Gabriel Lewis

Ludja Ah, saved again. Thanks for clarifying; I had been wondering how to do that too and can now thank HKdave knowing what I'm thanking him for. Bruce: I generally save my curries for the weekends as well, except when fits of madness strike. Your curry looks great, but I might offer my new method for chicken curries with thai eggplants in them. I prefer to add the chicken after the eggplants have simmered for few minutes. This allows me to get the eggplants to to the soft consistency I prefer, without potentially overcooking the chicken. Of course, chicken suffers little from overcooking, but I had been overcooking it inadvertently so long that I now take special care. Thigh meat is amazingly tender when just barely, but adquately, cooked. I also recently learned while trying to help Bob recreate a dish, that a particular kind of red curry ("chuu chii", usually seafood) is typically garnished with coriander and shredded kaffir lime leaves. A few questions for you if you don't mind. I noticed you seasoned your curry with lime juice? I've seen this in other curries before, but never in coconut based ones. Is this a personal preference or something you picked up from elsewhere? What do you feel it adds? I think I'll have to try this. Would you be willing to make some comments on the preethi grinder? What kind you have, what you use it for, where you got it, how much it cost etc. I've heard of these, and sort of looked into one as I also cook a lot of indian, but I don't know much them. I'd like to a moment to plug for a new discovery of mine: vacuum packed coconut milk. I think a few people have mentioned frozen coconut milk before, but I hadn't heard of vacuum packed. I recently discovered this and did a side by side test with my favorite brand of canned coconut milk, Chaokoh. This was the clear winner, hands down. It had a slighlty stronger coconut flavor, and was fresher and cleaner tasting, without any metallic residue. At first only a local specialty store carried these, but now they seem to be popping up everywhere, and range from 1-1.75$ canadian for 500mL. Typically they contain about a cup of thick coconut cream, and they also come in 250mL and 1L sizes. I also compared this to frozen coconut milk, and they seemed pretty comparable. The frozen may be a bit cleaner/fresher, but its hard to say and I think I need to do some more comparing. At any rate I've only found one source for frozen and its quite a bit more expensive (2.50$ for 500mL). Additionally, it doesn't seem to have much cream and is seperated from the freezing, which limits its usefulness. Today I made Kasma Loha Unchit's Naw-mai Farang Pad Nahm Man Hoi (asparagus stir-fried with oyster mushrooms and shrimp) and kanom jin sao nahm with jaeng lorm luk chin pla (pineapple and dried prawns thai noodles with fish dumplings simmered in coconut cream) (yes, there are noodles under all that stuff) The asparagus was excellent, and I think this dish is a good example of how usually star ingredients often play a supporting role in thai cuisine. This dish includes both shrimp and mushrooms - normally star ingredients, but the focus is on the asparagus. This is fairly common from what I've seen, and I think is indicative of how asian food in general isn't as hung up on meat. The noodles were really tasty. Thin rice noodles topped with slivers of raw garlic, shredded ginger, minced pineapple, ground dried prawns, and a hot-sour-sweet dressing. Add to this fish balls pounded with garlic in coriander simmered in lightly seaoned coconut cream and you have yourself a wonderful bowl of noodles. Unfortunately I overestimated my tolerance a bit, and went overboard with the chilies. I've been eating ridiculously hot lately, but I guess 12 thai chiles is still too much for one bowl of noodles. I haven't had my ass kicked this badly since I made Austin's Kaeng Som.

