C. sapidus

What does "bougie" mean? ← Pretentious; excessively aspiring (clicky). Derived from bourgeois.

Corn chowder with leeks and potatoes, from Vegetables Everyday. Thinly-sliced leeks sauteed in butter and simmered with corn kernels, diced potatoes, milk, and corn broth (made by simmering the stripped corncobs in water). Buzzed with a stick blender (leaving some texture) and finished with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley. Turned out very nicely, and I look forward to making this soup with fresh corn next summer.

We feed canned green beans to our dogs to maintain their weight. Consequently, our boys consider canned green beans to be dog food. You can imagine the results when friends invited us for dinner and served nicely-sauteed fresh green beans. Son: “What is this?” Me: “Green beans.” Son: “But that’s dog food!” Me: We have a temporary teenaged daughter for the next few months. She has many fine qualities, but canned corn is the only vegetable that she eats without drama. Makes me appreciate our boys’ progress.

I just read through this thread and it looks like you had some great food. I was particularly taken with the tom ka kha gai at Lotus of Siam: That's just how I love this soup -- with a roasted chile paste oil slick floating on rich, fragrant coconut milk.

Our high school chemistry class made esters with n-butyric acid (clicky), the compound that gives rancid butter its distinctive foul odor. The rancid butter stench traveled from the chemistry lab, down the stairwell, and into the cafeteria. This made lunch period pretty unpleasant for a few days each year. Amazingly, butyric acid esters have lovely, fruity aromas. Ahh, fun with chemistry. I had the dubious pleasure of smelling n-butyric acid once before high school. We moved when I was in middle school, and the previous homeowner had forgotten to empty the butter tray before turning off the refrigerator. The house must have remained empty for many weeks because opening the refrigerator door released a memorable stench. I seriously doubt that anyone not afflicted with anosmia would have eaten that particular stick of butter.

Carrot soup with orange and ginger. Good stuff.

I made cream of curried pea soup tonight. Frozen peas, curry powder, chicken stock and thinly-sliced onion, carrot, celery, potato, and garlic. Simmer until tender, buzz with a stick blender, and add cream. Perfect for dosing children with extra vegetables on a weeknight.

Sounds like a wonderful trip, thanks for documenting. I particularly enjoyed the abundant greens . . . . . . floating market . . . . . . chiles, of course . . . . . . rice paddy in the mist . . . . . . geometric fish . . . . . . and gorgeous scallops . . . . . . and of course I would love to have tried all of the food. Just curious -- did you try the horseshoe crabs?

Lovely albondigas, Kalypso. Manchamanteles in progress. This is the same Rick Bayless recipe we made upthread, but simplified. The previous batch, with fried plantains and a mix of ancho and pasilla chiles, turned out much better. Still, not bad, and I like the mix of pork shoulder, chicken, chorizo, and pineapple with spicy-sweet mole. We sprinkled thinly-sliced pickled jalapenos over the manachamanteles before serving.

Any port in a storm, but Sriracha has a fair amount of sugar and water so you may need to make some adjustments elsewhere.

Yup, that's the one, and I admire your finesse. Thanks for the kind words, bloosquirrel, and I hope the recipe turns out well for you. If you like cooking Sichuan food, I strongly recommend Fuchsia Dunlop's book. Do you have a good source for Sichuan peppercorns?

I am certainly not Mr. Oseland, but I would not make rendang in a crock pot or pressure cooker because those items of cookware are sealed to retain moisture. Rendang tastes so flavorful because the slow, open simmering evaporates all of the water from coconut milk, allowing the meat to brown in a rich mixture of coconut oil, coconut milk solids, and curry paste. A pressure cooker or crock pot might work for stews or curries where evaporation is not needed to concentrate flavors.

Looking at your floor plan, it seems that the corner of the dining room closest to the stove wall would be the best place to add storage to your kitchen. This space would be convenient to your main prep area while avoiding the problem of narrowing the passageway to your balcony. What do you have in this space now, and can it be rearranged?

