KennethT
-
Posts
6,811 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Posts posted by KennethT
-
-
6 hours ago, weinoo said:
Yes...I've become a fan of the scale for rice cooker rice cooking. With rice that doesn't get rinsed (e.g. bomba, carnaroli, etc.), I go a little more freehand.
As @liuzhou mentions, and as Roy Choi has often mentioned on Chef - he's OCD, and he washes rice 5x.
I wash mine like 4-5 times also - sometimes it takes that much just to get the water to a point where it stops being more clear than the previous wash. Plus, I don't use that much water for each.
-
1
-
-
17 minutes ago, weinoo said:
I don't even dip. I put the rice cooker bowl on a scale, and weigh the rice - now it's in the bowl I wash the rice in, and after draining, it's back on the scale for the amount of water needed. I find that by subtracting how much water is left clinging to the rice from the total amount of water needed, the rice comes out beautifully.
wow. I'm impressed. While I'm usually very scientifically minded, my rice making is more of the "go as fast as you can without having to get out much stuff". I put the raw dry rice in a strainer, and then put that in a bowl of water in the sink. Swish. Take out the strainer, dump the starch water, refill, repeat a few times. The last time, take the strainer out, give it a tap, then dump into rice cooker, spread around evenly, then add water to where it needs to go (for 2 cups jasmine, I add water to just under halfway between and 2 and 3 lines). I'm sure the scale makes yours much more easily repeatable without all the eyeballing I need to do.
-
1
-
-
2 minutes ago, dtremit said:
Interesting new rice container from Yamazaki Home popped up in my feed:
It's divided vertically into twelve pre-measured chambers that each hold one rice cooker cup of rice. You simply slide the lid open on the right number of openings, and pour. Sounds convenient but I wonder if it would be a pain to fill.
How much convenient does it need to be than a small plastic cup that you dip into your rice jar or bag? Plus, you shouldn't pour the raw rice directly into the rice cooker as it usually needs to be rinsed several times first to get rid of the surface starch. So I guess, all in all, I don't really see the point. To me, the most time consuming part of making rice is washing it initially (aside from any inactive soaking or cooking time).
-
3
-
-
18 minutes ago, heidih said:
Yes here as well and at Nijiya. Part of my pull back from HMart. I think it is a perception of cleanliness thing. Like washing/scrubbing meat etc. Also speeds up check out and at leat here thetrend is to almost all self-check out
Yeah, in this store (right in the middle of Manhattan) where space is at a premium and it's always crowded, I think they do it to speed things along - both in the produce selection and in the check out. I gather that in the larger stores in northern NJ, they have more that's open to selection.
-
It seem like the guys in the local takeout joints here use stainless steel scouring pads that they move around with the ladle to swish the water around.
-
1
-
-
18 hours ago, pastrygirl said:
You could make custom candy sprinkles. A small amount of fondant or gum paste pushed through and sliced thin would make a decent number of decorative sprinkles.
I agree with the sprinkles idea since the chamber is so small - I don't think it could be for cookies, or cake or anything like that.
-
1
-
-
In the local Hmart (Korean) that I used to frequent before I moved, just about everything was wrapped in plastic and preweighed. It was always a pain because I don't always need a pound of Thai chillies... most time a small handful would do.
-
2
-
-
2 hours ago, liuzhou said:
Any live fish? Freshwater fish is almost always sold live here (and is in Chinatown, London, too). Carp, for example is always sold live.
Sea fish is much less often sold live, especially away from the coast. Luckily I am only a couple of hours away by road from the Gulf of Tonkin (on the China / Vietnam border) so we get a lot of fresh sea fish and seafood.Some stores in Chinatown here have live freshwater fish, but they're mostly on ice or like at my small Hmart, on plastic trays in the refrigerated case.
-
1
-
-
2 hours ago, patti said:
Made crawfish pie last night, using tail meat leftover from the crawfish boil. Even with store bought pie shells, I get “rustic” looking results.