Wow, I really enjoyed this article; I've had stocks on the brain lately. I take fish bones/head home from work and make fish stock. I aska local pork farmer for 5 kilos of pork bones and make pork stock. Tonight, I had some shrimp for dinner and made shrimp stock with the heads and shells, using the tip I learned recently to first briefly fry them in oil. I've read through pages and pages of stock threads on egullet, and I still learned a few new things here. Nathan's ice trick seems pretty cool (makes sense too), but I wonder if his use of the oven doesn't have something to do with it. If the lid is off his stockpot, it probably doesn't come to a boil; I recall Michael Ruhlman saying somewhere in an old thread that he found holding his stocks at a low temp 175-185ish seemed to produce a clear stock. The salt trick I learned about in an old thread courtesy of Dave the cook. I think it makes a difference. Now I want to know why. Roasted stocks I want to play around with more. Sometimes I think too much roasting can add a sort of coarseness or a bitter note to the stock. I think they are great, but more of a different animal than a better one. The cornstarch trick seems ok, but again depending on what you use it for. Doesn't cornstarch lose its thickening power under prolonged heating? I think I'd only do this if my stock lacked body and I knew I'd be using all of it for a specific purpose. Why not simply add gelatin instead (yes this degrades with heating too, but arguably less so)? The reducing trick I'm particulary fascinated with. Did he talk about any of the theory behind it? I don't understand why would reducing in increments be different from gradually reducing the whole. Did he actually reduce each 250mL to the point that the next 250mL portion was deglazing? Another stock related question I've wonder about for some time. Paula Wolfert has often mentioned that there is evidence that some of the flavour compounds in fat are water soluble, I wonder if this plays any role in stock making? I have defatted fairly strenously early on and not noticed any big difference, but it seems most cooks defat after chilling because its easier and more effective. A little trick of my own I discovered recently: spanish onions. I was making a pork stock and bought spanish onions by mistake without realizing it; they ended up adding a wonderful sweetness to the stock. Good enough to drink straight. I need to play around with this a bit though. Am I overthinking this? Perhaps. But as Ivy pointed out, stock is a very special thing, and I'd like to learn as much about it as I possibly can. To add to your list of things we wouldn't have without stock: that perfect bowl of pho, mulligatawny soup, or hot and sour prawn dtom yam...

Gastro: Hope your papaya salad turned out well. The ingredients you mentioned plus lime juice, as alana helpfully noted, are in my experience the standard base for som dtam. It's usually fresh chiles rather than dried or chili flakes, but heat is the basic idea. Here is a fixed specific link for Austin's recipe, which is a laotian version (a long post, recipe at the bottom). I gather you've looked at the two links already, but if you haven't they should give some perspective. As for buying a mortar and pestle I'd recommend it. They are an indispenable tool for many thai dishes, are relatively inexpensive, and have other applications as well. I use mine to grind small amounts of spices, bruise things like lemongrass, break up hardended brown or palm sugar, or grind my own superfine sugar. This is the heavy granite kind of course, the ceramic kind is great for som dtam, but I am unaware of other applications. I mentioned this before, but I'd like to emphasize it again: opt for a larger mortar (say 8-9" diameter or larger) if you do buy one. Those extra 10 or 15$ will be well worth it if you ever decide to try a more complicated paste. HKdave: Ludja's suggestion seems to work well, I don't see a post # on the blog though. Thanks though. Foodman: I too am skeptical of any real replacement for the M&P, but you never know. I too plan to try a similar experiment soon, and would love to hear about your results. The shallots used in thai coking are the smaller pink shallots rather than the more common monstrous gray shallots found in the west, thompson calls these "red shallots". See this thread for more info. Tonight I had dtom jiw gai (hot and sour soup of shredded chicken and lemongrass): and yam gop gati tian (coconut chicken salad): http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1175128769/gallery_44574_3991_787350.jpg The soup was excellent, I love that particular combination of sour and hot with aromatics. Unfortunately, the lime juice ended up clouding the stock. The yam was the perfect foil to my spicy leftover jungle curry, and was an interesting preparation. It seemed more akin to a lon to me, or even a curry to me in someways, but there is definite blurring between dish classifications.

