nakji

Bruce! Thank you! This curry rocked my world! I think the key here was the use of chicken stock - I used Maggi powder, and it was seriously authentic. I'm quoting your picture because my camera has been broken for months. My contribution: Saveur's Greek Mac n' Cheese. I made it for my husband, who craves feta. I made it without the dill, because I can't remember the last time I saw fresh dill. It still rocked.

Oh, do you put tomatoes in your mac n' cheese? I read about doing that a while back, never got around to it, and then forgot completely about it. Thanks for reminding me that I wanted to try it. You must have a huge field of tomatoes in the summer. I recently tried the Greek mac n' cheese from Saveur that rocked. Do you ever freeze the whole pockets? It looks like they would be great for quick breakfasts in the morning.

My co-workers all drink instant coffee, as well. They love it - and they're British. I think workplace drip coffee is a North American luxury. (One that I miss!) I switched to tea during the day over the last two years since I no longer have ready access to filter coffee. Here's my set-up: Lock n' Lock tea flask with strainer insert to keep the leaves back - I put leaves in at the beginning of the day and refill with hot water as the day goes on. I use tea of a quality that stands up to this. Usually the second and third cup are the best. I use the water cooler for water - it's set to a tea-optimizing temperature, just below boiling. The teacher's offices have nice coolers, but the rest of the school rocks it old school style with traditional Chinese pink or green thermoses.

I've got a Taiwan Tung Ding Oolong in my tea flask. It was a gift from a student, and I'm enjoying it a lot. It reminds me of a Tie Guan Yin, but with a more assertive clove flavour.

For me, 2010 was a year of Chinese teas. I learnt more about Tie Guan Yin and other Chinese Oolongs; Long Jing; and Bi Luo Chun. This year I might start looking at Pu'er; I'm still quite intimidated by it. I'd also like to find a steady source of Taiwan-style traditional Oolongs.

I've heard that it's all in the practice. Like, make a pie a week for 30 years, and you eventually get good at it. I guess I should get started! I would be interested in seeing pictures of the birds or the deer being broken down (graphic, I know) from whole animal to cookable carcass. Especially the birds. My markets will kill me a fresh chicken or duck, but they always take it off somewhere else to dress it.

Thank you, V. gautam; as ever, fascinating and informative responses. The sugar is new to me, but in retrospect makes perfect sense as it will draw out moisture and help with carmelization, no? The cauliflowers I have to work with are nowhere near as big as the ones I saw in Canada, but nevertheless are quite white and round. I slice them in largeish florets, but thinly. Less satisfying are the potatoes available, which manage the near impossible feat of being both granularly floury AND mushy. But I soldier on. Interesting from an academic standpoint, but I came late to Indian food. My only exposure to it was a childhood friend with Punjabi parents, who made poori for us as after school snacks. There were no Indian takeaways in my suburb growing up. I had my first real exposure to "curries" in Hong Kong at the ChungKing Mansions, and I have no nostalgia for them. Although they do taste good, in situ.

You know, what I really need is a primer on pie crust. I love meat pies - they're pretty much the only time I make pie, actually - but I can never get the crust right. Shelby, I totally understand your desire to use boxed crust - but I can't even get those to work! Every recipe I see always seems to call for far to little water for me to bring the pastry together. And most recipes warn direly of using too much water, so I'm afraid to add more. Instead of a smooth, well integrated piece of pastry like you've rolled out above, I get this sad little bumpy disk that's breaking apart at the edges like a coral atoll. I've tried rolling it out in wax paper; I've tried the twenty minute rest in the fridge. Help a girl out - how did you do that?

I'm mostly interested in finding out what people would call the items in English, by consensus. Almost everything green where I am seems to be called "qingcai" by locals, with no further specificity.

Excellent. I love the box of Zhong Xin Hai cigarette pack as a size reference. Perhaps we should adopt those as a standard unit of measurement? Those leeks are what I call negi, mainly because I don't know the Chinese name. I'm assuming people in the West may call these "baby" leeks. Unlike full-on Welsh leeks, they don't seem to collect grit, and I happen to think they also make a fine leek and potato soup. The really small green onions seem to perish almost immediately, don't they? They get thrown in for free when I buy veg at the street market, but I never buy them myself. I'll go next: Size: roughly one-and-a-half Zhong Xin Hai Ｌocals call these qing cai 青菜, which I believe translates to "green vegetable". What would an English-speaker call these?

Maybe we need an Asian green taxonomy topic.

Coming in late here, but if this is what I think it is, it goes by the name "hang cheong sal" in Korean barbecue. And a very succulent meat it is, too. Baron, as ever, your pastry skills shame me. What inspires you to make the elaborate patterns? Do you use a boiled water crust?

