C. sapidus

Nishla: Your mapo dofu looks delicious. I can see how red bell peppers would add a sweet crunch. What kind of tofu did you use? Marcia: Nice looking dinners - I hope you can soon start kicking back at life. The baked acorn squash with maple, cinnamon, and butter sounds especially good – a vegetable and dessert, all in one. Not the most photogenic dish, but we made Vietnamese chicken, lemongrass, and potato curry (ca-ri ga). Leftovers were wonderful for breakfast with a little sambal oleek and fish sauce. More info here (click). To accompany, Mrs. C. made a salad and roasted asparagus with Poblano chiles and red bell peppers. Jasmine rice.

Judith: That Indian-style seafood chowder looks scrumptious. I have added it to my ever-growing must-make list. I’m glad that you were feeling well enough to enjoy it. Susan, Pam, and Judith: Thanks to all of you for sharing a soupy and delightful week, with nature’s bitter cold outside and the warmth of hearth and home inside. Get well or stay well, as the case may be.

Funny, I did sort of the opposite - I added the potatoes early to be sure they were done, but the chicken thighs took longer than expected to cook through. I kept the curry on a low simmer, so the chicken stayed juicy and the potatoes remained intact.

Hmm, am I the only one cooking Vietnamese food? Anyway, tonight we made chicken, lemongrass, and potato curry from Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. Saute a paste of lemongrass, ginger and onion before adding curry powder and chile flakes. When the spices release their flavors, add skinless bone-in chicken thighs, coconut milk, salt, and black pepper. Simmer for a while before adding cubed potatoes. When the potatoes are tender and the flavors meld, serve with lime wedges. Despite similarities to a Thai or Indian curry, this dish’s flavors were more subtle (and kid-friendly, an important factor at our house). We also had a tossed salad on the side. Into the Vietnamese Kitchen has clear, concise instructions with just the right amount of detail. As an example, the ingredients list specifies Three stalks of lemongrass yielded much less than 2/3 cup chopped, so I knew to add more lemongrass. This probably explains why the lemongrass flavor has been overly subtle in recipes that I have made from other cookbooks. Ca-ri ga with jasmine rice and roasted asparagus, bell peppers, and Poblano chiles ETA: a little sambal oleek and fish sauce made the leftovers really sing at breakfast.

Dangit, Susan, that looks really good! Our boys don't have their "kaosoi legs" yet, and coconut milk isn't very WW-friendly, so we will need to find guests willing to be the subject of a kaosoi experiment. Hmm, I wonder what my bro is up to - he doesn't mind being a guinea pig, especially for Thai food . . . So, do tell about your fondness for kao soi (beyond the fact that it looks delicious, of course). Pam: Um, perhaps a meteorological Freudian slip? After this winter, I hope you get more than an 8-10 minutes of summer. And thanks for the tutorial - your dinner looks delicious.

Susan: We're waiting . . . (tap tap tap). If you can, please include pictures of how you make kao soi - I would truly love to learn. By the way, thanks to all of you for making our morning's temperature of 0 degrees F (-18 degrees C) seem balmy. Keep up the good work!

Judith: Ooh, that sounds really good! I have wanted to try snapper for a while, so I was pleasantly surprised to see frozen snapper fillets in the store last night. We pan-seared the fillets and topped them with sauteed red onion, ginger, garlic, and chilies, with a glaze of soy sauce, black soy, black pepper, Chinkiang vinegar, and a pinch of sugar. This has become our go-to recipe for fish (chuan-chuan, from James Oseland’s Cradle of Flavor). We also stir-fried Napa cabbage with chiles, Sichuan peppercorns, and sesame oil, a variation of a recipe from Land of Plenty. Simple and good.

Pepper and salt shrimp with Thai basil; stir-fried cabbage with edamame and oyster sauce; cucumbers; and rice. Edited to add basil.

Hydrogen is like electricity - it is a energy carrier, not an energy source. You must generate electricity before making hydrogen. That electricity must be generated from a primary energy source - coal, gas, nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, . . .

Dejah: I can see why #36 was popular. Good luck with Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, and Curry Cuisine sounds like fun. Please post your thoughts after you get a chance to cook from your new books. Looking forward to your pork belly, too!

Capriotada (Mexican rum-spiked bread pudding) with dried fruit, nuts, and feta cheese. The syrup had anise, allspice, cinnamon, apple juice, and brown sugar. Me ‘n the boys expect insulin shock to kick in shortly.

Planting a fruit tree is the most CO2-friendly food-related action that you could possibly take. Wood locks up CO2 until the tree dies and decomposes, returning CO2 to the atmosphere. Of course, planting a fruit tree is not exactly cooking, and hard to do in an apartment. Based on our energy bills, cooking is a relatively small contributor to energy usage. Commuting to work and heating, cooling, and lighting the house typically uses a lot more energy than cooking. Rather than changing cooking methods, you can probably reduce CO2 emissions more effectively by moving closer to work (or carpooling, taking public transportation, etc.), adjusting your home thermostat, and installing compact fluorescent lighting. Cooking with electricity generated by generated by wind, solar, or nuclear power plants results in very low CO2 emissions. Some utilities allow consumers to choose the source of their energy (often at somewhat increased cost). Of cooking methods, induction probably uses energy most efficiently. Interesting question!

