KennethT

Over the weekend, I made some Thai boat noodle inspired duck noodles, made with some SV duck legs and some duck stock made from the carcass of a Peking duck we had in Chinatown....

I saw that and thought the same thing. For that price, I would have bought them all on the spot!!!

I also like the Vichy Catalan... probably my favorite sparkling water!

What type of power outlet do you have there? Is it Swiss? I always thought Spain's outlets were similar to those in Germany...

Love Palmer... one of my favorite Bordeaux

Botulism will grow above 34 degrees, albeit much more slowly than at room temp. At 38, it's much faster than at 34. I keep my fridge literally on the cusp of freezing. The produce stays in the produce drawers which are a bit warmer.

Did you poke some holes or cut the vacuum pack before defrosting in the fridge? Depending on the temp of your refrigerator, it would be a good idea since botulism bacteria is slightly active at the warmer end of the fridge temp scale, and the vacuum pack is a great environment for them. Giving it any access to air is a good way to make sure that doesn't happen since they're anaerobic. Also, according to Wild Alaskan's website, they cover everything in a glaze of sea water, so if you defrosted it still in the packaging, it was in a small amount of brine. They recommend taking it out of the packaging and defrosting on a rack so the sea water can drip away as it melts. I usually just defrost it in a bowl of water (out of the packaging) for like 30 minutes, then remove and pat dry.

so that's convection bake?

Thanks for taking us along!!!

I didn't know coconut milk was able to curdle. I've had some frozen coconut milk separate, but if you stir it pretty hard it comes back together.

@liuzhouDo you think it would benefit to replace the sugar with either jaggery or palm sugar?

I've never had a dried morel - how would you compare it to the fresh?

Is that chicken breast? When shopping in your area, are the chicken parts prepackaged (either by the farm/slaughterhouse/distributor or the store itself) or do you deal with the store's butcher?

What was the gravy?

I don't know - both could potentially kill you!

The last time I made the sockeye, I coated it in curry paste, wrapped it in a banana leaf and put it under the broiler. I cooked it in the Eric Ripert method - until when you can insert a thin metal skewer (I have one just for the purpose) and it feels just warm on the inside of your lip. Because of the banana leaf, it doesn't get the heat of the broiler but basically steams itself but is flavored with the charred banana leaf. Even though it was just barely warm, it was still dry... The coho is next up...

@Smithy and @weinoo Yes I have a CSO and I've steamed whole fish in it really well - it's an idea. I could always treat it like I treated the farmed stuff and SV it to a core of 102F

I recently received a second box from Wild Fork... more chicken thighs (we go through a lot of thighs), a rack of pork spare ribs for $2 a pound or something ridiculously cheap like that (I'm using them to make stock) along with a couple of pork hocks, also for the stock. I also ordered 1.5 pounds of grouper, of which we had some last night. It was devoured faster than we could take a photo - I made a Thai pad cha grouper stir fry. This may be my new favorite fish for this type of application, and the quality was fantastic. On the fish note, I have a glut of wild Alaskan salmon - both sockeye and coho. To be honest, I really don't know what to do with them. I'm used to dealing with the fatty, almost unctuous farmed Alaskan salmon. But the first portions I made of the sockeye were underwhelming. They were dry. Really dry. And I don't think I overcooked them - definitely not enough for them to be as dry as they were. Any recommendations of what to do with them so that we'll actually enjoy eating them?

This is really cool... but I do worry about eating an icepop covered in metal dust!

How can we guess without knowing relative size? They could be 4 feet long and used to dig a pit to cook a whole pig wrapped in banana leaves!

As @liuzhou said, you could use it for lots of things - I made a Mexican red chile chicken in it last night - simmered chicken thighs in the red chile sauce, brought some water to a boil super fast to blanch sliced shallots to make a pickled shallot, etc. I also use it for steaming (you need a steamer basket of some kind then) or a double boiler. I've also deep fried fish without having to use that much oil. I dry fry spices in it prior to grinding. It is vastly superior to a saucepan for reducing sauces in a hurry. All with the added benefit of being well seasoned carbon steel - it is basically non stick and takes literally 5 seconds to clean - I just rinse it with hot water and wipe it out with a towel, then reheat it till it smokes a bit.

Tom yum has a very different flavor profile than tom kha. Tom=to boil so is used to describe soups. Kha = galangal, which is the one of the primary flavors in tom kha. Tom yum is definitely more spicy (tom kha is typically not spicy or just very slightly spicy, but more herbal) as it uses nam prik pao (along with thai chilies) and is much more lime-y. Traditionally, tom yum is water based (no coconut milk), but lately, there's been a trend in Thailand (and worldwide) to make a creamy version of tom yum not using coconut milk, but usually using evaporated milk as the cream-ifier.

I agree with the wok idea. I recently got a carbon steel flat bottomed wok to use on an induction burner and I love it. I originally got it for stir fries, but now I find I use it for many tasks. I use it so much, it lives on my countertop.

Looks great, but the tom kha gai looks more like a tom kha talay. Gai=chicken... talay=seafood

Ever since I was a kid, I dreamed of growing a pineapple plant. When I was a kid, I had the space in the summer but wouldn't have known what to do once it became colder here. Now, I know what to do and would grow it indoors but don't have that much space!! There's nothing like a completely plant ripened pineapple - something we almost never see here in the US (everything is brought in green). How big is the mature plant now?