Thank you for your kind words everyone. Ludja: Ah, so that's how it's done. Many thanks for pointing that out, I'd been wondering how to do that forever. Way too much garlic - what's that? ← My thoughts exactly. I've often been scared of adding too much garlic dish, but I have yet to encounter a dish I found too garlicky; I think the light browning more typical in asian recipes mitigates a lot of the strong raw garlic taste. Bruce: The stickiness of pounded dried chiles also helps with the projectile nature of lemongrass. I have also tried making a ring or "cover" for my pestle out of aluminum foil or wax paper, and I sometimes cover the mortar with a cloth in one hand and pound with the other, but usually I just pound furiously in the middle of the table, return any big pieces that fly out, and wipe up thouroughly when I'm done. I've had mixed experiences with the seasoning in Thompson's book. For some recipes, particularly curries, I find he takes far too light a hand, as I usually prefer much more paste (read all of the batch, rather than a few tbsps), and typically more fish sauce as well. For other things like soups, I find them sufficiently salty long before adding the proscribed amount. But I suppose this is to be expected with varying ingredients, and thus I always follow the cardinal rule: season to taste (with a balance in mind). I too have learned that salty ingredients don't tend to scale up linearly, and I now build up in small increments as overseasoning isn't easily remedied. Perfectly seasoned food is a sublime thing, and although paramount in any cooking, I think it especially difficult to master in Thai cooking, and oh-so-satisfying when finally achieved. alanamoana: That is a neat trick, I'll have to try it soon. I have to admit though that I never quite got it with asparagus though. My mother showed it to me recently, but I couldn't seem to do it without a fair bit of waste. Lemongrass was another ingredient whose handling mystified me at first, but I have learned a few things. I tend to stop when the cross section rings cut from the stalk no longer show any purple, and make a particular shredding sound when cut. This is for yams and other preparations where the lemongrass is actually eaten; as an aromatic in soups and such I use more of the stalk, and generally leave a layer or two more on when peeling. Tonight for dinner I had geng bpa pal sai (jungle curry of fish with deep-fried shallots): and pak bung fai dtaeng (stir-fried watercress with yellow beans, garlic, and chilies): I really enjoyed the jungle curry, and have enjoyed all the ones I have tried thus far. They are strongly flavoured; pungent and hot without the mitigating smoothness of coconut cream, but have a refreshing sharpness instead. They probably wouldn't appeal to as wide an audience as coconut curries do, but I think they hold their own quite nicely.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, I will have to think about how I'm going to play around with them. Couple things to note: -Snowangel's recipe already uses all brown sugar and melted butter -I did try chilling the second batch of these, still crispy, I think more chilling or freezing may be in order though Paul, what's the theory behind your liquid/milk suggestion? Wouldn't these make the cookies more prone to spreading? Oh and I do have some nice unhydrogenated palm oil shortening, I think it gives great results and haven't noticed any greasiness or unpleasant mouthfeel. Based on the input so far, I think I will try substantial chilling, liquid sugar of some form, play with the types of fats, bread flour and/or steel-cut oats, underbaking and moist storage conditions. Any comments on what baking soda or powder do in cookies; just leavening to prevent overly dense cookies? It seems like taking them out or lowering them might favor chewiness, but I don't think chew necessarily means dense.

Bob: I understand completely, I am very prone to the same thing myself, especially as I have never been to thailand and don't feel like I have any good points of comparison. I think its important to note though that most thai cooks probably don't measure at all when making pastes, they simply adjust by taste as they go. One thing I've been trying to do is taste the paste as I make it, seeing how it changes after each ingredient. In addition to this I keep picture records of the curries I make. This way I can compare different recipes and compare them not just to each other, but compare their pastes as well. I am not very diligent about it yet, but I am thinking of taking some tasting notes too, so that I can build up my understanding of different curries. I think there is a fair amount of leeway with the pastes though, and that unless you drastically alter the proportion of ingredients you'll be in good shape. Just use your best guess for the measurements, use recipes from reliable sources, and stick to them fairly rigidly until you begin to get an understand of the principles involved. Understanding the subtleties I think comes with lot of experience coupled with some guiding principles to build an understanding. After all, there are so many different elements working together in the more complicated pastes. If you are serious I'd highly recommend getting David Thompson's book, as he gives a detailed description of all the paste ingredients and how they contribute to the paste/interact with each other. As for chilies, I found Austin's primer on thai chiles to be very helpful (about 1/4th down, incidentally anyone know how to link to a specific scroll-site on a page?). The two types of chiles he uses are dried red bird's eye chiles (phrik khii noo or thai) and dried long red chiles (phrik chii faa). Dried red thai chiles are pretty easy to find and are used primarly for heat. I haven't found anything similar to dried long red chiles, but I use new mexico or california dried red chiles as a substitute. In my experience, aside from some distinctive varieties most red and green chiles taste fairly similar, and new mexico/california match the description of dried phrik chii faa well (mild, fruity, colourful). They do seem to be a bit bigger than phrik chii faa though, so I usually count a big one (say 3" by 2" at the stem end) as 2 or 3 dried phrik chii faa. I mentioned the dark ones specifically, because darker chiles generally have more flavor, and they will give the best deep red colour to your curry. I soak dried red chiles in cold salted water before pounding, as per thompson's instructions (this seems to make a difference versus just plain cold water). These are the long chilies I have found in montreal that I use in place of phrik chii faa, they look pretty similar but its hard to say for sure, they seem to match the taste descriptions though. If you can't find any fresh chiles like this, I would suggest for the long green jalapenos, serranos, or even green cayennes. For the red I'd suggest fresnoes or red cayennes. One thing I forgot to mention is that small cloves of garlic/shallots seem to be favorable for pastes. I suspect this is for their stronger flavor/lower water content, but am not sure yet. Kaffir limes are actually readily available here, I get about 3 golf ballish ones for 2$, and they keep forever in the fridge. I'm suprised you can't find them in california, especially considering you have a dwarf tree, maybe check out some different markets? I would subsitute regular lime zest with mince kaffir lime leaves if you can't find them. Gastro888 You pre-empted me as I was typing, but your plan to use the vegetable peeler/julienne should work fine. As I said, you could also try the cheese grater. I can't weigh in on what they use exactly in thailand, but you can look around the net for lots of pictures to get you an idea of what the shreds are like (there is a good one in the link to austin's blog i provided). In a pinch you could probably go without the tamarind, but it does seem to feature in all the recipes I've seen for it. I think it adds a special fruity sour note and also helps to give some body to the dressing. There's always next time though!

