KennethT

Nice- I'm looking forward to it. And yes, Ulysses is a tough read even for native speakers! We did it in a Meetup group of about 20 of us, some of whom had read it several times already and some who even took college courses analyzing it. Without the group, I don't think I would have finished it. The group talked about a field trip to Dublin to do a Bloomsday, but it doesn't really work with our holiday schedule.

I wonder why all the dried spices were irradiated?

Great start!!! I'm hooked already. Can't wait to see what's next! Will you be in Dublin at all? My wife and I just finished reading Ulysses, which gives a virtual tour of the place, granted circa 1905 or so...

Sorry to hear about your durian experience!! Do the durian vendors also sell mangosteen (the Queen of fruits!) there? They're commonly sold together in many markets.

I use an 18 year old slow cooker that has a rice cooking setting. It took a couple tries to use the right amount of water, but now my rice is perfect every time. We're just the two of us and my wife doesn't eat much rice so we often make more than we need since it's practically impossible to make less than 2 cups in this cooker. One day, when it finally gives up the ghost, I'll break down and buy a real rice cooker - there are some small ones that will make 1 cup which would be perfect for us. Personally, I'd look for a model that has a small capacity and is neuro-fuzzy or something like that. I'm thrifty in that I don't think I'd spend for a Zojirushi, but not so much as to get the super-cheap ones that just have an on/off switch.

Yes!!!!! We'll be in Sabah this coming Christmas/New Years. This time of year is their rainy season - it should be quite dry in late Dec, early Jan. What is your plan while you're there? We'll be doing a few days of scuba diving - there is a underwater national park just off the coast of Kota Kinabalu, and then we're going to head east to hang out with some orangutans and sun bears....

hmmm. I wonder if the hydrogen peroxide is doing the heavy lifting of the sanitizing here. I would be cautious of most hydrogen peroxide that you get in the drug store or supermarket - at 3% strength, it is not stable, so manufacturers add stabilizers which are not food grade. So if you wipe your boards with it, make sure you rinse it afterwards. I get 35% hydrogen peroxide that I use in quantity for my plants - since it is so strong, it is shelf stable for about 2 years so it has no additives, but I have to use it immediately once diluted. If you wind up getting 35% strength, be VERY careful with it - it is a very strong oxidizer and can burn your skin, not to mention eyes!!!

Yay!!!! Where are you going?

Between yesterday and today I made pork stock. About 6 pounds of pork ribs with 2 pounds of feet yielded 6 quarts of intensely gelatinous stock, so much that the ladel just sits right on top when cold One of the primary uses for it was lunch today, Ayam buah keluak - chicken in black nut curry, one of our favorite Singapore Nyonya dishes.

Makes sense - very similar to a bo nu'o'ng

I'm not @C. sapidus but to me, that dish looks very Vietnamese, in which case, velveting would not be typical. Typically it would be "grilled" which doesn't always mean like it does here in the west, but could also mean high heat pan fry.

Still trying to get rid of some herbs.... Pho ga with....

I haven't cooked in a while but my herb garden has gone crazy so... Yunnan style elk with herbs (mint, Thai basil, rau ram, sawtooth coriander from the garden plus some green onion) with sticky rice (which probably could have soaked a little longer) and Cucumber salad

@liamsaunt As always, thanks for posting this - I really appreciated the underwater shots. One day I'll get an underwater camera to take pictures while we're diving but we're still pretty new to it and I think I don't want us to get distracted with that yet. Our new dive watches already take too much attention!

Got it. I always thought that an onion was an onion (of comparable types). For me, if I run out, I can run to the supermarket that's about 200 feet away and grab more. I wish I had more space so I could grown SE Asian shallots - they ahve a different water content than European style shallots and nowadays they're at least $8 per pound!!!!! And they're hard to find - I basically can only get them in Chinatown. Even the standard European ones are like $6 per pound now!

Any reason you grow onions?

