KennethT

It's labeled that way here too, depending on the store. Some call it baby bok choi, others Shanghai bok choi...

@liuzhou This variability of nomenclature reminds me of something that drove me crazy in Singapore - there was a vegetable that I loved that was served everywhere, called "baby gai lan" - but it didn't look anything like any type of gai lan I've ever seen. And doing any kind of search for it brings up nothing even close - yet every place we went to, from hole in the wall dive to hawker center to restaurant all called it the same name, and when it was served, it was always the same thing! Maddening! ETA: this is a photo of the elusive "baby kailan"... ETA (again).. another photo of the baby kailan, in a different place:

Then again, a search with Mr. Google shows many different images for xiao bai cai - some look like what I posted above, and some look like this, which looks just like yours:

This is what I typically see labeled as baby bok choi:

@liuzhou Looks great, as usual. That baby bok choi doesn't look like how I'm used to seeing it - the stems seem too narrow. It looks sort of like a baby yu choi. I'd love to know more about this.

Lan Zhou Hand Pulled Noodles and Dumpling. They're on Bowery about a block south of Canal. They used to be on East Broadway in a much smaller space, but have moved maybe a year ago to the current location. There's a window in the back of the dining room where you can watch the guy pulling a huge skein of noodles... didn't get a photo of it though. The dumplings are amazing, and the noodles had great texture, but I thought the broth was under seasoned - but that's easily rectified by the jar of homemade chili oil, and bottles of black vinegar and soy sauce on each table...

Finally made it down to Chinatown to get some specialty ingredients and stopped off for lunch. This place is known for their hand pulled noodles and their dumplings. The dumplings were so good that I got a bag of them to take home.

@CantCookStillTry Thai curries can be very runny - it depends on how much (if any) coconut cream you use.

Sometimes people want a dark stock. Beef stocks typically have the bones/veg roasted prior to simmering. You can also do it for a dark chicken stock.

Whoops - I misread the OP - I thought the OPer was trying to roast bones and use water in the pan (I assumed the bones were on a rack above the water) to keep the drippings from sticking to the pan...

@liuzhou Sorry for the question - I didn't realize that shepherd's purse was an ingredient! I had never heard of it before...

I agree - I think you can get good browning when roasting above a pan of water. The water won't be boiling in the oven - hot air in an oven does not have nearly good enough heat transfer capability to have a pan of water boil... it will increase the humidity in the oven though. I recently saw a video online where someone was making Char Siu in a home oven - and the pieces were being roasted on a rack over some water in the pan. The char siu got nicely browned - it looked perfect.

Your photos are fantastic - they are so good that Georgia may go on the travel list! Thanks for all this!

What's the filling in the wontons? Do you make them, or are they available for purchase (uncooked)?

It is sometimes recommended to roast things on a rack above a little water so that the drippings (mostly fat) don't burn on the sheet pan below it. I don't know how useful it would be for bones since there isn't much meat or fat on them, unless you're roasting a duck or goose carcass, or a really fatty cut of pork.

cream cheese?

Many Nyonya curries have finely ground (or pounded) nuts - specifically candlenuts, which are kind of like macadamias... they act as a thickener for the curry. One of the curries I make frequently - the Ayam Buah Keluak - uses them.

I am in Manhattan - in the Kips Bay / Murray Hill area - but you're right, I don't have an extra room... but if I was growing weed, it would certainly pay for the extra room and then some!

@Anna NIt is quite bland, that's for sure... even with the ground pork or ground chicken and the ginger, it's certainly not very flavorful!

When I fly via EVA via Taiwan, they always have congee as the choice for the Chinese breakfast. It's actually quite good - I think it's made with some stock, rather than just plain water (or maybe chicken powder?) and there is shredded ginger on top, and a package of fish floss to add as well.

crazy... Where are edibles sold? I assume you can't just buy them in the supermarket, but have to be a specialty store, like the equivalent of a liquor store? In which case, how would kids get in there to make the purchases... and if they're worried about kids eating their parents' edibles, isn't it up to the parents to make sure the kids can't get at it? Like a locked liquor cabinet....

@sartoric Interesting. In my local spice shop, they have saffron from several different regions - they also note that the Kashmiri saffron is the highest quality, and it is more expensive - interestingly enough though, it is less expensive than the saffron from Spain. Also interesting that you mentioned saffron rice cooked by dum - when I was in Singapore, we went to what was supposedly the best "dum biryani" restaurant. In SG, they use the term dum biryani even though it is redundant because there are quite a few vendors who make biryani but take the shortcut by not doing it in the dum method, so the places that do do it the traditional way have to differentiate themselves.

I have seen saffron in recipes for some Indian curries, but I don't know how authentic those recipes were...

@BonVivant Your photos are making Taiwan jump a lot closer to the top of my list!

Just did a quick check- Pyramid also makes a fingerprint based punch clock that you can export the data to Paychex et al. MSRP is $599 but I wouldn't be surprised if you could get it for much less online somewhere.