KennethT

Wild mountain cumin??? Do you find it very different from normal cumin?

Absolutely fascinating. Thank you.

Thanks. I just remember being taken to a Yunnan restaurant in Beijing and one of the dishes was beef rolled around a bunch of mint... which is why I was curious. This is it here:

I seem to remember that the one I had in Hanoi was made either with catfish or basa or something like that. I gussied it up using halibut, but that wouldn't be common (or even exist?) in Hanoi.

I had thought that mint was pretty common in Yunnan and other areas close to the Viet border?

Dill is VERY prominent.

Over the weekend I was going through some old photos and came across some photos I had taken in Hanoi back in 2006. Ever since, I couldn't get the memory of a certain dish out of my head, so I decided to make it - even though I've never seen a recipe that looked even close to what the real thing was. It seems like everyone in the US knows about Cha Ca La Vong... which, in itself, drives me crazy and makes me want to strangle the first person here who started it. The name of the dish is Cha Ca (or more specifically Chả Cá). La Vong is the name of the restaurant that either first made it or popularized it, depending on what you read. But when people call the dish, "Cha Ca La Vong" it drives me nuts... just my pet peeve. Anyway, the rest of the lore is true - the name of the street is Pho Cha Ca (Pho = street) and there are several restaurants selling Cha Ca on Pho Cha Ca. But this is pretty common in that section of Hanoi, where many streets are named after the preponderance of shops that sell it. For instance, there is Silk Street, where there is silk store after silk store... Sort of like in old NYC where we have the Garment District, the Diamond District, the Lighting District, etc. Unfortunately, I don't have a charcoal brazier for my apartment, and if I did, I'd probably set off every smoke alarm in the building.... But anyway, here's my Cha Ca Halibut: Please excuse my use of the wrong rice noodle - I thought I had rice vermicelli, but when I took out the package, I realized they were mung bean noodles which are not interchangeable. So these are like Banh Pho - like the noodles you'd see in Pho. Just for fun, this is the only photo of mine that I could find of the real thing:

I love how they made the supporting column look like a tree!

Over the weekend, I made some Thai boat noodle inspired duck noodles, made with some SV duck legs and some duck stock made from the carcass of a Peking duck we had in Chinatown....

I saw that and thought the same thing. For that price, I would have bought them all on the spot!!!

I also like the Vichy Catalan... probably my favorite sparkling water!

What type of power outlet do you have there? Is it Swiss? I always thought Spain's outlets were similar to those in Germany...

Love Palmer... one of my favorite Bordeaux

Botulism will grow above 34 degrees, albeit much more slowly than at room temp. At 38, it's much faster than at 34. I keep my fridge literally on the cusp of freezing. The produce stays in the produce drawers which are a bit warmer.

Did you poke some holes or cut the vacuum pack before defrosting in the fridge? Depending on the temp of your refrigerator, it would be a good idea since botulism bacteria is slightly active at the warmer end of the fridge temp scale, and the vacuum pack is a great environment for them. Giving it any access to air is a good way to make sure that doesn't happen since they're anaerobic. Also, according to Wild Alaskan's website, they cover everything in a glaze of sea water, so if you defrosted it still in the packaging, it was in a small amount of brine. They recommend taking it out of the packaging and defrosting on a rack so the sea water can drip away as it melts. I usually just defrost it in a bowl of water (out of the packaging) for like 30 minutes, then remove and pat dry.

so that's convection bake?

Thanks for taking us along!!!

I didn't know coconut milk was able to curdle. I've had some frozen coconut milk separate, but if you stir it pretty hard it comes back together.

@liuzhouDo you think it would benefit to replace the sugar with either jaggery or palm sugar?

I've never had a dried morel - how would you compare it to the fresh?

Is that chicken breast? When shopping in your area, are the chicken parts prepackaged (either by the farm/slaughterhouse/distributor or the store itself) or do you deal with the store's butcher?

What was the gravy?

I don't know - both could potentially kill you!

The last time I made the sockeye, I coated it in curry paste, wrapped it in a banana leaf and put it under the broiler. I cooked it in the Eric Ripert method - until when you can insert a thin metal skewer (I have one just for the purpose) and it feels just warm on the inside of your lip. Because of the banana leaf, it doesn't get the heat of the broiler but basically steams itself but is flavored with the charred banana leaf. Even though it was just barely warm, it was still dry... The coho is next up...

@Smithy and @weinoo Yes I have a CSO and I've steamed whole fish in it really well - it's an idea. I could always treat it like I treated the farmed stuff and SV it to a core of 102F