Yes, too bad about the raisins. I know they would add some nice chew but I just simply can't stand raisins in baked goods, they are like little nuggets of texture shock. I'm looking to get a chewy cookie without any extras really; using only sugar, fat, four, oats, salt, and maybe leavening. I think it was Rebecca who made cookies with steel-cut oats in one of the older threads, and reported good results. I think she just used them straight up, why would one need to process them? Thanks for the suggestion on syrups, that was another possibility I forgot to mention. I will probably try using some corn syrup, maple syrup, or honey. Any thoughts on the optimal flour/oat/moisture ratio or what the consistency of the dough should be? I think minimizing the spread of the cookies while they bake will be key to getting that nice chewy centre. Also, I like to have a lot of cookie mass to chew on.

jmolinari: Hmm, that's not a bad idea actually. It might work well, especially if you pounded it in small batches after the intial whiz in the process. I can't see any reason why using a food processor at first would eliminate what the pounding contributes. At the very least one could use the processor for some of the intial chopping up. Gastro888: As jmolinari said, a sharp knife will do you well. I haven't had great sucess with my papaya salads, but I suspect that was as my strands were too thick, and I haven't tried it in a while. I think it was on Austin's blog that I read a good strategy is to use a vegetable peeler to take off wide thin strips, and then cut these into long thin shreds. David thompson suggests a mandoline for this too. You might also try the coarse grating side of a cheese grater. I have been meaning to try this for a while and when I do I was planning on making a few shreds with all of these methods and then selecting whichever one made for the best texture. Austin gives a recipe and some theory here (about halfway down. And Kasma Loha-Unchit's verison is here. I remember reading somewhere, I think it was Austin's blog, that there are actually two main types of green papaya salad; one closer to the original version from northern thailand and one adapted as a popular snack throughout the country. Aside from your ingredients I would say garlic is key, and cherry tomatoes, tamarind, peanuts, and dried shrimp are all common additions as well.

