KennethT

Vietnamese style grilled cod with mango salad and rice noodles. I marinated the cod in a paste of black pepper/dried chilli powder/lemongrass/cilantro stems/garlic/fish sauce/turmeric, then wrapped in banana leaf and grilled. Mango salad with herbs was made with the ataulfo mangos - even though they were soft, they still didn't compare to the other mangoes I had earlier in the week - so they needed quite a bit of enhancing. The dressing was black pepper/garlic/cilantro stems/fish sauce/tamarind water/lime juice/palm sugar/thai chilli/fried shallot. Herbs were mint and rau ram (laksa) from the garden plus cilantro and garlic chives. My building has no gas service, hence the portable stove top (15000 BTU!) The plating was crappy but I didn't care - it was late and I was starving!

I'm excited to see what you think.

Sorry - that's not what I meant by explosions. Sometimes, when frying things wrapped in rice paper, there's a little free water there from wetting the rice paper to get it flexible and those drops of water cause explosions! Once you wrapped the rolls, did you blot them dry or anything or do a really efficient (no extra water) dipping job? Or just get lucky? 🤣

Has anyone ever grilled a fillet of cod (without the skin) without a grill basket or anything? I was planning on grilling some mahi mahi to have with a mango som tum, but it turned out that I don't have enough of it, so I defrosted a couple of pieces of cod. Thinking about it now, I'm wondering if it's just going to fall apart completely on me and that maybe I should rethink this a bit... maybe wrap in banana leaves prior to grilling? If it matters, it's indoor grilling on a grill pan.

I don't know if the Colombian Sugar mangoes are sold near me - I've never seen them before, either in person or online.

What's the difference between your dumpling and a vietnamese spring roll? Seems like the same thing except for the filling and dipping sauce. How did you fry them to avoid the explosions?

Lemongrass shrimp vietnamese bun. 4 herbs - cilantro, laksa (rau ram in Vietnamese), garlic chives and mint.

As we were walking around doing errands, I wandered into Lady Wong for a minute. It's a beautiful store and have quite an assortment of traditional kuih. Before I got a bunch of them, I decided to get 1 to try. I got the Talam Gula Malaka and Salted Coconut - their photo is better than mine: https://ladywong.com/products/talam-melaka It had a very subtle sweetness and really good palm sugar flavor which went well with the slightly salted coconut. The texture was a very nice kuih texture - stiffer than a custard but not bouncy. I will be back to try some of others. Unfortunately, they didn't have any pulut inti today, which are favorite type of kuih.

Please update with results!

I used to live in that neighborhood - and years ago, my wife and I would go there pretty frequently - I haven't been back in a long time, but we used to really like the mushroom pizza - 4 different types of mushrooms. I also liked to sit at the bar so you could watch the action.

Try a search for DLI - Daily Light Integral. It's a cumulative measure of how much light a plant gets for the day. Another way to tell if it's getting enough light is to measure the internode space - the distance from one set of branches to the next. Shade has a higher proportion of far red light which promotes stem elongation. If it's outside, it shouldn't need hand pollination but if you have no bees around, rather than flicking, a better method is to use an electric toothbrush and hold the neck against the flower truss once the flowers are open. You should be able to see the pollen falling out. Best to do either in the morning or evening rather than mid day.

The Fresh Direct South Asian mango was much better than the Kesar. This mango, while smaller in size, reminds me very much of some of the mangoes I still dream of in Thailand. This was a minimally fibrous mango (really only right near the pit), with really strong aroma of coconut. Nicely sweet and still slightly tart. I'm glad I got 2 of these, and am looking forward to the second one. It would be really good as mango with sticky rice as the mango itself is already scented of the coconut and palm sugar saturated sticky rice. I wish it was a little juicier though.

Nyonya kari ayam buah keluak (without the keluak).... coconut-free chicken curry made with pork stock and tamarind.

That could be true, but I've had lots of (really expensive) heirloom tomatoes from the farmer's market that had no flavor compared to what I grew myself. I don't know if that stuff was refrigerated, but I do know that it was not picked super ripe - because if they were, by the time they got to the market they'd be mush. I have 2 thoughts - first, most heirloom tomatoes taste like nothing but because they're technically an heirloom variety, growers can get a lot of money for them, plus they look the part - they're irregular, different colors, etc. Very few heirlooms have been bred for flavor. Those that have been are notoriously difficult to grow - they are super susceptible to blossom end rot, mildew, poor water/nutrient uptake, pests, you name it. Because of this, even the best ones on grafted root stocks you basically get only 50% of their fruit being marketable in the best of conditions. The second thought is that between what I grew in my living room and my experience as a kid with my father's tomatoes (he grew lots of them in our garden every year, but all hybrids) is that a tomato's full flavor only comes about in the last couple of days on the vine. They don't really get any riper once picked - even though you can gas them and cause them to go from green to red, but you'll never get the sweetness or the full flavor profile of a completely vine ripened tomato. These are impractical to sell at any market more than 100 feet away since if you breath too hard they get damaged. @Margaret PilgrimSure, you can add a bit of sugar to them which will help bring out the perception of sweetness, but I don't think the flavor profile will be like it should be when completely vine ripened - it's not all about brix levels, it's also about ripening the phenolics and developing all the esters/aldehydes etc that contribute to the aroma and flavor. The same is true of ripening wine grapes. If you get a really hot/dry season, you can get full brix levels much earlier before the phenolics ripen, which will cause an unbalanced wine. If you let them hang longer to ripen the phenolics, you wind up with super high alcohol levels (because of the excess sugar), or you can harvest early but the tannins won't be round and ripe. Sorry for the rant.

