KennethT

While this is not at all even close to the real thing, my go-to for a simple week night salad dressing based on the Caesar - but (hold your gasps now) without the cheese (we try to be healthy during the week). I make a paste of garlic and salt, then put in the bowl with lemon or lime juice and a few splashes of fish sauce (this kind of gives the hint of the anchovies). I let the garlic marinate in the acid for a while while I get the rest of dinner going. Just before plating, I'll whisk in some extra virgin olive oil, then dress and plate. Is it as good as the Caesar of my memories? Absolutely not. Is it fast and tasty - sure is.

Thank you!!!

Maybe. In all the restaurants where I used to have it (back in the mid to late '80s mind you) all of them made a paste with the garlic and anchovy with a fork in the bowl. I don't think I saw any of them just rub the garlic on the bowl. So I have no idea if a rubbed garlic would be better or not.

Well, it arrived yesterday... And technically it shipped from somewhere in the US - who knows how long it has been in the US for. And there is English on the package so I assume it was packed for export.

Screw that! How bout this? It's hard to see, but my fabric pot is sitting in a bowl of nutrient, so its got nowhere to drain. Between that and the plastic bag, hopefully it will stay saturated.

I'm in the lots of garlic and anchovy camp - whenever I used to get it tableside (which is a lot when I was a kid) the wooden bowl wasn't just rubbed with garlic, the waiter used a fork and made a paste of garlic and anchovy over the 10 minutes of rubbing.

Coming soon to a garden near me, direct from Thailand via some US company's warehouse and Amazon: ps - I just moved my germinated pak boong seeds into their pot of coco coir. I really see how hard it is to keep the coir swampy without a constant drip! Fingers crossed that I can keep the surface moist enough until the roots get more established.

Enoki mushrooms would be good... I think the most commonly used in Thailand would be straw mushrooms, but I can only find them canned here. I worry that the shiitake would overpower everything. I think the flavor of rau ram wouldn't really go with the tom kha flavors very well - I probably could have used some of my sawtooth coriander, but in truth, I really wanted the flavor combination of the galangal, lemongrass, kaffir lime and lime juice to stand out with the coconut, with palm sugar and fish sauce in the background... I didn't want to add too many herbs as it changes teh profile - those herbs are great with Viet food (especially from the South) where they would all be present.

I hate when this happens... I JUST remembered that I had gotten a package of shimeji mushrooms to go with this - traditionally oyster mushrooms are used, but I like the shimeji... I completely forgot that I left them in the crisper drawer... out of sight, out of mind.... arrrgghhhh....

I'll be eagerly checking back on this to see what you think...

I didn't notice anything glaring. Do you need to peel the bitter melon?

@liuzhou I'm not in Cincinnati, but this looks great! Is there any chance I could persuade you to cut and paste the recipes into RecipeGullet? It would certainly make for easier finding later on, after I've tried to remember but long forgotten the original name of this thread?

Tom kha pla... Rice on the side. I think if I was making this with shrimp or fish cake I would have gone with soup and noodles. But with the flakey fish I agreed with @pastameshugana and went with a brothy sauce. Kaffir lime leaves from my garden. I can't wait until I have some lemongrass to harvest - the store bought stuff near me is like sawdust. I doubled up on it and I could still only barely perceive it. I used the frozen galangal and I was disappointed with that too... Oh well, once we move I'll just have to try to grow some of that too.

Looking for opinions - caveat, I need them in the next hour or so!!! I was planning a striped bass with Thai tom kha flavors - I've been debating making the full tom kha soup and then simmering the fish in it for the last few minutes, or reducing the soup into a kind of brothy sauce - sort of like a curry consistency. Any opinions on which you'd prefer? Also, and I guess this depends on the sauce/soup question, but serve with rice noodles (like as a noodle soup with fish chunks) or with rice on the side that you can spoon some soup/sauce over? What I worry about with the rice noodles is having the fish pieces break up too much when eating the noodles sitting in the bowl below them. Striped bass isn't that firm of a fish....

I've never had Cochon's tasso (other than what may have been used at the restaurant), but I've used Poche's before - both their tasso and andouille, and both are really good.

I think that rather than using a lot of coffee, I would use instant espresso powder - then you could use some kind of stock as the main liquid which would give it a rounder mouthfeel.

I LOVE allen keys! They're so much better than either slotted or phillips screws. You don't get runout (where the screw driver slips out of the slot), the cross of the phillips can get damaged and then you're stuck, you can put a lot more torque on a hex key too. The biggest problem is the key that's usually provided stinks - it's cheap, usually too short, etc. If you have a lot to do, do yourself a favor and get a ball-end hex key - they work on an angle which is great for starting and doing the majority of the 'screwing' even in hard to reach areas.

We went out for Indian in Curry Hill.... Someone with her mouth full of pappadum Crab cakes - these had good flavor but so couldn't find any crab. Shrimp with chili, spices, curry leaves and tomato, served with coconut rice. Dum biryani with goat. This was better than most I've had in NY but still didn't compare with the version in Siingapore...

I posted this a long time ago. In the version we had there was no rice - it was just meat and sauce with banh mi on the side along with some herbs on the side. I don't know if this was traditional but they used osso buco for the meat so there weren't a lot of bones to deal with.

Linguine with seared shrimp, local mini heirlooms, garden basil and pecorino Romano. Yum.

@Anna N was the beef stew called bo kho? When we were in Saigon, our hotel had a choice of 3 or 4 Viet dishes in the breakfast selections (out of like 15 choices) included in our room rate. After trying their pho and bun bo hue, we settled on getting their bo kho every day - but what made it so great was the banh mi they served with it for dipping. After the first couple of days we requested it with only a little meat and lots of the sauce and an extra banh mi!!!

@scamhi Who was the producer of the Burgundy?

I don't know if he was around when I joined, but I definitely remember spending a lot of time reading his posts! His stuff looked amazing.

No, I can't wait!!! I've watched more Patrick Blanc videos on YouTube than I care to admit.... I've also been researching the idea of putting a few orchids in there... but I need to undistract myself.... first focus on getting the renovation done and moving. Then think about vertical garden... damn. That's surprising to hear about Richters... they usually have a good reputation. I did a little more virtual digging into lemongrass in its native habitat. According to nurseries selling lemongrass plants in Singapore, lemongrass likes full sun (even down there) and moist, but not wet soil. So maybe photobleaching is not my problem. I just changed the nutrient solution to provide a bit more nitrogen - hopefully that will help... I should know more in a few days.

Coir is fascinating. It's free draining but like a sponge - the surface of each coir particle dries fast so it promotes good aeration, but holds onto a huge amount of water in its core which roots can access.