In the process of trying to help Octaveman recreate a Chuu Chii duck dish some questions came up about paste making, so I offered to document one of the pastes I'd make next. I think paste making is a fairly simple process, but it can be intimidating and something of a mystery at first. It's also bloody hard work. However, the results are outstanding, and in my opinion are well worth the effort. I remember the first time I tried to make a paste I added way too many ingredients and ended up with an unruly coarse blob that resisted my best attempts to reduce it to a paste. Since than I have learned that to start with, it's important to get out all your ingredients and assemble them properly. This means finely chopping/mincing things like lemongrass, galangal, garlic, etc; roasting the shrimp paste; toasting and grinding the spices if any; grating the kaffir lime zest. At first you many want to finely chop everything as this reduces the work involved in pounding, but later on you may find yourself only slicing the shallots, or leaving the cloves of garlic whole. I will be featuring the paste for Austin's pineapple and mussel curry. These is a picture of my assembled an prepared ingredients: I like to fold a tea towel in a plastic bag, put on an apron and possibly some goggles, and take my tray of ingredients/mortar to the table prior to starting the paste. Once you have all the ingredients assembled, add the toughest ingredient to the mortar with a coarse salt and smash it to a smooth paste until there are no discernible individual pieces. The salt acts as an abrasive, helping to break down the chiles; its early incorporation also seems to have a discernible effect on the finished curry. I often add a little salt as I go to help things along, but be careful not to add too much. This is a picture of the dried red chiles at this stage: For the actual pounding, its an up a down motion rather than a circular one. Typically, I start out with lighter pounding to break down the ingredients so that they don't fly out of the mortar. One they are broken up a bit I start pounding quite vigorously, more or less smashing as hard as I can from a given height above the mortar. This gets tiring pretty quickly, but if you pound enough pastes the muscles build up nicely. After the red chiles, I added the lemon grass. I have a small mortar and pestle so I took up a lot of the chiles out before adding it. I like to have a bit of moist ingredient pounded before the lemongrass, as it has a strong tendency to fly out of the mortar, and something moist helps keep it in place (i.e. galangal). It's important not to overfill the mortar because if you have too much stuff in the mortar most of the force of your pounding goes into pushing the paste around, and unpulverized ingredients can hide in the already-pounded paste portion. Here is the paste after the lemongrass, ready for the next ingredient: At this point, most of the real work is done, as chiles/lemongrass are typically the biggest pain in the ass to pound done. Here is the paste after a few more ingredients (tumeric, kaffir lime zest, galangal): Because my mortar is so small I sometimes pound the garlic and shallots seperately and incorporate them. Here is the garlic: and the shallots: I should note at this point that my small mortar and pestle is a major pain in the ass; the bigger the better. I am planning on getting a fairly large one soon that should eliminate the need to take ingredients out as I go. Here is the finished paste with all the ingredients incorporated: This paste took on the order of an hour and a half, including cleanup. This is a long time, but I think I could improve with a larger mortar and pestle, and to me it is worth it. Kasma Loha-Unchit I think writes that her mother had it down to 40 minutes, an impressive feat for any complex paste. It does take a fair bit out of you though, and if you are planning a dinner I would recommend pounding the paste a day ahead or well in advance of your prep time. And here if the finished curry, which was unbelievably good. I'd highly recommend it.

I second ecr's request, please do tim! I love maple sugar as well, but find it prohibitively expensive. It might be more viable if I were to purchase maple syrup in bulk and make my own though. Robyn Wow, thanks for sharing your experiences with malaysian palm sugar. Have you been to some thai production areas as well? I don't have any direct experience, but I feel that the quality of the sugar depends heavily on growing conditions, processing methods, etc and that a lot of the good stuff might not necessarily be exported. Regarding the indonesian palm sugar my guess would be just that there isn't anyone marketing it. A lot of these asian ingredients are still relatively new in North America and there isn't necessarily a big push for quality. Although there are a lot of online options. For the most part the same palm sugars in all the stores here are all the same, and while they are good I always suspected there was something better. Just recently I came upon some Indonesian palm sugar at a local specialty store run by a man who does a great job sourcing high quality asian/ethnic ingredients. I haven't tried it yet, but I am pretty excited about it as it seems different from anything I have seen before. It is quite dark an is labaled Wayang brand, export quality (no asli label though). It looks like this: I'm curious to know if you've noticed a siginficant difference inbetween the sugars from different trees. What I've read has led me to believe that true palm trees are the most prolific and produce the best flavor. Your presentation and potential tasting sound wonderful; I wish I lived in chicago.

I use Fifi's process, which works beautifully. Another trick I picked up from david thomspson is to add a point of garlic "the size that sits on the end of a knife" towards the end of the rendering process. If you do a search for "lard" using the search function and selecting titles only, there is a lot of info to be found. What is the "three day purification" process?

