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KennethT

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Posts posted by KennethT

  1. My wife and I finally made it to this place in the East Village. It's a chinese seafood place that also does skewers. We thought it was a good sign that most people around us waiting for tables were speaking Mandarin. The space is a bit cramped (especially if you order a lot of food) but we really enjoyed it and will certainly return.

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    They provide aprons to wear and packets of plastic gloves...

     

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    Boiled crawfish and shrimp in a hot and spicy sauce. Comes with potatoes, lotus root and we added a fried bread which was awesome. The boil was slightly tingly from some szechuan peppercorns and a little sweet and sour too. We also got the same thing with a garlic boil that was crazy garlicky. It was my favorite.

     

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    They had skewers similar to chuan'r we had in Beijing. One lamb is pictured but we got two of those and 2 chicken. Both very tasty.

     

    Prices were very good and they give a 10% cash discount!

    • Like 6
    • Delicious 1
  2. Last night, we had (again) chicken curry with homemade prata.  The standard way to do this is to cook potatoes along with the chicken in the curry (I posted the recipe in RecipeGullet).  I've been using Yukon Golds, but every time, they come out much grainier then they should be.  Does this mean that they are not cooked enough, overcooked, or the wrong kind of potato?  I don't think they have yukon's in SE Asia - I'm assuming they use some kind of waxy potato, so I subbed the yukons... maybe there is something better that I could use next time?  Suggestions?  Thanks.

    • Like 1
  3. Personally, I've never met a ripe papaya that I've liked.  Even the most ripe (picked about 10 feet away) was pretty tasteless.  Oddly enough, my wife REALLY dislikes ripe papaya - she says that the smell reminds her of vomit, slightly, and finds it just completely off-putting.  We are both big fans of unripe papaya, which has even less flavor than ripe papaya (and no vomit odor) but has a great crunchy texture and is a good vehicle for dressings or dips in chili salt or sugar.

    • Like 2
  4. @liuzhouIs that the total amount of rice made, or is there extra lurking off camera?  I have been looking for a rice cooker that specializes in small amounts - most of the ones I've seen here are great for large families or a very small restaurant, of which I have neither.  I'd love to find a rice cooker whose wheelhouse is like 1-2 cups of rice...

  5. Malaysian night tonight...

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    Nyonya chicken curry (kari ayam)

     

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    Belacan baby bok choi

     

    Our apartment now stinks like a putrid garbage heap... It smelled great during cooking and eating. But I stepped into the hallway for a few minutes and when I came back I realized the reality... Sorry neighbors!

    • Like 14
    • Sad 2
  6. 3 hours ago, blue_dolphin said:

     

    I thought of you when I read this article in the WSJ: Strawberry Jam: Urban-Farming Startups Tackle a Problem Crop

    Not sure if that article is behind a paywall or not but the gist is a concern over potential costs for pollinating strawberry plants by hand or other systems when grown in urban farms - shipping containers and the like.

    I would think that sales of perfect, ripe mid-winter berries to restaurants, etc. could command a premium price but I guess it's all about the numbers!

    I haven't read that article, but I've read similar ones to it recently.

     

    That's actually what I'm researching now.  I've got a bit of warehouse space I'm not using, so I figure why not make some money from it.  Plus, my proximity to NYC gives me a market for high price high quality fruit.  I'm actually experimenting with some uncommon varieties prized for their flavor, but not typically grown around here, and dont' take kindly to shipping, which should give me a nice niche, so long as the costs of production (A/C, lights, etc) are not prohibitive... but not paying rent should certainly help profitability.

    • Thanks 1
  7. Yeah, that Breville indoor looks great. I'd probably be more interested if I wasn't surrounded by great pizzerias, though.... and if my kitchen wasn't more than a 8 foot x 4 foot box with no ventilation!

  8. 24 minutes ago, cdh said:

    Isn't a slab of dry ice in a cooler with a fan a servicible, if ephemeral freeze dryer?  I've seen references to that as a means of getting things like strawberries freeze dried. 

    Freeze drying requires vacuum to directly sublimate the frozen water to gas

    • Like 1
  9. No pics (I'm sure I've put them up before), but last night was Malaysian chicken curry with homemade prata and some stir fried yu choi that I found in my recently discovered H-Mart 4 blocks away from me!  I wonder how long it had been there for?  Obviously, I am probably the last person to know about it since the place is constantly packed.  They've got great quality fish and very nice asian produce which makes me happy.  The yu choi was almost as good as the one I used to grow in my windowsill - except it was full of dirt, which my hydro plants never get.

     

    I'm really happy with last night's prata - it was the same dough as before (I made 4 meals worth and froze them), but I let the pan heat up more and cooked it for less time - this time, the texture was much better.

    • Like 2
  10. @liuzhou Does the bitter melon need to be peeled first? I don't know anything about its cookery - I had once heard that it needed to be soaked to remove bitterness, but I don't know if that's true..

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