Dinner from Mexican Everyday. Edited to add: We used frozen broth from last week's pollo deshebrado in both dishes. Chileatole rojo de pollo, with potatoes and green beans. Yes, it looks like chileajo but tastes rather different. Arroz Poblana with black beans and fried plantains

Steamed fish with fried garlic and ginger (bplah neung gkratiem jiow, from Dancing Shrimp). Topped with slivered chiles and a mixture of fish sauce, soy sauce, and sugar. The most time-consuming step was chopping a whole head of garlic. I could see this becoming a go-to fish recipe for weeknights. Stir-fried mushrooms, snow peas, and Napa cabbage (pad pak). We stir-fried the mushrooms in the scented oil from frying garlic and ginger, added the other vegetables, and finished the dish with fish sauce and fermented soybean paste (Snowangel’s “baby poop sauce” ). Served with jasmine rice. Our carnivorous boys awarded 7 out of 10 points for the fish and greens.

menuinprogress, beautiful steak! How did you like the channa ni dar? jfrater, all-you-can-eat rabbits at our house (self-service, of course ). Jstern35, nice first post, welcome to Dinner! We have some of those 20-year-old plates, too, same pattern. While dinner was cooking, the combined aroma of onions, cardamom, cumin, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, coconut, and fennel frying in ghee made a meal in itself. Ground beef koftae in spicy yogurt sauce. Cumin, coriander, ginger, garam masala, cayenne, cilantro, yogurt, and mustard oil in the koftae, and another paragraph’s worth of spices in the sauce. The sauce was boiled down until the beef browned at the end – reminiscent of a shortcut rendang, albeit with quite different spices. Stir-fried Savoy cabbage with fennel seeds. We make this frequently, for good reason. I didn’t notice a difference between Savoy cabbage and regular green cabbage in this recipe. Fresh red chutney, with almonds, red chiles, red bell pepper, garlic, mint, lemon juice, and dill. Basmati rice with whole spices, including green and black cardamom, bay leaves, cumin, cinnamon, and cloves.

Usually, whatever we are having for dinner. Light and fruity seems to work better than heavy and oaky or tannic. Cheap and Chilean sounds just fine. Old thread discussing Marcella cookbooks (clicky). The Classic Italian Cookbook, has a lot of, well, classic recipes -- the kind with name recognition. Saturday with Marcella, a light meal before meeting friends downtown. On the first Saturday of the month, the many quirky shops on the main drag stay open late and offer wine tastings, hot chocolate, cheese samples, occasional outbreaks of doo-wop, and free drinks. I had a martini and a Manhattan, gratis. Conchiglie con pepperoni verdi, rossi e gialli alla panna (shells with green, red, and yellow peppers and cream, from Marcella’s Italian Kitchen): Fry onions in butter and olive oil, add peppers, and saute until soft. Add heavy cream, cook down, and finish with s&p. Grated parmesan added after the picture. Before inhaling the pasta, the boys carefully picked out all of the lovingly-sauteed peppers. Quoth elder son: “It would be OK with me if we had pasta every night.” French beans with bacon and onion: Not from Marcella, but justifiably popular. Edited to eliminate repetitive redundancy.

Huevos more-or-less a la Mexicana, with roasted Poblano chiles and Pecorino romano cheese, garnished with cilantro and served on a buttered English muffin.

shalmanese: In addition to gautam’s fine suggestions, you might try playing with Kasma Loha-unchit’s flavor-balancing exercise (click). If that doesn’t do the trick, you can mash in other herbs and aromatics such as garlic, cilantro roots, flat-leaf coriander, scallions, white peppercorns, etc. Roasted rice powder adds a nutty flavor - are you using any in your salads? To add complexity or tone down the more aggressive flavors you can substitute salt, shrimp paste, or dried prawns for some of the fish sauce; rice vinegar or tamarind water for some of the lime juice; and/or reconstituted dried chiles or nahm prik pao for some of the Thai chiles. Diluting the dressing with water could help, too. Good luck, and please report if any of these suggestions work for you. Tonight’s dinner courtesy of Thai Food: Gai yang (grilled chicken): Marinating all day with mashed garlic, cilantro stems, white peppercorns, and palm sugar yielded tasty, crisp-skinned chicken. Yeah, we make this pretty often on weeknights. Dtam so moo (pomelo salad): I have been waiting for pomelos to appear so that I could try this recipe. Pomelo supremes, sliced lemongrass and apple eggplants, poached shrimp, blanched long beans, and a dressing of mashed garlic, Thai chiles, crab paste, fish sauce, lime juice, and palm sugar. Hung kao man gati (coconut rice): Always popular with the boys. Cucumbers and sliced Napa cabbage on the side.