So ever since I discovered a thick chewy oatmeal cookie at a local grocery store I have been a bit obsessed. I can't get enough of that soft chewy texture. But being as they're somewhat expensive, and I like to do things myself, I set out to create my own chewy cookie. First attempt was a basic cookie recipe eggs, butter, sugar, etc but with about a 2:1 ratio of oats to flour. These were tasty, but not at all what I was looking for. For the second attempt I tried Snowangel's oatmeal cookies. These were really, really good. In her version you toast the oats in browned butter, which makes for an incredibly flavorful cookie. She doesn't mentioning browning the butter in the recipe, but I learned about this in the browned butter thread and followed suit. However, the dough was fairly liquid and the cookies ended up spreading out very thin, and while they had some nice chewy on the inside, it only lasted for about an hour after they were made. As I am looking for substantial chew, this is a problem. I did a search and read through a few old threads on oatmeal cookies and have come up with a number of possibilities to optimize my chew. They include: Use shortening instead of butter (or a mix of the two) Use egg whites instead of whole eggs Use steel-cut oats Underbake Freeze the dough before baking I have a decent idea of how these work, but baking isn't really my area of expertise and I was hoping to get some input from the serious bakers before I embark on any further experimentation. In addition to these I am wondering about oat/flour ratios , how leavening acts in cookies (baking powder vs baking soda, is there a diff), and how to minimize spreading. I've heard a lot of great things about the quaker recipe, but looking it up it seems identical to Snowangel's, minus the toasted oats and adjsuting for scale. I also have seen a lot of great potential recipes in the old threads but I simply don't know how to interpet them. To start with I want to master a basic oatmeal cookie: large, substantial and chewy with no flavorings other than the oats and maybe a little cinnamon or nutmeg, oh and no raisins, raisins are blasphemy. After that I hope to try some of the delightful varations mentioned in the past, such as lemon zest or toasted coconut.

This is correct, the cold temperatures inhibit their growth and they will not produce any toxin at refrigerator temperatures. Also useful to know is that the toxin readily decomposes when heated, so anything brought to boiling temp or higher should be safe.

Interesting observations Kent. I've been doing some baking with my billington's light brown muscovado, and I have noticed a difference. Even just eating it plain it's quite different from regular brown sugar, I haven't scrutinized it thoroughly but I find it smoother and more complex. I'd love to try some of the molasses kind you've described, I'll have to look into it next time I'm in the states. Your comments seem to jive well with what I've learnt about sugar processing. If billington's muscovado is traditional muscovado, it is the third and final extract of sucrose crystals. At this point, the original sugar cane juice has been heated/evaporated 3 times already, and muscovado is what comes off the walls of the centrifuge on the third centrifugation. Levy-Berenbaum did mention in her article that light muscovado comes from the top layer of the centrifuge, and dark from the bottom. This seems to match perfectly with your description of their molasses muscovado, as those multiple heating/concentrations would bring out the most of that rich caramel flavor and other dark notes. The beet products you describe don't seem to match so well with the glowing descriptions cdh referenced. It'd be interesting to get to the bottom of this... Jaggery should be readily available at any Indian/Pakistani grocer, it is also called gur. The thing to keep in mind with these unprocessed sugars though is that there is usually little standardization. I don't know about production in mexico, but in thailand palm sugar production is still a cottage industry. As such, sugars vary from batch to batch depending on the crop and the degree to which each batch is processed. One producer might boil his down more than another, resulting in a darker, dryer, and more caramel like sugar. The other to note about jaggery is that there is palm jaggery and sugar jaggery, and I think date jaggery as well. Palm jaggery is of course, from boiled down Palm tree sap. Julie Sahni, one of my favorite Indian cookbook authors says this is the best kind, but I've never come into contact with any that can be explicitly identified as so. I did buy some nice looking soft Gula Jawa palm sugar from Indonesia the other day. I got it from a local shop that makes an effort to find high quality asian ingredients, and I'm hoping it'll be nicer then what I've found so far.

I picked up a tarocco the other day at the market, so I thought I'd bump this. I have to say these are a big difference from the Moros. At first I wasn't sure that I had the right thing as thing as it looked the same as a normal orange: Peeling and tasting it revealed its true identity though. I have to say that besides being sweet these seemed a bit more complex as well, though hard to put my finger on anything. I think I will have to get some more as well as some moros to compare, and some darker ones too. I have found that the darker moros have more of that red/deeper flavor and am curious to see what some of the darker taroccos are like; I did see some that were almost as pigmented as some of the moros I have seen (almost completely red on the outside). These ones were from Italy and fairly expensive at about 1$ each, anyone else getting Taroccos in, and if so where from and how are the prices?

Insomniac Although the rice looks pretty white in the picture (the flash i think), my container of it is actually light brown. I made it myself by dry roasting it on low heat for about 10-20mins until it was golden and it seemed to fit Thompson's description of doneness. I don't have anything to compare it to though, maybe it could have gone longer. It tastes... toasty and crunchy.