Before the top crust is applied, while things still look pretty.
After.
I also made some crawfish cornbread, but didn’t add enough crawfish, in my opinion. My husband disagreed.
Tonight, leftover crawfish pie and a simple salad.
I always wondered what to do with extra crawfish - but doesn't the boil flavor overpower everything you put the leftover tails in?
-
1
-
-
I used to go to the HMart on 32nd St. once a week - it was where I did my primary shopping - well, that and Fresh Direct. But I get all my veggies at Hmart, and I used to get salmon fillets there once a week too. I like it better than the supermarkets because it is prepackaged in that store, so I can go through all of them (there's lots) and find the perfect size I need. A lot of times, at the counter, they ahve to cut 3 or 4 pieces to finally get me what I asked for.
-
1
-
-
2 hours ago, liuzhou said:
An online purchase of (mostly) fresh Thai ingredients arrived today. Happy kitchen.
Dried chillies and kaffir lime leaves
Limes
Galangal
Lemongrass
Cuttings of the lemongrass and galangal shall be planted out in hope of propagation.
Are those lime leaves fresh or dried? If fresh, they don't look so good. I've had the success propagating lemongrass by sticking the root end in water until it roots - you need to change out the water every day or so to make sure it doesn't get moldy.
-
I just saw an add for this on FB.... I think this company is several years too late...
-
1
-
-
48 minutes ago, scamhi said:
@JoNorvelleWalker are you aware of this recipe
I miss him too - he gave me great advice before a trip to Hong Kong. But I find it odd that the recipe doesn't have any doubanjiang, which I always thought was an important ingredient in ma po.
-
1 minute ago, Kerala said:
Thank you! I need to go and do some research. I was under the impression that the round shape of a wok made it unsuitable for use on induction hobs.
I have a flat bottomed wok. It works fine. From what I understand, flat bottomed woks are pretty common throughout Asia, unless you're a restaurant.
-
7 minutes ago, Kerala said:
I'm very interested to read this. Please could you share details and pictures?
This is what I got:
It was about $300 on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016XY88AA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
There's a lot of inexpensive induction units on Amazon - lots of them with really bad reviews, mostly about longevity. This one seemed to have a better ratio of good/bad reviews. Also, once I get the other, more industrial strength, hob, I won't be using this one as often - it's purpose will be bringing pots of water to a boil and lighter duty stuff that doesn't require much finesse.
-
1
-
-
The Vollrath I'm looking at supposedly has an expanded magnetic field which allows you to lift the pan while staying within the mag field to replicate cooking on gas. It's commercial equipment which I like. That's not the primary reason why I'm looking at it, but it's certainly a nice feature. The primary reasons are the fine power control with knob, temperature probe which can get it to act like a sous vide setup (even though I already have a few DIY ones that work fine) or make deep frying idiot proof (which I need) and also supposedly one of the most accurate pan temp sensors available, which, if true, would be great for my pressure cooker which I use to make stocks as I constantly had to fiddle with my gas range to get it to stay at a stable pressure - a real pita when doing an hour long stock.
-
2
-
-
I've really enjoyed using this lately (while only briefly each time):
It's a relatively inexpensive induction hob - 3500 Watts!!! It brought about 12 quarts of water to a rolling boil in just under 12 minutes. It doesn't really like it when I lift the pan - it beeps at me when I do so, but at least it doesn't shut off. So far, I've only had time to use it to bring the stockpot to a boil (as a test) and to stir fry a few veggies in my carbon steel wok, which was an absolute pleasure - so much easier than when I used to use my crappy underpowered gas stove. One of the things that makes it inexpensive is that you can only choose from about 10 power levels, which has been fine so far for what I've been doing. Sometime soon in the future I'm going to get a Vollrath induction unit (I'm thinking the 2600W since so far I haven't had the need to use this one at 3500W except to boil water - the stir fries haven't gone over 2400W and even that is crazy hot) which you can control the output power in 1% increments, from 0 to 100% and also, rather than cycling the power on and off for the power level, it adjusts the power intensity. Plus, to control the power there is a knob rather than push buttons... but that's for another post.
