KennethT

What do you mean by "changes the texture just a bit" - changes in what way? After the soak, do you rub with oil or anything before the air fryer?

We also had a 5'x5'x7' grow tent!

I've never experienced the rotten potato smell, but this reminds me to say that I will never again leave a bag of frozen shrimp out on top of the freezer (which was in the middle of our living room)... We walked in one day and thought that there was a dead rat hidden in the walls, which would have been impossible in our 21st floor, poured concrete and steel apartment!

Imagine Peking Duck but better....

Indonesian style bison patties with the last of my sambal ijo and sambal merah. I know what I'm doing next weekend.... Also, one of the last late season mangoes... But good news, we got some green mangoes!!

I would go back to Hong Kong just for more roast goose....

This installment of Extremely Labor Intensive Padang Food is one of my favorites - fried chicken. In my opinion, this, with all of the accoutrements, is vastly superior to the vaunted Thai Hat Yai fried chicken. The steps are essentially as follows - grind a spice paste out of fresh ingredients, simmer/braise the chicken in the spice paste with as much water as to partially submerge the chicken, remove the chicken once tender (traditionally, you'd use "kampung" or village chickens which tend to be quite tough) and then separately remove all of the solids from the braising liquid with a very fine mesh strainer, then shallow fry the braised chicken and then fry the solids. Serve with even more labor intensive sambals... The good thing is that it doesn't all have to be done at the same time. The sambals can be done well in advance - some people even store them at room temperature for a few weeks (I portion and freeze them as I'm not THAT confident that they won't go bad and ruin all that work as well as my evening/next day), the chicken can be braised earlier that day or a few days before and fried at the last minute and the spice paste, once fried, will keep forever as long as it is kept dry (I keep it in an airtight plastic container with paper towels above and below to absorb excess oil and I add a couple of desiccant packets between the upper paper towel and the cover). Just to make things a little more complicated, you can make variations of the serundeng (that's the fried spice paste) by varying the ratio of ingredients. Personally, my favorite is the galangal heavy version which is detailed below, but you can easily make it a candlenut heavy version by practically eliminating the galangal (just use a little bit then) and using a metric ton of candlenuts (around the same volume as the galangal would have been). Or you can make a ginger heavy version or an extra shallot-y version... It's all up to your personal preference. Usually, in a Padang restaurant, they serve only one kind which they won't tell you what it is unless you specifically ask so it's a fun surprise. Truth be told, once the frying is all done, all of the serundeng are remarkably similar tasting - the differences are there, but are much more subtle than you'd expect them to be. Yield 4-8 chicken thighs - if only 4, you'll have a LOT of extra serundeng Spice paste (bumbu): Shallots - 3 western size or 8 of the smaller Asian ones (about 150g) Galangal - about the same volume as the shallots or maybe a bit more Garlic - 6 large cloves Fresh turmeric - roughly 4" long, 3/4 - 1" diameter Ginger - about 1/4 of the shallot volume Candlenuts - 3 pieces Ground dried coriander - 1 heaping Tablespoon Ground black peppercorn = 1 teaspoon Water to almost cover the chicken 2 large daun salam (Indonesian bay leaves, very different from Turkish or California bay) 6 kaffir lime leaves 1 stalk lemongrass Seasoning: 1/2t MSG 1/2t chicken powder 1-2t salt (to taste) 1/2t sugar Grated coconut (fresh or frozen) - unsweetened - about the same volume as the shallots Oil for frying - I like peanut oil but you can use canola oil, corn oil or any relatively high temperature oil 1) Grind the spice paste (bumbu) in a blender with some water to help it blend, or if you want to make it even more labor intensive, use a mortar/pestle 2) In a cold wok or pan just large enough to hold the chicken close together, add the blended spice paste, water, leaves/lemongrass, seasoning and chicken, mixing to combine thoroughly and bring to a gentle boil over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally 3) Sprinkle the coconut on top and mix in thoroughly, turn the heat to low, cover and simmer until tender/cooked thoroughly, turning and stirring occasionally, scraping the bottom to make sure nothing settles/burns 4) Remove the chicken and set aside on a rack to drain well (this will minimize spattering later), also remove the lemongrass/leaves and discard 5) Using a fine mesh strainer, remove the solids from the braising liquid, then press to remove as much liquid as possible 6) In a clean wok or pot, add enough oil to shallow fry the chicken and bring to 350degF 7) Fry the chicken in batches until golden brown on both sides, then remove and drain on a rack or paper towels, removing any loose serundeng between batches to avoid burning 8 ) Bring the oil back up to temperature and add the drained solids (slowly so it doesn't explode) and stir constantly to keep from burning 9) Once golden brown, remove the fried solids with a fine mesh strainer and drain well, then spread on a couple layers of paper towel to absorb any excess oil Serve with jasmine rice, sambal ijo and sambal merah, putting a healthy pile of the serundeng on top of the chicken:

Right... but I guess my point was that the Murray's cheese sold in the NYC stores are probably still aged in-house, but who knows about the product they sell through Krogers or elsewhere in their expansion.

I believe the Murrays on Bleecker still does its own affinage - even though they've expanded into the space next door with their cafe.

What is crab vinegar?

Just an update - tonight was the first time I was able to try the most ripe of the rawit chillies. It is now obvious to me that chilli plants do not require heat to make the chillies spicy - just lots of light. This one chilli was fantastic - lots of flavor but also, quite spicy. One mashed up chilli amongst a pound of smashed cucumbers definitely made itself known....

I'm trying to imagine the flavor combo of chocolate and durian... and am having problems doing so. I'd think that the durian would either overpower the chocolate and teh combo would be a little weird.. but then again, when it comes to chocolate, I'm a purist - I'm not a huge fan of chocolate and fruit together.

My rawit chilli plant is finally ripening the chillies. For the longest time, it was putting the flowers out and the flowers would turn into chillies (after I hand pollinate them) but the chillies would be staying green, seemingly forever. Also, the plant kept trying to get taller and taller. So this past weekend, I figured what the hell and trimmed all of the branches that were getting too tall, and I added extra light. My keriting chillies only need one light and ripen just fine, but I thought that maybe the rawit needed more - especially because the internode length of some of the branches was so large - that usually means there's not enough light. And yay!!! The chillies are finally ripening well! Going to harvest the first one soon...

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.....