C. sapidus

Mint is wonderful in Thai-style salads. Also try Parsi green chutney and fish in banana-leaf parcels (patra ni macchi). Even so, you will probably never stay ahead of the mint.

Two racks of pork back ribs, rubbed in a mix of Magic Dust and Memphis Rib Rub, and smoked with hickory for about seven hours. We misted the ribs every now and again with apple juice. The Bullet held temperature steadily between 200F and 210F despite heavy rain and almost complete inattention during various family activities (we are testing the Bullet’s temperature stability before smoking pork butt overnight). These were the sole survivors, somewhat worse for wear after being refrigerated overnight and microwaved this morning. Still, they made a lovely breakfast.

Pork, scallion, and shiitake mushroom soup . . . . . . beef satay, coconut crab salad, cucumbers, and jasmine rice. Details on Thai Cooking at Home (click).

Another dinner from Thai Food: Soup of minced pork, scallions, and shiitake mushrooms. The soup base was chicken stock, soy sauce, and a pinch of sugar. We added ground pork, sliced scallions, and shiitake mushrooms, and finished the soup with cilantro and white pepper. The bowl is a little empty because the family nearly finished the soup before I sat down. Mom Leaung Neuang’s famous satay: strip steak marinated with coconut cream, turmeric, sweetened condensed milk, fish sauce, bourbon, and a paste of shallots and roasted peanuts, cumin, and coriander seed. We sprinkled on the excess marinade while the satay was on the grill. This was one of my favorite satays ever. Coconut crab salad (“mock frog salad”): Thai basil, sliced shallots and lemongrass, with shredded chiles, Thai lime leaves, and long-leaf coriander. We warmed cooked crab meat with coconut cream, palm sugar, fish sauce, and lime juice, mixed everything together, and topped the salad with ground roasted peanuts. Cucumbers and jasmine rice to round out the meal.

menuinprogress, beautiful mole! How did you like it and what recipe did you use? Home to meet the dishwasher installers, I had a little time to play with food. Consequently, tonight’s dinner combined dishes from Sichuan, sorta-Hunan, and Thailand. “Traditional” dan dan noodles, from Land of Plenty. The sauce included stir-fried Tianjin preserved vegetable, scallions, light and dark soy sauce, chile oil, Chinkiang vinegar, and ground roasted Sichuan peppercorns. To top the noodles, we stir-fried ground pork with Shaoxing rice wine and light soy sauce. The extra pork was very popular with the boys. Gai lan stir-fried with black beans and garlic. Variations of this dish are perennial family favorites. Shrimp and galangal soup with Shiitake mushrooms, based on a variation in Thai Food. The Thai lime leaves were harvested from our plant. Adding a dollop of nahm prik pao to the bowl makes this soup indescribably delicious.

percyn, we have that same glass (but you put yours to better use). Creamy scrambled eggs with chives and Thai chile, on toast.

Kim, thank you! Sichuan chiles are not particularly hot, but you could certainly tone down the heat. The chiles flavor the oil, but you don’t eat them (unless you really like chiles . . .). I love seeing what everyone is doing with their Spring bounty. Adapted from Thai Food: grilled chicken, eggplant, zucchini, and red bell pepper, accompanied by a sweet-sour chile-garlic-cilantro sauce, mushroom salad, and jasmine rice. Chicken thighs spent the day marinating with fish sauce and a paste of garlic, cilantro stems, white pepper, and palm sugar. The vegetables were simply dipped in coconut milk and grilled.

Like kbjesq, we have been extremely happy with our Bluestar, the six-burner cooktop with two 22K BTU burners. We have the standard configuration, but I may reconfigure the burner layout. After a little adjustment, the 15K burners simmer so low that we rarely use the simmer burner. Definitely do not cheap out on the hood - you will need all of the CFMs you can afford. Off-topic, but I have made a mental note to check out that 30K BTU Capital power wok burner when we build our outdoor kitchen, some time in the distant future . . .

Marcia, the boys still prefer raw, lightly salted cucumbers above all. Anyway, here is the recipe: cucumber and ginger salad (click and scroll down about half-way). Dead simple and quite refreshing with rich, spicy foods. Grating the ginger is easier than mincing.

Yay, Susan in FL returns with a vengeance! Marcia, your eggplant sounds more than “most acceptable”, and the tacos look ravishing. Most of tonight’s dinner was from (or adapted from) My Bombay Kitchen. Fried grouper fillets with a masala of turmeric, cayenne, smoked paprika, and salt. Tomato rice with black pepper, bay leaf, cumin, and a dollop of ghee. Cucumber and ginger salad with lime, and Madhur Jaffrey’s fresh red bell pepper chutney with almonds.

Susan, I prefer the texture of long beans and use them when I can find them. Availability has been spotty lately, so tonight we used regular green beans.

From Land of Plenty: chicken with chiles; dry-fried green beans; steamed eggplant with chile sauce; and jasmine rice. More on Chinese eats at home.

It has been far too long since we cooked a Chinese meal, but tonight’s dinner was from Land of Plenty: la zi ji (chicken with chiles); gan ban si ji dou (dry-fried green beans); hong you qie zi (steamed eggplants with chile sauce); and jasmine rice. The boys loved the chicken and the dry-fried green beans. For the chicken we deep-fried chunks of thigh meat that had been marinated in Shaoxing rice wine, light and dark soy sauce, and a little salt. After cleaning the wok we flavored the oil with garlic, ginger, Sichuan peppercorns, and a bowl full of chiles, returned the chicken to the wok, and finished the dish with scallions, salt, sugar, and sesame oil. Asian eggplant was steamed for a few minutes, cooled, and then chopped with the skin. I loved the delicate eggplant with the addictive dipping sauce, made from soy sauce, Chinkiang vinegar, sugar, chile oil, and sesame oil.

