nakji

Do you ever pan sear vegetables like mushrooms, or eggplant, or similar? Eggplant, finished with a bit of miso-sake-garlic-ponzu pan sauce might be a neat spin on dengaku eggplant.

This week, I made a batch up for a macaroni and cheese for a friend stuck in the hospital in serious need of comfort food. She said she wanted carbs. "Done." I said. Whole milk; butter; extra sharp New Zealand cheese. Otherwise, I usually only make it up in the winter if I'm making a cream of broccoli soup or chicken pot pie. I probably only make three or four times a year, if that.

Mmm, bitter melon. With spam and eggs. Breakfast of champions.

Is it a farmer's market or just a community market? What a luxury to have a market during the week!

Yeah, a drop of Chinkiang vinegar last night probably would have cut the saltiness. Note for next time. I was trying to think of other sauces that could be made with condiments like gochujang... Chili cream sauce maybe?

Those finks! Hopefully there are some decent sections on regions other than Sichuan, Hunan, other usual suspects...

One of my favourite restaurants in Hanoi served their salsa/guac with banh trang! They're great together, aren't they? I love using what you have on hand. I mentioned over in the Small-batch pickles topic that I had made the pickled tomatoes from this month's Saveur - they're going really well on the side of grilled meats, if anyone is finding they're over-run with small tomatoes.

My mother loves those in pie. I wonder if you could make tarts with the jam?

I tried an Asian-inspired pan sauce last night. I pan-seared a couple of pork loin steaks that had been marinated in soy and green onion powder. I was going to just pull them out of the pan and serve them with ssamjang, but when I saw the sear marks in the pan, I thought, "Hmm." So I deglazed with the end of a bottle of Shaoxing, threw in some chopped garlic for garniture de base, then a tablespoon of miso for fond - then finally - and I should really be posting this over on the "Hall of Shame" topic - some Kewpie sesame dressing as a liaison. (What can I say? I've been trying to use up the ends of my condiment bottles before leaving my apartment for a month) I'm happy to say this strange experiment turned out salty, but delicious. A little less miso, next time; and possibly sesame paste instead of dressing for the finisher, I may have a winner.

Rice vinegar and msg? Aren't those the secret ingredients?

OooH! What's in it? Any recipes of note?

Cool. David, what do you use yours for?

Raw beans (I usually have either French or snake beans) were a taste I had to acquire. The first time I tried them in a som tam, I wasn't really enthused, but the more I ate that particular dish, the more I came to appreciate the bitterness and crunch. I'll always associate them with Thai salads, though.

How have you cooked them so far? Fried or in stews, or roast?

Update: the tomatoes are incredibly good; I'm having some with eggs for breakfast. Very garlicky, and the fennel adds a nice note. Definitely worth making if you have some cherry tomatoes on hand.

Sounds like a project! I make my own yogurt once a week - I start off with a small pot of natural yogurt from the shop - no idea what kind it is, as the label only identifies it as sugar-free. It may use gelatine to stabilize, as the yogurt it yields when I make it is never as firm as the original pot. I usually make around 500ml using a tablespoon or so to start. I've never used my "made" yogurt to start a new batch, as I was worried about generation loss, if you will. The idea of making yogurt cheese balls out of it never crossed my mind. I'm going to pick up a jelly bag and cheesecloth when I go back to Canada, and make this a project for the fall. Any idea how long the labneh keeps in oil in the fridge?

It could be, although I've never cooked bang bang chicken before, or looked at a recipe. Isn't it meant to use sesame paste instead of peanut butter? The other main differences I would think is the inclusion of paprika, which is quite mild, and grated coconut, which definitely gives it a non-Chinese flavour and texture - at least to my limited experience.

For those who want a fix of ti punch and similar, Rhumerie Bounty has opened up near the French Concession in the Jing An temple area on Wuding Lu. Ignore the pirate theme and enjoy the rum and friendly service. We only had time for a quick drink on our last trip, so I couldn't see what was being poured, but I'm planning a follow-up visit for further investigation.

