KennethT

I agree - I've been there on 3 different trips and the 4th (to the Delta area) was originally planned to be during this past December... It's one of my favorite countries to visit... oh well...

🤩🤩🤩 Wow!!! Now I'm totally jealous! That's why I grow my own... once we move, I'll get started growing a chilli plant....

Might I suggest a few things about the summer rolls? While it varies from region to region in Vietnam, I really like a classic Southern style lime juice, raw garlic, fish sauce, sugar, black pepper, chilli dipping sauce. Some places in Central vietnam would make a dipping sauce basically of raw garlic and fish sauce. Others were just fish sauce and black pepper. I also like to add some vermicelli rice noodles to the summer rolls (which is quite common) and also a bunch of herbs. In Saigon, the best summer rolls I had had a whole bunch of herbs tucked in there... thai basil, rau ram (aka laksa leaf), garlic chives, sawtooth coriander, mint...

I can't stand gefilte fish... My mother doesn't like it either, but my father would go to town on them, even the ones out of the glass jar. Doesn't really make me an outcast though...

Wow! I never liked the hamantaschen in Hebrew school (store bought) but yours look great!

The unfried ones are summer rolls - because in summer it's too hot to fry. Spring rolls are the fried ones. In NYC, egg rolls are much bigger than spring rolls in general but the filling of spring rolls varies depending if you get it in a Chinese Viet or Thai restaurant.

I saw the first 2 episodes also, they were ok, but they both made me long for Bourdain.

Also good stir fried.

Shave it on a mandoline and make a salad with olive oil, salt, citrus (it's awesome with oranges and some segments) and some thin sliced red onion or shallot.

@weinoo@liuzhouThis is a claypot rice dish from a place that specialized in it in Singapore.... I didn't get photos of the cooking, but one definitely wouldn't call that a low or medium flame!

We had pizza delivered to go with some basil...

Here's the latest family photo... Lots of stuff lurking in with the gigantic lemongrass... There's the curry plant on the left of it and the kaffir lime tree on the right against the wall. This is just after an extreme haircut of the mint and replanting the laksa (rau ram).

The photos are a bit chopped up - would it be too much trouble to ask for a photo of the tomato plant? How are you trellising it? What variety is it? Is it a dwarf?

I'm with @btbyrd. I like the Maille brand - probably the best I've been able to get in the US - probably because I like the vinegar they use. If I wanted it spicier, I'd probably add a touch more mustard powder and see what happens...

@pattiWhat are the green flakes that look like oregano? Is it part of the Creole seasoning?

Just for completeness, spring rolls are found all over SE Asia. In Indonesia they're lumpia, Thailand poh pia, etc. In Vietnam, it can vary greatly depending on region - the Central Viet version uses a different type of wrapper and they're skinnier (and not as tasty imo) than the Southern version.

Everything looks great, but if it's not too much work, could you post your recipe for barbeque shrimp in RecipeGullet?

ok. I didn't understand. I thought they were already steamed by the time you got them

how does the har gow travel? Id imagine it would get really gummy

Thanks. Sorry - I didn't mean to imply that you shouldn't freeze it, I just had heard that if you freeze it, the texture changes (it was said that it can become grainy if used in a seared prep and lose a lot of fat) but would be fine in a pate.... But I had never done it myself so I have no personal experience with using frozen. Back in the days when I did use foie gras (years ago), I used to get fresh slices of it from a local butcher for $5 a slice - which seemed a lot better than buying a whole lobe for $80-90 and not being able to use it all.

I've always heard that frozen foie gras doesn't work well for searing because it basically liquifies - but obviously yours looks amazing. What was your experience with it? Did you find a lot of fat come out while searing (more than when fresh) or was it about the same?

very nice... one thing that jumped out was the quantity of duck fat included. What did they intend you do with it all??

Thanks - I didn't realize when I took that photo that you could see 5 different plants there. The kaffir lime is doing really well also, I'm letting 1 fruit mature (I plucked the other flowers) and it keeps putting out new flushes of leaves. The lemongrass has gone crazy and the mint, after its extreme haircut has come back with a vengeance. I should open up a mint stand at the farmer's market.

The cultivar is Siam Queen. I've grown it before - it has good flavor and is prolific

Thai basil redux - out of the solo cup and into its forever home