I have been meaning to post some pics of the things I've been making for a while now, and I finally got around to it. gwip sen mii muu sap (rice noodle and minced pork soup) The noodles are buried under the other stuff here, but they were very tasty. I'm not sure that I was super pleased with the minced pork; I may try seasoning it before cooking or making balls next time. Geng Dtaeng Bpet (Red Duck Curry, T312) This was a rich red duck curry with a fair amount of spices. The flavor was spot on but it was the first time I made a curry with my own coconut milk, it seemed to lack some body that my curries normally have. Nahm Dtok (Grilled Beef Salad, T377) This is a very different way of eating beef than western methods I am accustomed to, but I quite like it. Especially like the crunch added from the toasted rice. Yam Dtaeng Gwa (Cucumber and Prawn Salad, T350) This was really good. It did end up getting kind of obscured by the ground dried prawns though, and I only used half the prescribed amount. Can't wait to dry it with some better dried prawns. Tommorow I am planning on making Austin's Pumpkin with egg recipe, and hopefully I'll get to a mussel curry with pineapple later this weekend.

I also prefer the shallots from asian supermarkets; they are almost exclusively pink shallots and are cheaper and often fresher to boot. There seem to be two common types of shallots: grey and pink. I haven't done a detailed comparsion of the two but grey seem to be the common variety in europe, whereas it is pink in asia. Supermarket shallots here tend to be grey, though I have seen some pink. I suspect that the difference is mostly in in type and climactic growing conditions. Onions in India have less water, and are more pungent with more onion flavor. I suspect the same would hold true for shallots grown in hot asian climates. In my experience, warm climates typically favor smaller, more intensely flavored roots, herbs, and vegetables. David thompson mentions in his book Thai Food that smaller shallots are sweeter. And I think this and other reasons to prefer smaller shallots is that like a lot of plants, they probably take up mostly water after getting to a certain size, thereby diluting their more flavorful contents. Farming practices in asian countries might also tend to be smaller scale and lend themselves to produce better tasting (rather than hardy and durable) shallots. That said though I think growing your own shallots or getting them from a quality farmer would probably be better than asian market shallots, even if they weren't pink. I think Trillium mentioned somewhere that she finds she gets better results in her curry pastes with some excellent shallots from a local farmer. Do you know if the shallots at the market are locally grown Snowangel? I'd love a source for expertly raised pink shallots myself; the ones I get at asian markets are pretty good but they don't look nearly as pretty as the pictures of thai shallots I have seen.

I've actually had Ruby Tuesday's massive burger and I quite enjoyed it. I guess this must've been while they were still listing nutritional information on the menu, as I quickly discovered it weighed in at almost 2000 calories. It comes with a knife stuck through the middle to support itself. Now this isn't something I'd consider normal for myself, but I was very hungry at the time, and I do have a large appetite. I was pretty increduolous that it contained almost 2k calories though. Reading through this though I find myself agreeing with a lot of JohnL's points. I am more interested in the question of why eating trends have developed towards their current state in north america in the way that they have. Industry undoubtedly had some role in the emergence of these trends but I think it is ultimately market driven. There are people buying and enjoying these massive portions that didn't used to exist; it doesn't seem that they respond favorably to low calorie alternatives either. These restaurants are providing these massive calorie dishes because there are people willing to buy them; if they weren't marketable they woudln't be on the menu. The anti fat craze and caloric approach to food has been around long enough for people to be atleast aware of what they are buying. I don't pay much attention to my caloric intake but have a rough handle on estimates. I don't know that I would've pegged Ruby Tuesday's colossal burger at 2k calories, but I can tell you that it is about 5 times the size of a quarter pounder. I can't really see these restaurants as evil in light of this. I also have seen chefs and cooks finish with butter, and looking at the amount a lot of them use I wouldn't peg an a la carte meal with app, main, and desert or a tasting of menu of 5 much lower than the meals mentioned in this article. My experience in professional kitchens is relatively brief, but this seems to be the general trend from what I have seen. I would agree that the availability of nutrition information is important but I am skeptical that it will make much difference.

Torakris: I've read this whole thread too, and haven't decided yet either. But as far as I can tell, this model is just a slightly bigger more aethestically packaged version of the other smaller cuisinart models people have spoken well of. I think you'd be pleased with it, especially at that price since it seems to retail for a bit more than that here. You will have to deal with the limitations of a frozen canister model, but I think you can still produce great results with these. They are just not the best for churning out large quantities at a time. I think I recall reading about a new fridge you bought that has a special compartment which converts to a -2 degree freezer or so at the push of a button? I bet this would work great for pre-chilling your mixes. If cream is expensive then I would focus on french style ice creams which use a creme anglaise base (assuming eggs and milk are cheap).

