KennethT

@TdeV Me too!! One way to see if it would work would be to puree one onion and see if it can fry it at medium heat with maybe 1-2T of oil until the oil separates back out. I'd love to see how much human intervention it would need to do it evenly.

How does the Corningware kettle work? My mother used a Corningware baking dish (similar, if not the same as, the one you just got) and it was oven-safe, obviously. But a kettle requires direct heat - like over a gas flame, or electric burner which are much hotter than oven temp air. Or is the kettle more of a tea pot that is meant to have boiling water poured into it?

Hmmm.... I'm definitely at least partially (if not mostly) to blame to your misunderstanding - my description was not nearly detailed enough. I should have written to slice each cheek close to, but not through, the center of the lime - like cutting the flesh of an apple off of its core. Those lime cheeks are easy to squeeze, and you can even kind of rub the two cheek halves back and forth against each other (with the flesh side inside, skin outside) to get the juice out without getting the pith too involved - sort of like rubbing your forefinger and thumb together.

Thanks, but can it stir small quantities while frying in a small amount of oil? Not a quart of soup, but stirring (and wiping the bottom so it doesn't burn) say a half cup of spice paste?

@Smithy I used to use a juice press years ago but stopped due to exactly what @Kerry Beal says - I'd squeeze so hard to get every last drop out (most probably oversqueezing) I'd also get a lot of bitterness from the pith. Doing it the SE Asian way relieves me of that problem - and since I don't usually need nearly the amount of juice you used, it's not a big deal if I don't get every last drop anymore.... I found this video which illustrates the SE Asian method - TBH, I haven't watched the whole video, but near the middle where she starts cutting looks how I do it.

Isn't that more of a blender that heats? Does it continually scrape the bottom or does it have blades that turn to stir a soup or something?

I didn't measure, but it is pretty big...

Ha! It seemed like a product sold on late night TV but it actually looked pretty solid when I unpacked it. It's a good idea - just too bad it didn't work as well as it could've! Part of me feels like I should design my own version - that could be fun.... Not of a complete cooker, but the automated stirring function...

I had high hopes for this device: https://www.amazon.com/STIRMAX-Multi-Cooker-Automatic-programmable-Simmering/dp/B0DC1T1F36/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=2ALKEQSAU0MDC&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.KmC0Kqgeq7oXNwgT_2sw-5hsWS7uOtFbUMINaFZa8MbHNckPFfQwRRcGqfm-B8wDUueN3WoXczgWEwjDenv-KiijkLjZaBhU7nZ6rC5uMobLeusKxQ1cCOSV_7jUAs06TV-mY6hQrfhSAbWiY8I0ZY4eykebKJ-ji4uyHhzM51xWhhhxEwD3Fy01YhW8VszGuUCoYgd9hUmWvWFRqETUcUgVaObuL6G51hRqmCKt6KM.1pEqI7ArR6lICHA15thBtJeV__Md33IBL4hngdXEXZ0&dib_tag=se&keywords=power%2Bxl%2Bstir%2Bmax%2Bmulti%2Bcooker&qid=1742489461&sprefix=power%2Bxl%2Caps%2C100&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1 It's designed to automatically stir foods that are cooking in it - I thought it would be a great thing to use to automate frying Malay/Indo/Nyonya curry pastes (typically fried in oil prior to adding liquids) or making long cooked (and constantly stirred) stuff like rendang. I received it the other day and finally got to try it out last night. I tested it with frying some pureed onion. Unfortunately, the stirring doesn't work nearly as well as I'd hoped it would - there's a decent sized gap between the stirring blade and the pan's bottom and there's 4 spots on the corners of the square pan where the food accumulates and A) doesn't actually cook there as there's only little heat and B) doesn't get out of there unless manually moved (which kinda defeats the purpose of an automated stirring mechanism, no?) Disappointed... and it's being returned this weekend...

How is the snail powder made?

Thanks. Did you notice if they put a moisture barrier between ingredients and bread, like sliced cheese or something?

I know this is like a year old, but when you'd order these, how did it arrive? Was the bread separate or already put together? I'm wondering how they kept the bread from either getting soggy from prolonged contact with the other ingredients or stale from being at refrig temps for a while...

I recently made a new batch of spice paste for the Nyonya buah keluak chicken, so... Now that I'm making the sauce thicker (a la Violet Oon) I think I'll cut back on the tamarind - it overshadowed everything this time.

@Smithy One thing to keep in mind is that key limes have seeds. The way they're juiced all over SE Asia (that's pretty much the only kind of lime they have there) is to make 3 vertical cuts, basically cutting the cheeks off - all the seeds should be left in the core and each cheek should squeeze really easily. You can also squeeze the core, but, you know, seeds. Another way I've seen is just to cut straight into the lime, vertically, about halfway through and squeeze while leaving the knife in the cut (which tries to block the seeds).

I think I'd get on a plane and fly there! I could clean out the store!