OnigiriFB, Importfood.com has a recipe (with pictures!). No idea whether the recipe is a) traditional or b) any good (although it sounds delicious), but it does show what a fresh pork shank looks like. Good luck!

nakji, thanks! The raita uses raw and cooked ginger. Start by mixing mixing finely-chopped ginger with whisked yogurt and salt. Next, sizzle a split chile or two, curry leaves, and julienned ginger in hot oil. When the ginger has browned, toss brown mustard seeds into the hot oil until they pop, and then mix everything with the yogurt. Rest for at least a half hour, check salt, and add cilantro if you like. (edited to add cilantro) percyn, thank you very much. Um, yeah, lost in the mail. Darned USPS.

Dinner party for ten, mostly Parsi dishes from My Bombay Kitchen. Clockwise from the top: chicken tikka kabaabs with garlic marinade; cilantro-mint-coconut chutney; mango-cucumber-red bell pepper salad; braised mustard greens and spinach with tomato; twice-cooked lamb; and seared ginger raita. Pulao made with lamb stock in the center. Not surviving to this morning’s picture: salmon with maple-mustard-ginger glaze; potato and scallion pancakes with garam masala; stir-fried okra; store-bought sorbets; and kamikazes.

OnigiriFB, no particular reason except that I enjoy comparing different methods before settling on a standard.. We have only made sticky rice once or twice, so we don’t have the bamboo thingy. The method above looked interesting, and we have a spray bottle for when we smoke ribs, so I gave it a go. Do you soak your sticky rice before steaming it? tb86, I appreciate your on-the-ground insights, and the fact that you took the time to offer suggestions. Personally, I like a bit of funk in Thai food, but I need to dial some things back when cooking for the family. Inevitably, Thai food is likely to taste somewhat different when made thousands of miles from Thailand. Still one of my favorite things to eat, though. I’ve made som tum with a knife, but for me the shredder is much faster. Probably says a lot about my knife skills, or lack thereof. Again, thanks for the advice, and I hope you can post your pictures.

Peppered shrimp (camarones a la pimienta), chile Poblano and red bell pepper rajas, and shortcut Mexican red rice.

Can you describe the shredder? Last time I made som tam, I used a julienne peeler, and oh my, what a disaster. It produced nice long strands of green papaya, and did a nice job of julienning my wrist and thumb. This peeler is like a weapon of torture! ← OK, if you really want to avoid bits of thumb in your salad, I have been quite happy with the Kiwi Pro Slice blue wavy-edged tool, available from Temple of Thai (and many other places besides). The first pass with the tool forms sheets rather than shreds, but the second pass and beyond forms nice, long shreds quite quickly. http://www.templeofthai.com/fruit_carving/...kiwi_peeler.php

Kim Shook: mmm, five-spice chicken. Daniel, looks delicious, especially the pork. I have not tried bluefish ceviche – how did you like it compared with other fish? Crying tiger with nam jim gaew, som tum Issan, sticky rice, and eternal cucumbers. The boys each polished off a strip steak; Mrs. C and I split one between us. More on Thai Cooking at Home (clicky). Note the paper plate – our crappy Whirlpool dishwasher died for the fifth and last time in its accursed two-year existence. It is probably repairable (again), but we are tired of the routine. Any company that releases such lousy products will get no more of our business.

Crying tiger (sua rong hai) with “crying tiger sauce” (nam jim gaew). We grilled strip steaks after marinating for an hour with soy sauce, garlic, black pepper, and a little sugar. The nam jim gaew was a mixture of soy sauce, roasted chile powder, roasted rice powder, sugar, scallions, lime juice, and pak chee farang. For som tum Issan, the cheap shredder that we found at the Asian market is the bomb for making long strands of green papaya. Boston lettuce leaves for scooping everything up; sticky rice and cucumbers to round out the meal. We soaked the sticky rice all day, rinsed well, and lined a steamer basket with cheesecloth, and steamed the rice for 30 minutes. We then sprayed the rice with water, steamed for five more minutes, and repeated the cycle of spraying and steaming a total of three times. When the rice was done, we turned off the heat, opened the steamer to release excess steam, and then closed the lid to keep the rice warm. The sticky rice turned out particularly well using this method, but unfortunately I forgot to take a picture. Crying tiger, som tum Issan

Thank you very much, JimH. The salsa was simple – tomatillos, garlic, and chile de arbol, all dry-roasted on a comal, blended to a rough puree, and finished with salt and minced white onion. Mildly spicy, tangy, and complemented the carnitas very nicely.

Yes, this had been delightful. Thank you so much for the tour of your beautiful city. Way back towards the beginning, I was struck by “dobry den” – almost identical to the Russian “good morning”, but without using the Cyrillic alphabet.

Beautiful tacos! I have a particular hankering for ChefCrash’s chorizo tacos, menuinprogress’ shrimp tacos, . . . OK, I want to try everyone's tacos. Our tacofest started with jicama, orange, and cucumber salad: Portobello mushrooms with rajas of chile Poblano and red bell pepper: Pork carnitas, guacamole, and chile de arbol salsa with tomatillos:

Kim, no roasting - we stir-fried raw cauliflower until well-browned, and then steamed it with a little water. Recipe here (clicky). Your dinner sounds delicious - tomato sauce with sausage and roasted garlic on anything are two of my favorites.