-
4
-
-
10 hours ago, weinoo said:
I think it depends on the age and /or size of that bird!
I've had some birds in SE Asia that could have used a long braise - one in particular was in Indonesia, a kampung chicken (considered a delicacy) - which is basically a yardbird that eats all sorts of grubs and whatever else chickens love to eat, all while seemingly running a marathon every other day. I don't think it was actually that old, but it had tons of flavor, and was quite tough - especially the joints. I couldn't cut through the leg/thigh joint with whatever utensil I could find.
-
2
-
1
-
-
30 minutes ago, weinoo said:
This makes sense.
A two-hour braise, a la a beef bourguignon, does not.
The question then becomes, is that really a braise?
Is it really a braise? No, probably not to the classical definition, but I just called it that because it is meat cooking half in/half out of liquid in a covered pot, so what else would you call it? Simmered chicken half in/half out of liquid in a covered pot is quite a mouthful. Then again, do you really have to braise chicken thighs? Or any piece of chicken that isn't the gizzard or something?
-
53 minutes ago, weinoo said:
I'm just gonna submit that, let's say a two-hour braise of beef with tomatoes and red wine, will not be good for the seasoning of either cast iron or carbon steel.
But please provide me with alternative facts, other than anecdotal.
OK - I guess I wasn't clear for what I do though... my braise in the tamarind liquid would be for about 15 minutes tops... I don't know if I'd do a 2 hour braise in the seasoned wok, but most Asian wok braising doesn't take that long. I'm going to attempt it teh next time I make that dish... I'll report back my findings.
-
14 minutes ago, liuzhou said:
I haven't posted many dinners recently. It's been a strange week. Still is.
Wok-braised chicken with morels and Agaricus subrufescens or 姬松茸 (jī sōng róng), also known as almond mushroom, mushroom of the sun, God’s mushroom, mushroom of life, royal sun agaricus, himematsutake. Served with orzo.Braise included Shaoxing wine, garlic, shichimi togarashi, coriander leaf, scallions, potato starch slurry for thickening.
Photographed through steam.
Related to our discussion in the wok-cooking thread, how do you cook the orzo? Do you just use a pot on another burner? Also, how many burners (hobs) do normal Chinese kitchen have? I'd think there would be only 1 since everything is usually cooked in the wok anyway...
-
7 minutes ago, liuzhou said:
Only one thing. Few Chinese home kitchens have a hot water supply.
Interesting.... I guess it doesn't really matter - especially since you don't use that much water anyway, and the wok is already hot - you rinse with hot water regardless of the initial water temp!
-
14 minutes ago, weinoo said:
And I can understand why people do, especially if it's the main vessel used for cooking.
I like a Dutch oven or a rondeau for braising...that way, I can do a braised dish and use the wok for stir-frying a side veg.
Main vessel... or only! But the good thing about the wok is that it cleans fast (just a quick rinse in hot water) and the stir fried veg cook super fast, so you can plate your braised dish (typically family style), clean the wok and cook the veg and the braised dish will have barely cooled down. That's my experience anyway..
-
1 minute ago, liuzhou said:
I'd say "Yes".
I often make curries in my woks and have never had a problem. Also, some Chinese dishes can be rather acidic - especially when I make them!Thanks. I'll try it one day and think of you, whether the results are good or bad.... hehe 🤣
-
1
-
Rice: Varieties, Storage, Preparation, Use
in Cooking
Posted
Maybe the cheapest eGullet enabling ever... thanks. I've always thought my strainer method was a bit of a pita because the amount of rice is a bit too much for the strainer I usually use so I've got to be more careful than I'd like when swishing....