KennethT

lately I do chicken thighs with a hybrid method... 425 bake steam for 12 minutes with rack on lowest position, then raise rack and 425 steam broil for an extra 7 min. perfect

I wouldn't be surprised that they were there, I just haven't had a chance to go down there. And now, it won't be for teh forseeable future since I don't want to take the subway if I don't absolutely have to, mask or no.

I used to go down to the Essex Market (before they moved) once in a while and I'd see the vendors selling limes 10 for $1 back then.... but I was talking specifically about Mexican Limes - or key limes... I don't know if I ever saw those there, but I've seen them in Fairway from time to time...

I would also be cautious due to the reasons above, but another one as well - we still don't know exactly when things will "go back to normal" and cities/states start allowing people to go to restaurants at full capacity again. Here in NYC, restaurants are only allowed to do takeout and delivery, and there's really no idea when this will end. Many people believe that NY State won't allow restaurants to allow guests to dine in for at least a couple months yet. And once it is allowed, when will people feel comfortable enough to do so?

In our neck of the woods, "cheap bags of Mexican limes" is a complete oxymoron. Relatively small bags (1 lb) is about $5

Fettuccine with dried porcini sauce...

Tried my hand at Indian-ish tonight. This is sort of South Indian with the mustard seeds and curry leaves. Most S Indian is vegetarian, but I added some boneless chicken thigh. I made it way too soupy... Tasty but too much liquid.

I imagine there should be a way to adjust the temperature display to true to an external reading...

Over the weekend I was rummaging around the freezer and came upon a batch of homemade sambal to try to recreate Singapore (Old) Lai Huat's specialty, sambal fish. Photos of which can be found in two of my Singapore travel blogs and also on the most recent trip to Jogjakarta. Suffice it to say that mine paled by comparison, but it was still tasty...

Is it me or does that cleaver seem pretty dull? Evidently that doesn't make a big difference to the end result.

I've never tried mincing meat by hand, but you have got my curiosity piqued for sure. About how long did it take? You didn't happen to take a video of it did you? What is the general procedure? First slice into smallish dice, then whack away?

Picked this up at the Korean grocery yesterday It won't win any awards, but not bad.... Not bad at all....

I imagine that if you kept your blast chilled items in the middle of the self defrosting freezer (not near the walls) and surrounded by other frozen stuff you should be ok.

I've been thinking of ordering from there for a long time but haven't pulled the trigger yet... I'll be curious about your experience with it.

Are you talking about fresh food or prepared? For prepared, I know of this place: https://ny.eater.com/2019/2/25/18234871/ybb-wechat-chinese-lunch-minivans-financial-district-midtown-office-workers for fresh, there's freshgogo.com

Where did you get these dumplings? Before this whole virus thing, I used to go down to Manhattan Chinatown to Lan Zhou Homemade Noodle and pick up a frozen bag of 50 dumplings... their dumplings (not soup dumplings) are amazing!

@DuvelWhat's the skewer material? It kinda looks like a piece of sugarcane... but I imagine that would be hard to find in Germany right now...

How many sparrows would you need to press to get enough juice to be able to do anything with it?

That's a feast!

What do you do with an ear of popping corn? I assume it's for making popcorn, no? Do you have to take the kernels off the cob?

I guess the texture can be a little similar to some of the better scallion pancakes I've had in Chinese places... but I think it's more chewy which I think is a better vehicle for teh curry. I can't see your article - I think it's behind a paywall as I can see it for a second, then it disappears...

Not folding like a croissant - the dough requires stretching so that it's super thin so you can see through it. The professionals do this by constantly flipping it over an oiled steel table, but I am not nearly experienced enough to do that, so I put the rested dough ball on an oiled countertop, smush it into a disk, then going around in a circle grab a piece of the edge, lift and then pull, going around an around until it is stretched thin. Then take a bit of oil and smear it on the top surface and roll the stretched sheet into a snake - you can also fold it - say 2/3 over, then the other 1/3, then roll into a snake. You then take the snake and coil it around and tuck the tail underneath. Press teh coil into a disk and fry with a tiny bit of oil on a medium/medium-high pan, flipping once. I think the video I posted above shows her stretching the prata, near the end of the video....

I based the curry on this video... but I make the rempah, fry it, add the coconut milk and simmer for a bit, then divide and freeze to make it easier for myself - also, we're only 2 people so we typically make only 4 thighs at a time (a lot less than a whole chicken) so I find that if I double her proportions (eyeballing) I make 4 meals worth. I also dilute my curry out of the freezer with about a cup of water since my curry for the freezer is a bit reduced. Otherwise it's way too thick for prata, but would be good with rice. That's also why I needed to add the 'fresh' coconut milk which perks it up again. I also marinated my thighs with a bit of salt, msg, sugar and turmeric powder before adding to the curry to cook. I'm not a big fan of her prata - she does hers the more Malay style using condensed milk which I think makes the prata too sweet. The Singapore style is typically not as sweet as the Malaysian. If you make the prata, make sure it rests for a few hours between kneading and stretching otherwise it will never stretch! It'll be like a rubber band!

I think it depends on your AP flour. The King Arthur all purpose flour that I have says that it has an 11.7% protein content. The flour company that supplies basically all the prata guys in Singapore says their prata flour is 10.8%. Is that close enough? I have no idea and not nearly enough prata (or any bread for that matter) experience to say... So I did what most engineers would have done, I created a 10.8% flour as a mixture of the KAF 11.7% and some cake flour to bring it down. I've read that, depending on manufacturer and time of year, AP flour's protein content can vary quite a bit, so yours might already be where it needs to be... In the past, I've done it with regular AP flour, but then I also used a LOT more oil at that time. As you might imagine with over 10x the amount of oil, that dough was very relaxed and easy to stretch (to the point of maybe being too easy and the layers all recombined after folding). This dough was not easy to stretch at all and I was quite worried about it, but I can't argue with the results... I would try to make your own though - it's a lot healthier. Most store bought prata use margarine or other trans fats which are horrible for you. Doing it yourself, you can control what type of oil to use. I probably could have used olive oil - as long as I had one that didn't have a lot of flavor.

To me, some of the best part of khao soi is the interplay between the curry, the roasted chili paste, raw shallots and the pickled whatever...