I was curious if anyone knew if this Monte's sauce had anything to do with the Greenwich Village restaurant Monte's Trattoria? https://ny.eater.com/2023/1/31/23576729/montes-trattoria-greenwich-village-review BTW, my parents had their first date here - and they were married in 1960! When we were kids, they would take us here a couple times a year. The owner at the time, Giovanni (I think he's the father of the current owner) used to greet everyone at the door and he always remembered us. Many years later, I remember taking a date there and he still remembered me.

Yes, I'm aware that most people don't make their own base. I see many different versions and brands at my local HMart. But I was trying to answer the question about how tallow is used in hot pot. But unfortunately, it doesn't really help the OP for what to do with his... sorry about that.

Not only would it taste better than vegetable oil, but you could make a case for the fact that it could be healthier than frying in veg oil. This is because saturated fats don't degrade as quickly when constantly being cooked at 375degF until the shop changed the fry oil. Unsaturated fats form free radicals over time when constantly heated.

The hotpot spices are fried in the tallow to make a base, and then stock or water is added to that base to make the hotpot liquid. Somewhere here, @liuzhou posted a YouTube video that shows the industrial process of making the base which is packaged.

Tallow is fantastic for making french fries. In the old days, back when McDonald's was known for their french fries, they were fried in tallow. There was a marked quality decrease once they changed it to vegetable oil.

@liamsaunt I hope you're feeling better. I certainly know what it's like to feel ill while traveling, but (knock on wood) never got to the point where I went to a hospital of some kind (even though there may have been a time when I should have). Oddly enough, back in 2007, we visited my wife's cousin and her husband at their vacation home in St. Thomas located right next door to the Ritz Carlton hotel (on the dry side of the island). One evening we went out on the Lady Lynsey for a sunset cruise... I wonder if the boat in your last photo is the same one? It looks just like it!

Sorry but this is incorrect. The fans exist to vent air to the heat sinks to which the power diodes are attached.

I would be wary of directly comparing your experience with the Mirage Pro and ours with the HPI4 series as they are entirely different. The Vollrath website very clearly states the features of each - the HPI4 series is much more advanced and meant to be used in professional kitchens. In fact, not using it in a professional kitchen will void the warranty. But an example of the differences, your case (3) - my HPI4 unit's fan does not stop when the heat is turned off - it's runtime is governed by the internal temperature. If I cook for a long time at low power, the fan will turn off immediately since the internals are not stressed by doing that and their heat sinks are adequate alone, however, if I am cooking (even for a short time) at high power, the fan will continue to run once powered down. Once the fan stops, it does not restart again. Plus, the fan runtime post power down varies depending on the usage - it's not just on a timer. Note - the fan is not intended to cool the cooktop, it is intended to cool the power semiconductors that provide power to the induction coil. In my unit, the LCD screen displays "HOT" while the cooktop is still hot to moderately warm to the touch, even once the fan turns off. When I use the unit to make stock in a pressure cooker, once finished cooking I turn the power off but leave the pressure cooker on the cooktop for a natural pressure release which takes time. The fan turns off relatively quickly (if not instantly if using only 5% power to maintain pressure), but "HOT" is displayed the entire time - even after 30-40 minutes if I don't get around to removing the stockpot for a while.

I don't have a CF - just a Vollrath HPI4-2600. It has no problems recognizing any of the pans that I have. And I can confirm that it does simmering on low power perfectly (just like gas would with no cycling) and I love the fact that you can adjust the output in 1% increments. I don't use the pan temp sensor very often, but I find it works pretty well if you ramp the temp up a bit initially rather than using the final temp as the first setpoint. I don't do super precision stuff, but if I want a consistent 350F for pan frying, it's fine for that. The probe is great for liquids. I don't know about accuracy to within 0.5 degrees or anything, but I can select a gentle simmer and walk away knowing it will be fine and won't either stop simmering or simmer too hard.