sushi sounds umm a bit odd though

Hmmm...could it have been dried pork or fish floss? That would give you the brown shredded texture, but not the fermented taste.... It's sort of sweet-salty from the soy, kind of soft & fluffy. Picture here ← Mmmmm pork floss. I can eat that solo. I've actually made congee just not to feel bad about eating gobs of pork floss(very high in bad stuff I believe). Yum. I like an omelet with siracha sauce, stir-fried morning glory/water spinach, pickled lettuce, and of course pork floss. That is my go to congee meal. *sigh* I think I know what I'll be having sometime this week. I have pad thai and galbi planned already so maybe end of this week. I'll try to post some pictures then.

This is great. I just got a chance to buy life Maryland blue crabs from my asian market last week. We don't get good LIVE crab here often so I thought I'd pick out a few fiesty ones. Um... I forgot one thing. I've never cooked live crab before. Dad was always the one to kill them. I dunked the poor still fighting the tongs fellows into hot boiling water and stupidly watched them cook to death. *shudder* It's going to take me awhile to get over that one. So anyway I took them out cracked them open, chopped them into pieces with the shells still there and stir-fried them. A common Thai stir-fry for crab treated this way is to used nam prik pao (roasted chili jam). I didn't have any so I ended up just using a bit of sugar and some red pepper flakes. Talk about YUM! Recipe kinda winged it but you can wing it too: 2 crabs boiled and cut up into pieces. (Leaving them in shell makes the dish interactive) 1 large onion sliced into half moons 4 cloves garlic minced 3 TBS chili flakes (or to taste) 2-3 tsp soy sauce 2-3 tsp fish sauce 2 tsp sugar 2 eggs, beaten Oil Heat oil in wok (or large frying pan). Stir-fry onions and garlic until fragrant and soft, add crab pieces. Season with soy sauce, fish sauce, and chili flakes. Stir-fry for a few minutes as crab already cooked. Add sugar, taste. Seasoning should be strong; spicy, sweet, salty. Add beaten eggs and stir fry until egg is done. There should be a good coating of eggy goodness on the crab pieces. If I had ginger I would have added a bit of that too at the beginning. This recipe was something I just came up with and winged. Seasoning can be changed. You will want to keep it sweet, salty, and spicy. A squeeze of lime would have made this dish divine. I didn't have any and it was awesome. Serve with freshly cooked jasmine rice. Devoured in 30 minutes before realizing I should have taken a picture for egullet. It's not that photogenic though but man was it good. I might even brave killing a few crabs again just to make it again. I steamed the crab right before I cooked it so was able to leave it partial cooked. If you used fully cooked crab then only stir-fry a minute before adding eggs. This recipe could easily be done with meaty crab legs. Hope someone tries it! Oh and this method works best for those who like to suck the succulent meat from the little bits and pieces of the shells. It is not a elegant dish as it's best eaten with the hands and many a sucking sounds will ensue!

Thai beef and probably Vietnamese beef isn't the best thing on earth. Last I knew Thailand imported beef from Australia and it was tasty. The home grown version not so much. Our cook used to a variation of this jerky except she deep fried it. I believe you use just regular round steak? Cut into LONG strips thinly. Maybe pound out a little. Marinate it and then let it dry in the sun if possible. If not then dehydrater. Fry and serve. Yum. The sticky version I believe is stir fried in honey and other sugary stuff with fish sauce and soy. Um.. some else take over cause I only remember the deep fried stuff. Talk about drool! Great with beer!