So you line the spinner with the muslin, then spin the yogurt to extract the whey? Interesting. How much do you usually do at a time?

He climbed it - and hung over, too, damn him. He'd spent the previous night at a banquet thrown by the family that employs one of our friends as a private tutor. I can only imagine the cigarettes and moutai they'd gone through. He admits to taking the cable car back down, though. Do you mean the "squirrel-shaped fish" - the whole fish deep-fried and cut into a porcupine shape? I've had it at several banquets here in the Jiangsu area, but I've never been happy with the quality of fish used. It tastes like mud. It's an impressive-looking dish, though.

What, exactly, is a chicken ring?

Aren't they meant to be a crispy/crunchy textural note anyway? Now that I've had fresh bamboo shoot, I could never go back to the tinned kind. The Vietnamese preserved ones are great, but they definitely have a particular flavour to them (great with pork and black pepper). If I were making this dish without access to fresh bamboo, I'd probably sub in woody asparagus ends or similar to imitate the taste and texture of fresh bamboo. Or leave them out altogether.

About how much liquid yogurt do you need to start with to yield a bottle full of labneh balls?

Nice! Pink cauliflower would be somewhat disconcerting, though. I love Harumi's recipes for this reason - she rarely has recipes with many ingredients; she often puts together really common things in combinations you'd never thought of before. Glad you enjoyed them - now I think I need to make another batch. I tried pickling the tomatoes from the Saveur recipe as I mentioned up-topic. I used some local cherry tomatoes, garlic, dried bay, pepper corns, and since I didn't have any peperoncini or fresh dill, I substituted fresh red chilies and fennel seed. I'll try them tomorrow to see how they've come out.

Earlier in the year, I visited Macau for the first time and tried this dish, not at the famous Harry's, but at another restaurant, Solmar. I enjoyed it so much that I didn't want to have to wait to get back to Macau to try it again. HKDave let me know that he posted a recipe for this in our Recipe Gullet forum - and in this topic, it looks like. It's a bit of a process to make, so I invited over some friends and made it a bit of a "World Cup" event - watching the South African-hosted event in China seemed a good excuse to try a "fusion" dish like this. My South African friend seemed puzzled by its so-called "African" roots, but conceded it was delicious anyway. Also: I used a whole bottle of paprika. Never done that before; with my Anglo-Saxon roots a bottle of paprika, purchased for dusting the tops of devilled eggs and potato salads, can last for years. First stage: Marinate the chicken pieces. I bought a whole bird and cut it up myself, suing my cleaver; a first time for me. As I was making the marinade, I realized I had no five spice powder. It was late on a Saturday night, and the markets were all shut, so I couldn't run out for some. Fortunately, I had all the fives spices on hand, so I whizzed some up in my blender. Second Stage: Use the chicken back to make stock. I had the spine and the back of the chicken left from the carcass, so I made two batches of rich stock, using some chicken feet I had in the freezer. Third Stage: Grill. About three hours before guests are due over. Unfortunately, it decides to rain. My doughty husband stands outside with an umbrella over the grill, tending the chicken. The umbrella is now infused with a rich smoked chicken smell, making it unusable for any task now except for walking to a restaurant. Fourth Stage: Sauce. It takes about 30 minutes to get everything chopped to the correct size. I decide to add some fresh ginger in a half ratio to the garlic, because I like ginger. A half cup of garlic takes a long time to chop. At this time, I also quickly roasted two potatoes in the toaster oven. Fifth Stage: Amalgamation. The completed chicken goes into the sauce. The recipe calls for a bake in the oven, but since it was 35 degrees out, I bunged the chicken into the wok I'd built the sauce in, turn the heat low, and covered it for a half hour. To go along with this I made plain rice with the leftover chicken stock, and a green salad with a lemon-olive oil dressing. And we had lots and lots of bread. I thought I'd have some left over for lunch the next day, but no dice. All bones were stripped, and all the sauce was gone, swept away on a sea of bread. It was a feast. And Paraguay won, keeping my husband alive in his pool. Thanks for posting that recipe, HKDave; I have a feeling this chicken will become a bit of a party trick for me from now on.