KennethT

these grow really easily if you have that greenhouse thingy I think i remember you talking about. Just as long as it doesn't get that hot in there!

Thai stir fry with nam prik pao and Thai basil. This really reminded me of simple stir fries I've had in Thailand. I need to do more stuff like this - it's delicious but quick and easy.

I think the 10 hr boil also helps the broth emulsify the fat - I don't know how well that would work in the pc

ETA - I've changed my recipe a bit since this original post... I like this version a lot better and it's healthier as well. The rempah stays the same, but I add about an inch of galangal and a few kaffir lime leaves and don't add the coconut cream. Also, I just add some water to help it blend - I don't use the 3/4C grapeseed oil anymore. I add a few glugs of grapeseed oil that I preheat before adding the paste and frying. The oil quickly integrates into the paste but separates out again, which is when you know the paste is done. Also, to save freezer space, I don't add any liquid before freezing the individual portions - I just cool the paste, portion it out and freeze. When it's time to cook, I'll take 1C of my homemade chicken stock in a saucepan large enough to contain the chicken, add the frozen paste and bring to a simmer (covered) to defrost. After a few minutes, I'll just take a whisk or spoon and integrate the paste into the stock. Bring to a boil, season with salt/sugar/MSG (Makes Stuff taste Great), add the chicken, cover and simmer until the chicken is cooked through. Once done, I'll add 1/2C coconut milk, bring back to a simmer, taste for seasoning and done. It's a lot healthier and just as tasty, if not tastier - I find that cooking the coconut milk for long periods of time make it lose that freshness that makes coconut milk so tasty! Also, I'm going to add what I do for the prata here since it's hard to find it hiding amongst the Dinner 2000 thread posts... For the prata, it's actually a relatively lean dough. From research I've done, it seems like the flour all the prata guys in Singapore use have 10.8% protein, which I can't find here. So for 8 pratas (4 meals of 2 to go along with the curry) it should be 600g flour with approx 10.8% protein. I made this using 118g 7% protein cake flour and 482g of 11.7% KAF all purpose. To this about 1t salt, 1T sugar, 15ml grapeseed oil, 300ml water and 1 egg. Mixed by hand and let sit covered for about an hour or so. After that, I could actually knead it without using any extra flour. I kneaded it in several sessions of about 5 minutes each, separated by 20 min of rest. Divided into 8 balls, rolled in grapeseed oil, then sit in ramekins covered for a few hours. Then sit in the fridge overnight. Then I freeze 6 and stretched 2 a few minutes before the chicken was finished. Cooked until brown on both sides on a med-high pan with a bit of grapeseed oil. I think the key is lots of kneading interspersed with lots of rest to relax the gluten. It's really stretchy - it springs back like a rubber band. To use the frozen ones, the day I'm making the curry, I'll take them out of the freezer and leave on the countertop all day to defrost and relax. To stretch, take a large section of clean countertop and spread a thin layer of grapeseed oil and oil your hands. Take a dough ball and flatten into a disk, then, working around in a circle, lift and stretch the edge away from the center and press down on the countertop. If your countertop has too much oil it will slide, but if just a bit, it should stay there. Keep going around until you can see the countertop through the dough - it doesn't matter if a couple of holes tear into it as long as you can stretch it really thin. It should be about 2 feet in diameter (roughly). Then spread a little more grapeseed oil on the top surface and roll it into a snake, then coil the snake into a disk tucking the last end underneath. Cover and let sit and rest for a while. When ready to cook, press the disk as flat as you can and fry on a medium high heat in a bit more grapeseed oil. At this point, it's really stretchy, so when you press the disk flat, it comes back to almost its original thickness, so when it hits the hot pan, I'll press it flatter with a spatula. When just browned, flip it and do the same thing. When done, transfer to a clean countertop or board and with a quick motion with your hands, clap the edges towards the center a couple times, which should help separate the layers a bit.

Do you know the reason the mushrooms got that name?

