KennethT

@Deephaven I'm excited for you to try it - I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. To clarify, I don't divide and then freeze the rempah until after frying it. Once it's fried, it keeps well, but I don't think it would do well if frozen in its raw state. Frying the rempah takes time, so by doing it all together and then dividing, the curry is ready to go much faster. Also, nowadays, I don't bother parcooking the potatoes. Now, I just add them at the same time as I add the chicken and they wind up being done around the same time. Yes, the total rempah would be for 16 chicken thighs. As far as the size of the handfuls, hmmm.... I'd say the coriander powder would be 3-4 Tablespoons or so. For the cumin and fennel powders, maybe 2-2.5 Tablespoons. Also, now I think I'd add both the curry leaves and maybe 6-8 kaffir lime leaves. The belacan I use is the Malaysian style, which is different from the Thai style. The Malaysian type is much more dense - rather than coming in a scoopable tub, it is sold in a brick that you can take slices from. In Malaysia/Indonesia, it's common to toast the belacan before using it - it makes it a bit milder but if you're frying the paste for a good amount of time, I don't know if it's really necessary. For this recipe I don't toast it. Maybe one day I'll try it that way to see what the difference would be. This is a common brand I use: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X95VKXO?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details It's a lot cheaper if I buy it locally in Chinatown. Finally, I'm not very happy with my prata recipe. I've been doing a lot of prata research lately (or similarly, roti canai research as it's more common). Most recipes use a couple tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk. I'm trying to avoid it since I never use it otherwise, and to buy a whole can of it for a couple tablespoons seems like a waste. Also, most videos I watch now have the dough made, then wait half an hour, then kneaded and divided, then grease the balls and let rest for like 12 hours (not refrigerated). Many in Malaysia use margarine for the greasing but I'd probably use some kind of oil. Many of the grandmas and aunties who have YouTube videos say that they make the dough in the evening so it's ready to stretch in time for breakfast the next day. I was actually planning on making more prata this weekend, but realized that I didn't have enough flour. I should be able to try it again next weekend. Let me know if you have any more questions...

The last of my bak kut teh...

Pho ga using my homemade chicken stock and sawtooth and rau ram from the garden.

First time using my new batch of curry powder. This one came out a little spicier than the last (by design). With a fast acar (pickles).

I think it was pretty thoughtful of them to pack the arugula separately - if they put it on the pizza directly while going into the box, it would be a slimy soggy mess by the time it got to you. Personally, I think arugula on a pizza shouldn't be wilted.

Last night was the first time I felt up to doing any cooking. I had chicken thighs I had to use, so Sichuan twice cooked chicken.

I've got stocks also... I think from your recommendation. I like that they're lined so it's not sweaty and sticky when wearing with bare feet like crocs usually are.

Actually, apparently, I can injure myself doing practically anything. It's my super power.

I've never had a cigarette lighter burn so I wouldn't know. I have had a soldering iron fall on my arm, however that burn was nowhere near as bad as this steam burn is.

In a similar vein, I would like to advise people not to stick their bare forearm directly over the rice cooker's steam vent. Even if it doesn't look like there's any steam coming out.

Do you ship to NY? I'm happy to trade but I don't have much... homemade curry powder, kencur plants (you can be the only one in Kansas to have it!) Ha ha.

Yeah, the instructions that came with the smoker said that the inside gets to about 300F, which I figure may not be far off from what happens inside the clay/ceramic vessel traditionally.

That would be fantastic, but I don't think I could afford the shipping! I think, for a first try though, I could do a decent job using the duck legs I have in the freezer. They'll lose most of the fat either in the steaming or in the SV portion, depending on what method I use. Considering that I've never actually had it with those special ducks (us tourists just get standard duck pieces unless we're invited somewhere special), it's really the method I'm focusing on to dial in the flavor. When I had it in Bali, it wasn't smoky (they probably did it in ovens there) but I could imagine it being greatly enhanced by doing it that way so I'm curious to try it. So, on that note, I have a quart of organic rice husks headed my way in the next day or two... I also need to procure some Balinese long pepper - hopefully Duals has it, but if not, I know that Kalustyan's has it so I can pick that up this weekend. So maybe I could be trying it out in two weeks...

For anyone interested, here is a rather long (about 30 minutes) program about the dish and one of the famous grandmothers who makes it the traditional way. It's half in English half Bahasa/Balinese.... if you use the CC and autotranslate, it comes out fine.

