KennethT

I made the traditional Yunnan "beef with mint" (as discussed here) tonight. It was really tasty and addictive - it will definitely be in heavy rotation! I assume that the cows from that area would traditionally be quite lean, so I used some ground Elk that I got from Wild Fork; 3 of the 4 herbs (sawtooth, laksa and thai basil) came from my garden and I had the garlic chives left in my fridge for the past 2 weeks left over from another dish. I can't get fresh Heaven Facing chilies too easily here, so I used 3 Prik Chee Fah (spur chilies) and 1 Thai chili since my wife doesn't have as much of a tolerance for spicy as I do and I wanted to make sure that she enjoyed it. Served with Thai sticky rice (made in the CSO - which worked amazing for it, btw) and some smacked cucumbers.

Slightly OT but I couldn't find anything else close to it. After the move, I discovered a glass jar with Thai sticky rice that is of an undeterminable age. It's old. I was planning to make a Dai beef with herb dish discussed on another thread. When I opened the jar, I noticed a slight rancid smell. Can rice go rancid? I was planning to throw it out just because it doesn't smell good, but it got me curious...

When you make orzo, do you dress it with anything? How do you keep it from sticking together in a solid block?

Wow... that's a great looking schnitzel-fry as I've ever seen!

If adding some kind of cream, maybe try some coconut milk - I love the combination of coconut milk and mango.

I salted/seasoned and sat the fridge for about 5 hours prior to cooking. If I do decide to do in teh oven again, I might try it with steam rather than just convection. But the SV is just so easy - I usually put 4 legs in the bath at one time, and once done, they'll keep in my refrigerator for months ready for whatever I want to do with them.

2 for $5 at the farmer's market... I think this is the last pack in my freezer - but since I've got so much in there now, there could be another package or so buried at the bottom.

I finally had time this weekend to make another batch of Teochew style Bak Kut Teh. It's basically a pork broth with lots of garlic and, depending on which school you come from, either lots of white pepper or black pepper. At one point, I had read that a famous place in Singapore (where I fell in love with this dish) uses a special black pepper from Malaysia which has a rounder flavor than most other peppercorns - so I was able to find a Sumatran black peppercorn which is quite similar. Since I cooked the crap out of the pork ribs in the pressure cooker to extract every last bit of flavor and gelatin I could (the bones collapsed almost under their own weight), the ribs then went in the garbage as they tasted of nothing and were really dried out. So I like to make this a healthy version (with shrimp) in the defatted broth. To give it a bit more bulk, I added a knife cut noodle that I get at H-Mart. What better pre-Rosh Hashanah meal could there be - both pork and shrimp!

Duck legs cooked in the cazuela on top of potatoes and garlic. Chanterelles were cooked separately with some butter and shallot (in the wok). While the duck skin and potatoes were amazing, I was less than impressed with the duck meat. The legs were cooked at 275 for about 2 hours - at which time they were just cooked. Legs removed and the oven temp increased to 400 for 10 min to attempt to brown the potatoes a bit (fail) - moved to the broiler for another 5 (a bit better). Duck legs back in for about 5 minutes to crisp the skin a bit more. The duck meat was dry and still a little tough. Next time I'll go back to my SV method. The glass of burgundy was quite nice - it was hard to believe it was an '05 - it was still so fresh!

What type of rice did you use for the pilaf?

I started it in a cold oven set to 275 with a tablespoon of reserved duck fat in teh bottom. Once preheated was finished, I took it out, spread around the duck fat, then added cut up potatoes and duck legs on top, then back in at 275 for the foreseeable future.

But if the whole thing is glazed (bottom also) how will any water get in other than through the two miniscule (by percentage of surface area) circular ribs?

I received this cazuela many years ago as a gift. As you can see, the bottom is glazed also, except for the 2 rims it sits on. I've never actually used this for cooking in all the years I've had it - I've only put a towel in it and used it to keep tortillas warm (I preheated it in a 150F oven for a while first). Everything I've found discussing curing a cazuela before use talks about ones with unglazed bottoms - soak it for 12 hours, drain, rub it with garlic and then bake or put on a flame tamer or something. But what about a fully glazed bottom? Does this need soaking and curing if I actually wanted to use it in a 300F oven? Since it's almost fully glazed, I can't imagine what soaking would do for it. Plus it does say that it's oven safe - unfortunately I don't have the packaging or documentation that came with it so I don't know if they recommend some sort of curing process first - and I can't find it on Sur la table's website. I guess it's been discontinued. Any help would be appreciated!

Excellent. Thank you!

Thanks. Do you know the root of boeuf (or porc for that matter) in the French? Is there a reason why the French created words to differentiate between animal and meat?

Why is it that we call cow meat "beef"? Pork meat is "pork". Chicken meat is "chicken". Beef is the only example I can think of where the name of the meat is different than the name of the animal. What is the origin of this? @liuzhou - any thoughts? I would assume that "beef" comes from the Latin/Romance root - but, say, in French beouf is not vache, so it's the same issue.

Bumping (I didn't know exactly where to put this comment) I just defrosted (in the sink) a 5# rack of pork spare ribs and pork feet from Wild Fork to make pork stock and Bak Kut Teh. I am really impressed - the ribs were really plump and meaty and there was very little liquid in the bag. Plus, you can't beat the prices - $2.48 per pound for the ribs and $2.88 per pound for the feet. I don't think I could get much cheaper even by going to Chinatown, and it's certainly a lot more convenient.

@Anna N and @ElsieD That's what I was thinking!!!

And arm strength/stamina!

Very close! And thanks for the recap. The enameled pot will hold much more than 2 portions, but it's the 12" saute pan (on another burner) that I use to cook the pasta in the sauce that only comfortably holds 2 portions. Technically it could hold more, but I'm sure there would be a lot of stuff flying out while flipping/stirring if I tried it. I guess I could cook all 4 portions together - then, rather than using a saute pan, I could do the final minute or so in a large saucepan/stockpot. At that point, I could use @Margaret Pilgrim's idea and reserve some pasta liquid and then drain everything into a colander. It would also save time since I wouldn't need to do it in 2 batches. Food for thought.... thanks all for your replies and ideas

I don't dump the pasta into a colander because many times I make a few (sometimes 4) portions at a time, but the pan that I use to cook the pasta in the sauce at the end only holds 2 portions comfortably. So I remove the pasta with a spider (see link above) to keep the starchy water in the pan for A) using to add to the sauce and B) cooking the next batch. When using said spider, I would ideally like to see the pasta because otherwise it's like fishing in the black lagoon. It seems like there's always an errant few pieces laying at the bottom once I'm ready to clean everything up and I do wind up pouring out the water. One might say "what's the matter with leaving a few pieces behind?" but that would be the topic of another post entirely.

I had that happen when I first started it - it goes really fast! I find just an inch of water (to make sure all the stem bottoms are in if they're not all the same height) and making sure no leaves are in the water are the key. That and changing the water every day or two.

What language is this? 🤣

I knew someone was going to say this!!!

A spider... something like https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwit1tHZkeHyAhWKnLMKHb64ASIYABAFGgJxbg&sig=AOD64_1bRlVOr0BeK0NhfssfkMNUdggM0Q&ctype=5&q=&ved=2ahUKEwiYy8LZkeHyAhVFhuAKHavtCX4Q9aACegQIARBC&adurl=