haresfur

That chook looks perfect

Not something that interests me but I'm always impressed with Breville engineering. Price is relative. I mean there are people who will spend as much money on a chef's knife that I'm sure will do as good a job. Probably slower but easier to clean.

An update on this. We are well into winter, getting several nights in a row of frost and above freezing days. The experiment is going very well with more tomatoes ripening on the vine enough to bring indoors to complete after they start changing colour. These are on the south side of the house, which is the shady side in this hemisphere and don't get a lot of sun at this time of year but may get some tempering from the brick wall. They aren't the best tomatoes but that may be due to whatever the seeds came from. You can see the grey water overflow that happens when the pipe to the back of the property backs up, which is how I assume the seeds arrived. I'm sure it isn't a design that would be allowed these days. I was going to take a new picture but someone decided to harvest.

The little bit of vinegar from my birdseyes doesn't seem to make much difference, for what that's worth. You could always add some baking soda.

I think it helps the bean flavour, but by the time everything is put together it is hard to tell. I have to say I haven't noticed that dull bean flavour you sometimes get. I do the black beans in water. No Rancho Gordo here.

I add a spoonful of pickled birdseye chiles to the cooking water in my stovetop pressure cooker but don't usually soak. I don't know how instant pots work, but when pressure cooking it is important to let the pot cool and release the pressure naturally, otherwise the beans boil inside and turn to mush. When I make chicken and white bean chili, I add the birdseyes to the water when cooking the chook, take the chook out to shred, then cook the beans in the chicken stock. Black beans turn out better cooked in my La Chamba pot on the cooktop, though. Still add the chiles

I was going to put this in the Australia and New Zealand forum but I wonder if it is unique to us or cross-cultural. New to me Australian subculture - snapping the kabana. Apparently kabana originated in Poland but somehow became common here. I now know a kabana is a long skinny Polish sausage, kind of like a non-spicy pepperoni. Somehow I had missed that and that Australians have embraced kabana. When you buy one at the deli counter, they typically snap it in half to wrap it. According to the internet, only a mad person would want their kabana whole, but supposedly deli workers are trained to ask before snapping in case they encounter such a person. I, of course, had to buy one. The clerk snapped it in half without asking. I was very disappointed. Tastes good, though How do you eat kabana? Do you get it snapped in half when buying? Do they ask first?

Welcome. Many years ago I went to a Sri Lankan restaurant in Minneapolis. The food was amazing. The menu had strong instructions to people who hadn't eaten there before not to order hotter than medium and that they would bring you condiments to adjust the heat upward. These were indeed hot but also had exquisite flavour so I ended up eating very spicy food, just because they were so good.

Maybe I left my fennel seeds on the plant too long. The ones I have bought are a pale yellow and these are dark. Do you think they are ok to eat? I already have some in pots in the cold frame and a few randomly scattered in one of the raised beds.

No beetroot?

Do the pillows come with pillowcases for easier cleanup?

This would have been a good bunch to start with. They were almost starting to look like leeks

Only a before photo since I got frazzled during cooking (What do you mean you didn't buy spring onions??? Help! I can't find the corn flour!!!), but I made Mapo Tofu using Adam Liaw's recipe. The tofu I had was too firm imo, and about everything in the kitchen was stained red, but I would do it again. IGA spring onions I used were huge so I cut them lengthwise as well as crosswise and the result seemed to have a lot more greens than his photo didn't seem too terribly different. I ground the Sichuan pepper in the mortar and pestle and it was pretty course but sufficiently tongue-numbing.

I really like the Thermoworks minis that I was gifted. Small but still substantial.

The water was still perfectly clear, right?

Beautiful Donabe. The Mishima decoration looks very Korean. Of course the Japanese pottery industry started with "recruiting" Korean potters...