Tryingsomethingnew Doubtful, certainly not from quebec at any rate. I don't think I've seen any lately but you might try calling Louis or Nino.

Kent: As cdh said Piloncillo (also known as Panela, or Panocha) should be available at any mexican grocer, they usually come in cones, just do a google image search on piloncillo to see what they look like. Eje: Your washed raw sugar sounds pretty much identical to the stuff I use; it's great isn't it! Basically I think all this stuff is just sugar collected from one of the early centrifugations and washed with steam. Classically defined, yours would be washed demerera. Bone char is used in the latter stages of sugar processing (usually once the sugar has arrived at a processing plant in an industrialized country) as it is an effective carbon source that removes color impurities, calcium, and magnesium. As for the beet syrup I don't see what else it could be other than molasses. The description we have is of dissolving white beet sugar and then cooling to crystallize, and collecting the crystals via centrifugation. This is essentially how all sugar is collected, as the first crystallization from cane juice doesn't extract all the sucrose and so the process is repeated. But I don't think this white beet sugar can be fully refined; fully refined beet sugar is over 99% sucrose and wouldn't leave any flavorful syrup. Perhaps this beet sugar is partially processed beet sugar that removes some of the stuff thats usually nasty? I don't know if beet molasses has just been deemed unfit for human consumption or actually is so, it certainly seems possible considering our past reverence of all things "pure". Mcgee says there is such a thing as beet molasses, but that it has a "strong, unpleasant oder, and so is used to feed animals" (675). Oh and molasses is caramel in part. Sugar Cane juice is an almost clear liquid; molasses gets its dark color and most of its flavor from the caramelization and other high temperature reactions going on during the repeated heatings of cane juice to extract more sucrose. It's a combination of all the things that make caramel taste like caramel (minus a lot of the sugar) and all the other things left over that didn't get trapped in the sucrose crystals during crystallization. Its a mix of sucrose, invert sugars, minerals, and I guess the rest is water.

I think we're all in agreement in that whats great about these sugars is that something extra they bring to the table. They ofter subtleties and other flavors that one-dimensional white sugar doesn't have. I actually have switched to using raw sugar for most of my sugar needs in place of white sugar, except when I need a lot of sweetening, as it is quite a bit more expensive. Raw sugar is unwashed turbinado sugar, I prefer it as I think it has more of that "extra" flavor and is actually cheaper where I buy it. Scubadoo97: I'm a big fan of palm sugar too, I use it all the time in thai cooking. Palm sugar and its counterparts (jaggery, piloncillo) are still provided by a cottage industry, and so they tend to vary batch to batch. Interestingly Palm Sugar and Jaggery can be the same thing. Jaggery is sometimes made from palm sap/juice, as well as sugar cane juice and dates. Julie Sahni, one of my favorite Indian cookbook others says that the best jaggery is palm jaggery. Kent: Billingtons is the brand I bought actually, light muscovado specifically. It is soft and fine grained, and just tasting a little on its own I notice the difference from regular brown sugar, right now it just seems more complex; I'll have to work with it more to get used to it. I made some banana bread with it the other day and it turned out excellent. Does billington's offer other kinds than light/dark muscovado brown sugar? Where do you get it from and how is the pricing? Oh and if you like the darker the better, you might be interested in the mexican Piloncillo or Panela, or Indian Jaggery or Gur. These are completely unrefined sugars; they are made by boiling down cane juice until it crystallizes, while even muscovado and demerera are partially refined. These sugars would in theory contain as much of that "dark" flavor you like as possible. cdh: Really interesting to hear about beet molasses used in brewing; everything I've read about it says its unfit for human consumption and is used for industrial fermentation or animal feed (McGee).

You can get Beurrerie du Patrimoine's creamcheese at Qui Lait Cru!? over at the Jean-Talon market. I haven't tried it myself but it would probably be more natural or organic than Liberte as they use unhomogenised and low temperature pasteurized milk, and are more of an artisanal outfit. I think they only have cow's milk creamcheese but its possible they may have others; they do have goat's milk yogurt.

Chantal: Thanks, I'll check 440 out. Thesorus I can't say I know for 100% certainty, but any big chain should have them, i.e. provigo, metro, zellers etc. I'd call ahead.