I've had pretty good luck with their avocados - I sometimes order their "ready to eat" that come in a 2-pack. I'll use the softest one right away, the other goes in that special door in my refrigerator and keeps for weeks practically perfectly. I got the idea a long time ago when there was a discussion here about slowly ripening unripe avocados in the fridge rather than on the counter, and that they ripen more evenly. I haven't had too many problems doing so ever since. I also haven't had problems back when they carried the Campari tomatoes - granted, they are pretty bulletproof, but they've always been fine. I have no experience buying herbs from them though, for obvious reasons.

The "Champagne" ataulfo are from Mexico. I've had similar ones from the DR (which FD also has but I didn't get) but they're more expensive than the Mexican ataulfo and I never really saw much of a difference. The Kesar mango I had today is from India... it's from here: https://www.savanifarms.com/ The South Asian mangoes (I'll probably have one tonight) are supposed from "South East Asia" but they don't specify anything further. As far as refrigeration goes, I will disagree slightly - I've had no problems refrigerating the Florida grown freshly picked mangoes. According to the growers, you should refrigerate them once they've ripened on the counter, but I've also successfully refrigerated the green-ish mangoes to keep them green (which my wife loves) and also taken them out after a week in the refrigerator and ripened on the counter after a few days with no problems either. From the same box, I couldn't tell the difference which ones were refrigerated and which ones weren't. One caveat is that I keep them in a drawer in my refrigerator that is supposedly slightly warmer than the rest of the refrigerator - it's also shielded from drafts and since it's mostly enclosed, I'd imagine has a higher humidity than the rest of the fridge. I put one of the South Asian mangoes (that's already soft) in that drawer to have later in the week so I'll be able to compare it with the one I've got on the counter. I'll also comment that I think that Fresh Direct's refrigerated trucks are actually not super cold - I think I keep my refrigerator significantly colder than their truck - even the frozen stuff doesn't come that frozen - I've had ice cream delivered that is melting around the edges as soon as I get it.

I'll be on the next flight over. Looking forward to some pork collar.

I'm impatient and decided to try the Indian mango once it warmed up to room temp (Fresh Direct delivers everything in a refrigerated truck). I am a bit disappointed, but not surprised. It was ok. Decent aroma, moderately sweet and only slightly fibrous, it didn't hold a candle to the Florida grown mangoes I've gotten in the past, not to mention the ones I've had in SE Asia. Pound for pound, it's probably about the same price as the stuff I get from Florida, shipping included.

Tomatoes are a high light crop - they need like 25 to up to 50 mol/day of light which translates to either several hours of full sun per day or like 20 hours of strong shade per day. Most commercial greenhouses have much more light than a shaded area would get, plus, during the short day season, they would have supplemental lighting fill in the gap. It is not difficult at all to get 50 mol/day in a greenhouse - heck, I can even get it indoors using a really strong LED grow light. Years ago, I grew a fantastic Goose Creek heirloom tomato plant in my southern facing windowsill using supplemental LED lighting. Since it was indoors, I had to hand pollinate, but that doesn't take a lot of time for 1 plant and I had a LOT of tomatoes. Probably 3-4 tomatoes every day for 6 months at least (Goose Creek (as well as most heirlooms and greenhouse hybrids) is indeterminate which means it will keep growing and fruiting for about a year as opposed to a determinate tomato which fruits all at once and then dies at the end of the season).

This year, my local grocery store delivery company, Fresh Direct, started offering a few different types of mangoes. I didn't buy all of them, but a selection to try: The two on the left are "Champagne" mangoes (aka ataulfo) - these are very common around here - basically in every store. They're relatively inexpensive - right now, FD had them 2 for $3 which isn't a great price, but not terrible either. They will be destined for some kind of mango salsa or mango som tam later in the week. In the middle is what they're calling an Indian Kesar mango - despite it being still greenish, it is soft. It was $5 The two on the right are what they are calling "South Asian" mangoes - but they didn't have a name. They're definitely not the Thai varieties Brahm Kai Meu or Nam Doc Mai. They were $3.50 each, or 2 for $6. I hope these will be good. As much as I like to support farmers and buy mangoes directly from the farmers in Florida (they grow some really great varieties), it does become expensive, especially when you factor in the cost for shipping. Although I'm sure I'll do it once or twice this season, especially when they start coming out with selling them green, which is my wife's favorite.

wow! those loaves look amazing!

Induce vomiting for poison control?

btw - you can treat peppers like other plants - take a cutting off of a really healthy plant (before it starts flowering) and root it, then you can keep it under 14 hours of light continually to keep it like a mother plant. Each season, take a bunch of cuttings off the mother and plant them (once rooted and hardened off) outside to finish to maturity.

@ShelbyAnd here I was proud of myself that I rooted a piece of grocery store Thai basil and planted it in some coco coir last night!

I get it from Wild Fork foods - everything they sell is frozen.