I've been having a hankering for some Balinese bebek betutu - duck cooked with tons of spices (including my stash of kencur!) typically used in Bali. Obviously, I can't completely recreate what I had there a few years ago (they have a small type of duck only about 1kg, very lean, that's unavailable here) but I'd like to do it almost as traditionally as possible as I can within the confines of my NYC apartment. Traditionally, the duck is massaged with a whole bunch of ground herbs/spices, tied up in the leaf of a type of palm tree, then set in a hole in the ground, covered with some kind of ceramic pot which is then completely covered in rice bran husks which are set aflame and the resulting ashes cook the bird for about 12 hours. For obvious reasons, this isn't done very widely anymore - mostly for religious holidays nowadays. Restaurants in Bali more likely will do a combination of steaming and oven roasting wrapped in banana leaves. I was thinking of doing a hybrid approach as I'd really like to get a bit of that smokiness that comes from cooking in the rice bran coals/ash. So I was thinking about either pre-steaming or SV some duck legs, followed by a little time in my Cameron's stovetop smoker, using rice bran husks as fuel. I've never done anything using rice bran husks. I've used the smoker countless times using a variety of wood chips but never rice bran husks. I've seen organic husks sold on Amazon - nothing expensive - they're commonly used in hydroponics (I have a few issues with that, but that's another discussion), or in composting or soil amendments. Can anyone see a problem with doing what I was thinking? Will burning the organic rice bran husks create any kind of toxic smoke I'm unaware of or have any other problems I'm not thinking about?

This is the of my peranakan pastes for the buah keluak curry. Definitely need to make more soon....

They usually have ground elk. It's one of the regular things I get there.

Be careful - not all brands are the same. Look for one that says 100% coconut milk otherwise it will have stabilizers. I like the Aroy D brand in 8.5oz cartons. I get 6x packs on Amazon - it's cheaper than my local Thai store. There are different versions - check to see 100%

I'm all for going to lengths to get results, but this is too far! Plus, most of the coconuts I can get here are already partially desiccated so it could never get me coconut milk like I could get in SE Asia. The UHT cartons of coconut milk that I use now are remarkably similar to fresh.

Sorry - $30 may not be enough to get an LED light that will actually do anything. And, unfortunately, plant lights really should not be rated in lumens as that's not a good indication of what the plant gets. Plants use something called PAR - which doesn't really have a conversion factor to lumens as they're measured very differently. In any case, 7.5W lets me know that this light will not give you a lot of light, unless it is focused in a tight pattern, but because it's a strip, means it won't be. It would be fine for seed starting, or growing low light things like lettuce or some less needy herbs. Basil is a light hog. The light linked to by @chromedome looks like a decent light, but puts out a LOT more light than you would need for 1 plant. The light he linked to would be good for like a 4 foot by 4 foot area for fruiting plants- so if you wanted to have a small pepper farm, it's great! Or an even bigger area for less light intensive plants like herbs but you'd have to mount it pretty high above the plants to get that. To do things really cheaply, you could do what I've done for a long time - use a decent power compact fluorescent bulb in one of those clamp on reflectors you can get at Home Depot or similar. Reflector Something like this bulb might be ok for a single pepper plant or a whole bunch of herb/lettuce/bok choi type plants. It won't last as long as an LED light but then again, it's price makes it practically disposable. It should definitely last a year or two before dying completely or losing enough of its output where the plants would notice.

Looks great. Do you have access to palm sugar in Boston? Compared with light brown sugar, it's flavor is really different (to me it tastes kind of like maple syrup). I find it makes a big difference in the Thai and other SE Asian food I make. Plus, it's got a lower glycemic index than sugar, which is just a bonus.

As @Senior Sea Kayaker talked about, a good place to start is to grow things you use all the time. But like it was alluded to, for me, I typically grow things that I don't necessarily use every day but are either hard to find or really expensive if I do find it. Or, for instance, in the case of my kaffir lime and curry trees, both of their leaves are available, but I have to buy a ridiculous amount of them for $$$ when all I need is 1 sprig at a time. Sure, they're ok from frozen so I can freeze what I don't use, but they degrade a lot more than things like galangal which typically gets ground up anyway or Thai chillies which I'd chop up finely also. My sawtooth coriander (aka culantro) is unavailable unless I go to a market far away which isn't practical for me as my time is pretty limited as it is, so even though I onkly use a few leaves at a time, it's great to have when I want it. In your location, I'd be concerned that you get enough light in a windowsill to get things like peppers to fruit, especially in winter. Even things like basil might get leggy over the winter. However, nowadays, there are lots of really inexpensive LED plant lights on the market, most of which would be fine for 1 plant. And the nice thing about having a light is that you're not confined to keeping the plants in the window - you can put them anywhere you have extra space and will get some ventilation. LEDs don't use much power so you won't notice your electric bill go up. But if you were to go that route, I'd also recommend an outlet timer so you don't have to remember to turn the light on and off every day.

Have you found a source for non-horrendously expensive piment d'espelette? Years ago, on a trip to Bordeaux, I bought a string of whole piments but they got lost in a move a few years ago... now, every time I see the pre-powdered form, it's a fortune!

What is deviled shallot butter? What is the stuff on top of the tuna - looks kind of like dried shrimp?

All six of my kencur plants have now sprouted and moved into some larger homes.