Oh. My. Goodness. Wow. Mmm. That looks like an incredible array of food. And yes, I am now curious about what Masaman curry ice cream tastes like. Did you use a base of milk or coconut milk?

Omelet filling: garlic, shallots, chilies, lemongrass, basil, fish sauce, hoisin sauce, and green curry paste, sauteed until soft. Topping: hoisin sauce, Sriracha, chile oil, and basil chiffonnade. Not my best job of omelet-flipping, but nice flavors.

Fried Rice Friday: eggs, leftovers, and remainders (rice, bacon, Thai basil, chicken, green curry paste, scallions and garlic). Lime wedges, cukes, and Sriracha at the table, and tart, crisp apples on the side. Yum, and an empty fridge.

Ah, yes, but the “snuggle in the fridge for several days” part is the problem for me. That, and I have the typical male inability to find things in a less-than-relentlessly-organized refrigerator. DS#2 loves store-bought sweet gherkins, the sweeter the better. I have printed your instructions - the cloves and allspice sound delicious. Hmm, perhaps I can interest DS#2 in a cheater pickle project . . . Broom. Mop. I'm listening to the voice of experience.

As always, your rich imagery and well-turned phrases cause considerable delight. Growing up, my best friend’s father made pickles and tied his own fly-fishing lures. Somehow, those two activities seemed to spring from a common source. Younger son loves sweet pickles, but tonight spat out a dill pickle with disgust. Apparently sour and dill conflicted with his sweet expectations. By disposition, I am unsuited to pickling. A confirmed planner in most other aspects of life, I cook for immediate gratification. Current activity to address future hunger does not come naturally. The closest that I come to pickling is making Thai/Vietnamese/Sichuan cucumber salads – sort of an instant pickle, with rice vinegar, salt, sugar, and chilies. When asked why she emigrated to America, my British-born mother responded, “Because it was always cold.”

Um, grubs in wood shavings?

Gruzia: Welcome to the Dinner! thread – your chicken in red curry sauce looks delicious. What do you think of Great Curries of India? We made grilled chicken (ga nuong), grilled zucchini, and jasmine rice with salt, pepper, and lime dipping sauce (muoi tieu chanh), from Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. More information in the Vietnamese food thread (post #252 - click).

Grilled chicken (ga nuong), grilled zucchini, and jasmine rice with salt, pepper, and lime dipping sauce (muoi tieu chanh), from Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. We deboned skin-on chicken thighs, marinated the chicken (and the zucchini) in black pepper, fish sauce, lime juice, salt, sugar, and peanut oil, and then grilled the chicken (skin-side down) and the zucchini over medium-high heat. The dipping sauce was white pepper, salt, lime juice, and muddled chilies. Everyone loved the chicken, and even my zucchini-indifferent spouse loved the zucchini.

New York Times: Guide to Choosing a Ripe Pineapple I usually sniff the base of the yellowest pineapples, and buy the one with the best aroma. Seems to work pretty well. Have you ever tried the half-sheet paper towels? The rolls last a lot longer for us.

Little Miss Foodie: Isn’t that HSSS pomelo salad delicious? We made it once – it was time-consuming but worth it. Nishla: Definitely make a bucket, and, um, send over another bucket of the arugula walnut pesto pasta. A very late semi-pseudo-Thai dinner tonight. Surprisingly good, although our judgment may have been impaired by hunger and a bottle of viognier. Fish fillets with viognier, coconut milk, green curry paste, fish sauce, and Thai basil (from James Peterson's Fish & Shellfish). Wilted spinach with blood orange vinegar and more of the green curry sauce.

This is wonderful – I’m learning a lot. We rarely use a whole chicken, so stock is usually a byproduct of poaching chicken for Chinese appetizers (ma la chicken, chicken in red oil sauce, etc.). The only aromatics are a piece of bruised ginger and a couple of scallions. Mrs. Crab does make chicken stock from rotisserie chicken carcasses, though. Susan – (if I’m not too late) Kao soi! Kao soi! (ba mi sounds good, too). Kao soi! Congrats on conquering sourdough, too. How did you get your starter? Pam – I like the look of your shopping list! The photo mélanges are really nice, too – probably greatly appreciated by those with a slow internet service. Judith – I hope you feel very much better very soon.

Malaysian pan-seared fish fillets with slivered red onion, chiles, ginger, and garlic (chuan-chuan), from Cradle of Flavor. The sauce was the pan juices mixed with soy and black soy sauce, black pepper, and a touch of sugar, finished with rice vinegar. Jasmine rice and cucumbers on the side. The recipe calls for mackerel, but we used frozen fillets. The topping is delicious on any fish - I would love to bottle the aroma of sauteeing onions, garlic, and ginger as an eGullet perfume.

Like Kerry, I consider myself “soup impaired.” The family loves soup, so I am excited to see what the talented trio of bloggers produces this week. You have probably made coconut chicken soup (tom kha gai), which would stoke the internal fires nicely. Andrea Nguyen has a delicious Napa cabbage and shrimp soup (click). Adding rice makes the soup more suitable for a northern climate (maybe on one of your warmer days ). Susan: Drywalling (and even thinking about drywalling) is completely incompatible with a clean house, so you are off the hook.