When you say "straight edge", are you referring to the blade profile? If so, many gyutos (including ours) have a pretty straight edge. I use a 240 mm gyuto for chopping vegetables, and definitely prefer the longer blade. The gyuto shape also seems more flexible than that of a nakiri, although the wide blade of a nakiri could be more efficient at scooping up diced onions and such. No worries about sharpening Japanese knives on the Edge Pro. With Chad’s course as guidance, we put a 10/15 bevel on our gyutos, sujihiki, and paring knives, and a 20 degree chisel edge on the honesuki. Be brave, and do use blue painter’s tape to protect the finish. I break out the Edge Pro a few times a year, and touch up the edge with a ceramic “steel” every day or so. Good luck!

kalypso, thank you for the information and kind words. I look forward to seeing what you make next. Pollo deshebrado a la Nortena (shredded chicken with tomatoes, from Authentic Mexican): We poached chicken thighs with onion, bay leaves, Mexican oregano, and thyme, let the chicken cool in the broth, and then deboned and shredded the meat. We tossed the chicken with a sauce of fried onion, garlic, chiles, tomatoes, scallions, and reduced chicken broth. Very popular served on warm flour tortillas with leftover salsa de chile pasilla. As a bonus, we now have several cups of flavorful chicken broth in the freezer. Ensalada de pina, jicama, y aguacate (pineapple, jicama, and avocado salad, from Seasons of My Heart): Tossed with red onions, crunchy pecan halves, cubed cream cheese, and a dressing of pineapple juice, cider vinegar, olive oil, and cilantro. Quite popular with the grown-ups.

kalypso, wow, that feast looks amazing. Did the chile paste flavor penetrate into the turkey, or was that job left for the incredible-looking jugo? For tonight’s comparatively modest dinner, the chileajo and arroz blanco were from Susanna Trilling’s Seasons of My Heart. Chileajo de puerco (pork with chile garlic sauce): We made pork stock with cubed pork shoulder, the shoulder bone, and aromatics. The sauce included chiles costenos, tomatoes, tomatillos, sesame seeds, garlic, cumin, thyme, and Mexican oregano, all blended, strained, and thinned with pork stock. Mrs. C pointed out that chiles costenos have a flavor reminiscent of Tabasco sauce (but without the overpowering taste of vinegar, thankfully). Arroz blanco con platanos fritos (White rice with fried plantains): Pork stock, onions, garlic, and flat-leaf parsley (subbed for mint). Plantains were on the starchy side, unfortunately, but otherwise the rice was a big hit. Green beans with bacon and onion: Not particularly Mexican, but we used white onions and blanched the green beans in the pork stock. Elder son gave this an 8.5, an unusually high score for a vegetable.

kalypso, any Thanksgiving cooking news to report? Every year the arrival of cold weather makes me crave Mexican food. Tonight's dinner, served with warm flour tortillas, tasted better than it looked. Papas chirrionas (from The Art of Mexican Cooking): Basically, spicy hash browns with egg. We blended toasted chile pasilla, roasted tomatillos, and garlic to a chunky sauce, fried the sauce with the browned onions and potatoes, stirred in beaten eggs, and finished with Mexican oregano and (in our case) grated parmigiano reggiano. Salsa de chile pasilla (from Seasons of My Heart): Tomatillos, garlic, and chile pasilla de Oaxaca, toasted on a comal and blended with a little water to a chunky salsa. Chile pasilla de Oaxaca is smoke-dried like chile chipotle, and we scored a bag from Sweet Freedom Farm (clicky). This salsa will probably show up again this week. Calabacitas al mojo de ajo (from Authentic Mexican): Sauteed zucchini with toasted garlic slices, finished with lime juice, Mexican oregano, and flat-leaf parsley. I could make a meal of the butter-browned garlic chips. For dessert, Mrs. C and the boys made a delicious apple and raspberry pie, served warm with vanilla ice cream.

Bourbon sweet potatoes with bourbon-cointreaux-orange bitters-orange sauce. Like having a two-martini lunch, but for breakfast. I left the last, lonely piece of apple pie for the family to fight over.

Shelby, thanks! Good luck getting un-rutted. Parmhero, beautiful! PercyN, that salad does sound amazing. I look forward to seeing you decipher it. Tonight’s dinner is over on the even quieter Thai cooking at home thread (clicky).