In Australia they make a distinction between skinless American style hot dogs and other sausages which are usually sold uncooked and invariably have skin. Are French sausages generally uncooked? Two lazy to google but I think there are two different Aldi companies and I'm guessing that the French one is associated with the one that own Trader Joe's.

No insert. That's what the baking paper is for. I think I just put tomato paste on top instead of their overly sweet looking ketchup and sugar and whatever. I probably will skip the glaze altogether next time. No thyme or bouillon either, because I don't have any. I blitzed the onion in the mini-processor attachment for my stick blender instead of grating. Eager to see your results.

Why not go with the shoulder part, below the butt, which is not as fatty, as mentioned above? Rolled shoulder is a popular roast here with the skin for crackling.

I recently went through the same experience. At least if I have made meatloaf I can't remember when, although I remember using my hands to goosh the eggs and cornflakes into the meat for my mother when I was a kid. I somewhat followed a recipe that suggested grating the onions help for moisture and used panko, which is good because I never have bread crumbs... or cornflakes. Then I took the suggestion from somewhere else to line the loaf pan with baking paper to lift the loaf out for cutting. It tasted very nice but was a little too moist and kind of falling apart. Less onion next time. We do have a Meatloaf topic (last post 2017) and a Burger/Meatloaf Cookoff

In the absence of any experience, I'd leave the proportions the same and adjust next time.

Oooh, I have lemons and an open bottle of wine...

I hope your household follows the tradition where they have to kiss the cook if they get a bay leaf on their plate!

On a bit of a whim, bought some brisket from my beef guy. Last time I tried to cook it was underwhelming. Decided that I'd try a more or less classic Jewish braise, which I had never done. Did enough reading through eG and various websites to get confused but more or less followed Serious Eats method with hints from the wise people here. I was happy with the result documented here. Started with a piece of point end Belted Galloway with a bit of fat cap on both sides. Salt and pepper then browned. Deglazed with some inexpensive but drinkable Cab Sauv. Then I caramelized finely chopped onion and carrot, throwing in garlic at the end (I don't like celery so skipped that). Next time I'll do the onions and carrot first then the meat because the fond and deglazing kind of got in the way of the caramelization. Added 4 bay leaves, ~ 1/3 cup tomato paste, 1/2 can of crushed tomato (200 mL) and a couple of teaspoons Australian umami (Vegemite). I added the rest of the tomato later but think it wasn't necessary. Everything went into my la Chamba clay pot. Since the lid doesn't fit tightly I put a sheet of baking paper over the braise, under the lid. About 4 hours in the oven at 140 C, convection, then pulled the meat out to rest for about 1/2 hour then sliced. It was still quite firm. Stood the slices back into the veg and put in the fridge overnight. Reheated for 2 1/2 hours and served with cauliflower and baked potato (no butter for me as a nod to kosher). The meat was almost fall apart and I didn't find it dry. I'd do it again.

I know nothing about Chinese crocks or Chinese fermentation but I would think that glazed would be better provided the glaze is lead-free, just for sanitation purposes. It is important to understand the difference between low-fired earthenware and high-fired stoneware. The former is not vitrified (using the term vitrified loosely) - there is significant porosity remaining in the clay body. Although this might promote breathing, it will more likely allow leakage of the liquid through the clay. The whole point of lacto-fermentation is to exclude air so I see no reason why you would want the pot to breathe. Stoneware should have little or no porosity left in the clay after firing (not always the case in the real world). This means it won't breathe, even if unglazed. You will just have a surface that is harder to clean. Unless you are making vinegar, you want a water lock to exclude air so the contents ferment and to inhibit the formation of kahm yeast. One thing I have found with water locks is that changing temperature can allow the contents to expand and contract and that can cause water to suck out of the lock into the jar. Keeping a consistent temperature is good. The jars in your photo seem to have pretty deep locks, which is ideal. Keep water in them but not so full that the water sucks into the crock. I have had the water lock on my sauerkraut crock go dry and it doesn't seem really harmful since there isn't a lot of airflow.