Finally back on the horse making one of my favorites - chicken curry with homemade roti prata...

I wonder if it was too wet first? Did you dry them with a paper towel prior to coating? I'm assuming you did the standard dredge in flour before any kind of batter/egg/wet application right?

Is there a reason why you don't pressure cook first, then dry it off and fry second?

I believe that @Shelbys preferred rabbit treatment is to fry it....

Yikes - who needs that much meat in one sitting???

Many years ago, I was in the hospital and was allowed nothing by mouth for like 8 or 9 days - back in those days, the nutrition came from a large bag of whitish fluid pumped into me by IV. I was never really hungry the whole time, but I remember watching Burger King tv commercials thinking that the first thing I was going to do once I got out was get one of those burgers. I actually did go to the BK when I got out, but looking at what actually was presented was a thoroughly disappointing experience...

wow... there is something just so primally beautiful about that. Next time you're going to make this, please give a bit of advance notice so I can book my plane flight and corresponding quarantine time!!!

Conch fritters!

I'm curious as to the rice paddy eels (and other rice paddy aquatic animals). Are they farmed or wild? By this I mean, are the paddies stocked with baby eels or do they get there naturally? If naturally, how do they get there? Where do they go when the paddy is drained?

@scamhi Yes, Silky Kitchen. I haven't been there since pre-pandemic, but I enjoyed it when I was there. Also, their dumplings are fantastic, but I don't know how they would travel - the skins are thin and delicate. Every time I was there, it was packed with Chinese NYU students. I haven't tried Hunan slurp yet but am curious.

there's a hunan restaurant right around the corner from my new apartment. It's a family run place who come from Hunan province and their dishes are really spicy. Most of the staff speak somewhat broken English, but they try and are very nice... the first time I was in there, I ordered my noodles the normal spicy, and the young woman behind the counter got a horrified look on her face and begged me to get it "medium". I finally relented and I was glad I did - the medium almost blew my head off. Filled with tons of chopped fresh chilli that definitely were not a standard US chilli or a thai chilli which are the common ones here.... but it was really tasty...

Cheapest thing you can do for that is fluorescent lights... for a small # of plants you can use a CFL (compact fluorescent) using one of those clamp-on fixtures. If you need more space, use a 4' shop-light or something like that. Stay away from bulbs labeled "soft white" or anything like that which will have more red in the spectrum - for CFLs, they make "daylight" spectrum bulbs which are good, otherwise a cool white will be good because it has lots of blue which will keep plants more compact and keep them from getting leggy. The LED grow lights on Amazon are ok but will be a lot more expensive than a fluorescent for the equivalent amount of brightness. Yes, they're more energy efficient, but that won't make a difference for 1 or 2 lights... it makes a big difference when you're lighting up a warehouse.

Glad to see you didn't burn the crap out of yourself while making that chile sauce - it looks remarkably like the one that attacked me!

Yeah - the trunk was about 1-1/2 inches in diameter and woody.

Probably over a year. And, it was constantly heavily pruned at least once a week!

Time to change out the basil plant!!!

I pretty much have to if I do use an induction burner. My parents used to have the coil top electric burners and I hated cooking on it. Then they got the sealed infrared burners and I wasn't a fan either. I love cooking on gas and have done so for the last 20 years or so but it's not an option in the new apartment except for that I'm planning on getting a portable butane gas burner - but that's really just to have a cheap burner around on the off chance I need 3, or if I want to use a specific All Clad pan that I didn't get rid of.

My All Clad is not magnetic - anodized aluminum exterior bonded to an aluminum core bonded to a stainless interior.

what did you use for bread?

Exactly. In our new apartment that we're renovating from the ground up and designing the kitchen, we decided not to get a built in oven or range. It's only 2 of us, and the most number of people we'd have over would be like 2 people, so we'll never need more oven than our countertop CSO can handle. Plus, there's a nice deep corner that it will fit in that couldn't be used for much else. Instead of a normal oven, we put extra cabinet space.