What was the best meal you ate in 2010? Who were you with, what did you have, and why was it so memorable? I'll go first: Where: Macau When: February 2010 What: African chicken, Macanese sausage and peppers, Shrimp fried noodles. Who: My husband and I Why: We'd just gotten off the ferry from Hong Kong with the idea of spending the day wandering around the old streets, churches, and ruins. The weather, however, DID NOT co-operate, and when got off the bus from the ferry terminal to the downtown, the skies opened up. Early lunch? Sure. We checked our guidebook and found a place called Sol Mar right around the corner from the small patch of dried sidewalk we'd staked out under an eave, so we girded our umbrellas and ran. We were the first ones to the restaurant, and since it was the start of the Lunar New Year, the first part of the meal began with the sounds of the staff nailing up the New Year's couplets and positioning the cherry blossom and mandarin trees. This got less annoying and more amusing as we put back a half bottle of extremely dry white wine and ate soft white buns, and waited for our African Chicken. When it came out, it was, and I'll quote myself here, There was something about the old-school service, the genteel atmosphere with the sense of being on holiday right before everyone else goes on holiday, no doubt heightened by the sensation of getting wine-drunk before noon, that just made this meal stick in my mind the most.

I'd find it hard to cook for two if I had a whole deer too!! I assume you have a very large freezer and an excellent labeling system in place.

I would like three plates, please. If I give you my address, will you overnight them to me? And is that the cold oil french fry method from M. Robuchon we see in action?

ITA on the dry aloo gobi. My favourite restaurant offers both versions, and I always choose dry - it's the crunchy bits that make it, I think. I find deep-frying large batches of cauliflower and potato tedious, but oven baking them might be a good idea while I sweat the onions and the spices.

Oh, incredible. I had a 5-kilo turkey for Christmas to feed 15, which cost me 80 USD imported - and you get them free wandering around your neighborhood! Sometimes I miss a big plate of lean meat. Do you eat all the meat you catch in season, and then preserve it for the rest of the year, or do you give any away?

Excellent suggestion. There's a beef soup place next to my work which makes wonderfully fresh naan bread in an oil drum; the perfect accompaniment. Ginger condiment! I have several lemons and stems of fresh ginger in the kitchen right now. I know what's for lunch.

I have the UK version of the book, which calls for "baby leeks". It may be different in the US version, but I interpreted "baby leeks" to mean ones the size of negi. All I have to go on is the Wikipedia entry, where they also seem to be called "Chinese leeks". Confused yet?

And how they made Pa try and guess what the pie was made of, and he couldn't? Reminds me of Ritz's Mock Apple pie. Laura Ingalls Wilder should be included on lists of great American food writers.

Is there a seasonal limit on the number he can take? What kind of birds, and does he also get rabbits? My father was a keen rabbit and deer hunter when I was a kid, but I remember hating game. Now I quite like it, but I haven't the faintest on how to prepare any of it.

2010 Recipe Challenge topic From last year's topic: Right, I've got fourteen recipes bookmarked on my EatYourBooks bookshelf, including: From Revolutionary Chinese cookbook by Fuchsia Dunlop: Changsha cold-tossed noodles Spiced pork noodles Yueyang hot-dry noodles From Beyond the Great Wall, by Duguid and Alford Tibetan ginger-tomato chutney Laghman sauce for noodles Chicken and noodles, Tuvan style Hui tomato-lamb noodle soup Sticky rice and sausage Hmm, a lot of noodles there. What has everyone else got tabbed, marked, highlighted or folded over?

Recipes that Rock 2008 Recipes that Rock 2009 Recipes that Rock 2010 It's 2011 and we're continuing our ongoing quest of finding recipes that, well, Rock. Rockingness is defined as a recipe that is either new or only new to you; and that left your socks somewhere on the floor and a considerable distance from your feet.

Are these similar to Japanese "onsen tamago" - slow cooked, semi-set eggs?

Can I say that I enjoyed the kitchen supply district near Dotombori in Osaka more? I thought it had a wider selection of items, and it was less spread-out. Chris is right about tea/coffee. In Tokyo, especially on the weekends, there are very few places to sit down.　Ｃｏｆｆｅｅ　ｓｈｏｐｓ　ｌｉｋｅ　Ｓｔａｒｂｕｃｋｓ　ｗｉｌｌ　ｌｉｋｅｌｙ　ｂｅ　ｃｏｍｐｌｅｔｅｌｙ　ｆｕｌｌ，　ｅｓｐｅｃｉａｌｌｙ　ｉｎ　ｐｏｐｕｌａｒ　ａｒｅａｓ．