KennethT

We did!!! That dish (it's similar to my Sichuan fish dish in RecipEgullet) is one of my wife's favorites!

Are the pasilla chillies there heavily smoked like the pasilla de Oaxaca?

Keeping with the Sichuan theme, Sichuan style chicken with baby bamboo shoots, mushrooms and garlic chives.

It turned out really good. I didn't have any green chilli so I used 3 red Thai chili that I just split in half. For the dried chillies, I used bhagi chillies which are not very hot. So, overall, it was perfect spiciness for us.

I tried making the masala shrimp from this video: Came out really good. I've made south Indian style prawns before but this was definitely the best I've done. Can't be the weekend without some Lady Wong....

I saw a lot of hawberry-on-a-stick vendors in Beijing. All the guide books said it was a Beijing "must have". I wish locals wrote guidebooks. Ever think about a side business???

That duck with the blood sauce would be calling my name... extra surcharge or not!!!

Thanks! Unless you're in Singapore or parts of Indonesia, buah keluak in its whole form (in the shell) is practically impossible to find. I've seen in on Etsy (shipped from Indonesia) but it was super expensive and you have no idea how many bad: good ones there are in the bag. A friend of mine, the owner of a Peranakan bakery, gave me a couple packs of buah keluak meat (without the shell) imported through a company in CA. Since then I've seen those packs on Amazon, so I guess it's not super hard to find anymore. The packs look like this:

huh. I've never seen her, but so glad YouTube thought I might like it. For once, being creepy is a good thing. Plus, it's just so relaxing watching her - between the rhythmic chopping and the insects/birds in the background, I feel like I'm right there with her. I don't know how they got the sound to be so clear but it's fantastic.

This video popped up on my YouTube feed. Not only is it interesting, but I found it really relaxing to watch in a kind of meditative way... how she doesn't cut her hands prepping the vegetables like that is beyond me.

A friend of mine was talking about this dish recently so I felt compelled to make another batch, even though we had it a couple weeks ago. Ayam buah keluak. This time though, I didn't stuff the Brazil nut shells with the keluak meat, I just dissolved 1 of them in the curry as it was cooking. Made a really big difference. This was probably the best I've made it.

The cendol, of course, but I've never seen kuih like that. Most of our kuih experience is the Singapore kind - from what I am to understand, Penang Nyonya is a little different from Melaka or Singapore Nyonya. For example, a very famous Singapore Nyonya dish is Ayam Buah Keluak - chicken curry made with buah keluak nuts. Up until relatively recently, this dish was supposedly unheard of in Penang, however, you can now find it in most Peranakan restaurants now just because so many tourists have requested it, so they've learned to make it.

I've accounted for that already. My protein content is exactly the same as what they use in Singapore - they all use the same flour there, it's a flour only meant for prata. I cut my KA all purpose flour with some cake flour to get the same percentage as what I found in researching their flour. Most recipes use a lot more oil in their dough and also some sweetened condensed milk, both of which will act as tenderizers. I'm trying to make it more healthy, so I cut out the condensed milk entirely and most of the oil. My first try, years ago, used a LOT more oil with the same flour and it was so slack, it basically turned into a puddle...

What's the difference between Keto and Atkins?

Here it is: Make sure you read to the bottom first as I've altered it over time to make it healthier and I think it actually tastes better too. The next time I make it, in the section when you add the curry leaves, etc. I'd also add a bunch of kaffir lime leaves and a few stalks of lemongrass - bruised.

The top of this post is a good example

You should!!! When done right they're amazing! But you need to make the curry with it. Roti prata in Singapore, aka roti canai in Malaysia.

Thank you. But after having prata literally every day in Malaysia, I can say without a doubt that mine needs work. I wish I took video (I was planning to do it at the end of the trip, but oh well) but watching the guy effortlessly stretch and fry them every day made me realize how much I struggle with mine because the dough is way too elastic. It's like a rubber band. So, the texture winds up being much more dense and not as tender as it should be.

Last batch of kapitan chicken curry. I'm very happy with the curry, but my prata recipe needs work so I'm happy we finally finished all the ones I made (I make them in batches of 4 meals for 2 people).

Do you make the dumplings yourself? I never saw that combination in Hong Kong or Beijing before!

@BonVivant Like @ElsieD, thank you - I never considered Albania as a tourist destination, but your trip looked fantastic. I do have a question -what is the difference between kofte and sausage? They're both ground meat with spices. Is it how finely ground the meat is, or is the sausage smoked or cured in some way?

Last soto ayam (Indonesian chicken soup) for a while - I used the last large container of homemade chicken stock.

Wow - those price are even expensive for resort prices!!! I haven't been to HI since the late 80s/early 90s. Back then, there were tons of Japanese tourists (the Yen was really strong then and Japanese were buying up HI like crazy) so there was tons of awesome sashimi and sushi. Poke wasn't really a thing, but I imagine that it would be popular nowadays. There's a poke place practically on every corner here in NYC.

Here in NY, I've never even heard of Safeway!!! We have other air chilled stuff in the non-Korean supermarkets, but it's usually quite a bit more than I was paying from Wild Fork. Their prices are amazing!

No, I've never bothered doing that. I don't have a good bone cutting cleaver. Plus, I'm not a big fan of the whole lollipop thing that happens when you do it.