KennethT

We were planning on Thai - specifically the fried chicken and a khao soi. They were out of the khao soi, so we got the Northern Thai sausage. The fried chicken was ok, but not even close to the best Hat Yai fried chicken we've had and the puck of sticky rice it came with should have had them cowering in shame. It was so overcooked that the individual grains fused into a single gummy mass. I can't blame it on the fact that it may have been sitting around as I remember getting a mango with sticky rice in Chiang Mai where the vendor dug teh sticky rice out of a cooler that was probably sitting there for hours and it was perfect. I had mistakenly thought that the sausage was sai oua - a type of Northern Thai sausage and asked for it. The manager who took our order knew what I was talking about, but didn't correct me in the fact that what they were serving was definitely NOT sai oua as I knew it both from Chiang Mai and at my much missed Pok Pok whose version was just like we had in Chiang Mai. Saturday's version was a uniform fine grind, very one note, and they happened to burn the crap out of the sausage casing....

Yes - it used to be an Urbanspace. There's an interesting looking Indian place called Kebabwala from the Unapologetic Foods group and a Jamaican patty place from Kwame Onwuachi (from Tatiana). Less interesting is a pizza/sandwich place and a burger place. I think I'm forgetting one...

When we flew Cathay Pacific (economy), they served Cup Noodles (without enhancements) reconstituted with hot water on the plane as a snack between meals.

After a very disappointing Hat Yai fried chicken from a Thai vendor in a new food hall, I had to make the king of fried chickens.... Padang fried chicken with sambal ijo and merah.

By "purple potato" do they mean ube? Ube has been really trendy here - mostly because it's so 'Instagrammable' due to its vibrant purple color... otherwise, it tastes like nothing.

This type of jerky is called bak kwa... it's loved all over Singapore and Malaysia - totally different than the dendeng.... but differently very tasty!

Here's the plant

Freeze.... and waiting to be bagged... This is all in addition to the ones above.

We rarely get farmer's market chicken, primarily because I would rather pluck out my toenails one by one with a rusty pliers than go through my local farmer's market (the most popular one in NYC and packed with slow moseying tourists) on a weekend (when I do my shopping). Also, most of what I make are "boldly flavored" so I think I'd probably lose the nuance of a high quality chicken. But, one attribute that is important to me when picking a "supermarket" chicken is that it's air chilled. Not only is it theoretically a lot safer (bacteria-wise) since it doesn't get chilled in a river of punctured innards, it also has a lot less absorbed water so it has more concentrated chicken flavor than an equivalent supermarket bird.

Thanks both. I assumed that it would be A) a cheap cut and B) one that doesn't have much intramuscular fat - so very lean, so I think round is a great choice.

My latest keriting harvest.... Still tons more green chillies still on the plant and more flowers on the way.

Hey everybody, I've been thinking about making an Indonesian dish called dendeng balado - beef jerky with chilli sauce. While dendeng typically translates to jerky, it's not an air dried beef jerky that most people in the West would know, but thin slices of beef that have been braised in an aromatic sauce, drained, and then shallow fried until dry. I've had it looking like this: or this version (less dried): So, my question is, what cut of beef do you think I should use for this? I imagine that it shouldn't be too tender or expensive of a cut - maybe a sirloin? All of the Indonesian references that I've seen refer to cuts that don't exist here or don't even refer to a specific cut at all - just say "take a chunk of beef", haha.....

For the past few years, I've been watching a lot of Indonesian/Malaysian YouTube videos of people making various dishes. Most of these dishes are some form of braise, starting with frying a spice paste in oil over relatively low heat, then adding a liquid to the braise. Every single video has them cooking in some kind of wok - and like you say, most of those woks are lined with a non-stick material. For that type of cooking, I don't think the non-stick is much of an issue because it doesn't use high heat that can damage the coating. I used to do my braising in a standard 8qt sauce pan (looks like a mini stock pot), but lately, I've moved to a small, cheap stainless steel wok I got off Amazon and found that it works much better. Even making a small quantity, I don't need a lot of liquid to cover, and it's easier to stir things around, especially when there's large chunks in there. And it's vastly superior to the standard sauce pan when you need to reduce the liquid.

Sorry, I just saw the Viet on the bag!

Vietnamese jasmine rice?!? I need to resupply my jasmine rice - last time, I bought a 25 pound bag from Weee (new crop from Thailand). It was basically the same price as I can get in Chinatown, but it gets delivered so I don't have to schlep the 25# sack.

That sucks. In the future, another option may be to get them from Lady Wong, the NYC Nyonya/Malaysian bakery - you can get their moon cakes (and other desserts but I don't think their full catalog) on GoldBelly.

Singapore style headless fish head curry (mahi mahi) with masala potatoes.

Here in the US, instructional cooking shows on the Food Network have gone the way of music videos on MTV. It's all competition shows now. There may be some "dump and stir" shows still on during daytime on weekdays, but definitely not primetime for a longtime. I think PBS still shows some instructional shows - or at least they used to the last time I watched broadcast TV - but who knows long PBS will last for nowadays...

I get them at my local H-Mart which calls them "Korean Leeks"

@Duvel I have very little biology knowledge (aka squishy stuff) so I was wondering - is it even possible for mold to grow on a piece of dried kombu? I always thought that mold needed a certain amount of water to grow, but the dried kombu I have is like thin slices of wood and really brittle which makes me think that the water activity is very low.

Also, I've never done anything with the marrow - I just squeeze the bone as a test to see if I've extracted as much as I can. I don't add marrow to the stock as it makes it cloudy. But also, there isn't enough in there to try to actively remove to eat and would probably require a dentist's pick to do so.

@rotuts I don't use the Ipot, but a regular Kuhn-Rikon pressure stockpot. After an hour at full pressure, the bones are soft but still brittle. You can squeeze the bone between thumb and forefinger and the bone will splinter and break.

What's the reddish-orange drizzle over the rice with the tuna?

As if we needed another reason to make food from scratch!!!! https://scitechdaily.com/ultra-processed-foods-add-fat-without-extra-calories-and-disrupt-hormones/

It definitely was delicious - more so than the versions we had in the food court of the mall in Jakarta - so much more complex. I imagine that industrially produced sambal hitam exists (as well as lots of other time consuming favorites) and is slathered on by most people other than me, in my quest to become a SE Asian grandmother....