KennethT

How does that work? Do they pack the bread and cold cuts separately?

I agree with @Tropicalsenior - the liquid at the bottom should be kept for at most a week as it will spoil, and will then spoil the fat. In the future, if you were to pour everything into the jar, tighten the lid and then put in the refrigerator upside down, the liquid will now be on top, and you can then remove it once cold (and probably jelled) and just scrape an extra millimeter or so of the fat with it so it's not contaminated, then you'll have the perfect lard in the fridge with no problems. I used to do this with duck fat and drippings when I'd do confit sous vide.

Do the walnuts act as a thickener or are they more about flavor? Reminds me of some Nyonya curries that use candlenuts in the rempah that act as a thickener.

Finally! My kaffir lime tree has finally started a new flush of foliage. This is the tree that was a bit rootbound and I wound up thinning the roots and replanting in New coir. It was dormant for quite a while so I was starting to worry about it.

Another thing to do would be to put the cloves in a bowl, then cover with another of the same size bowl and shake. It basically peels itself during the shaking. I don't bother when doing a couple cloves, but if I have a head or two to do.

I've only gotten takeout from them once. the chicken mole taco was really good. The chicken enchilada was also decent, but I'd have to give them another try to be sure. It's a tiny storefront place but the menu is pretty big. We also got a guac and chips - guac was ok, but the chips were really nice and corny.

When hiking, how do you cross the streams? Do you take your hiking shoes off or do you go through and the shoes get soaked?

Missed that... Nice!

What, no onion volcano?

I don't think so. I use corn starch because that's what I have. I know @liuzhou would most probably use potato starch, since I don't think one grain of corn starch exists in his apartment.

That doubanjiang looks like what I can get, and I use it - it's fine. I like some of the Woks of Life stuff, but others not so much. I find this a much better version of mapo tofu -

Sorry - was this directed to me? If so, they came out really good. The the steaming rendered a lot of the fat. And then chilling it down and letting them sit uncovered in the refrigerator really dried the skin pretty nicely - I think I may attempt a deep fry instead of broiling next time!

This is the common one that I see

Back to a night in Singapore because the Superbowl is a good excuse to make wings (roughly $3/lb from Wild Fork) that have been in my freezer for a month or so. And of course, since I already made the chilli sauce, chicken rice.

Singapore wings redux.... Marinade: Steamed on 250F super steam in CSO: Chilled down and then broiled on each side for 2 minutes until done:

Mapo tofu usually doesn't have Thai chillies. To me, it should be Sichuan pickled chillies and dried Heaven facing chillies.

Finally able to get my grocery store Thai basil to root. I was starting to worry about it! Now transplanted into a small amount of coir.

Tom kha mahi mahi with rice noodles. Kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass from the garden.

oops - I forgot- if using as a marinade, I'd also blend a shallot or two in there...

This is a pretty good recipe and similar to what I use for my Singapore version - but I don't use brown sugar (it's not common in SE Asia) - instead I'd use maybe a teaspoon or two of kecap manis (sweet soy sauce). And rather than mincing, I'd pound all the solids in a mortar/pestle. I'd also eliminate the sweet chilli sauce (you already have tons of sugar in there from the honey, brown sugar or sweet soy sauce and dark soy sauce), so instead I'd just add some chilli paste (like a sambal oelek) or throw 1 prik chee faa (spur chilli) along with 1 Thai chilli if you want it hot. Plus, I would definitely replace some of that dark soy sauce (you only need a little bit) with fish sauce - like a couple tablespoons. This is basically my marinade for the wings - and then you can just squeeze a bit of lime on just before eating and dip into the chilli sauce that I wrote down in RecipEgullet.

If it helps, this is the back side of the package: Also, I was to understand that Hunan food uses tons of pickled vegetables. I had read that it was the pickled vegetable capital of China. This is the webpage menu of my local Hunan place - they basically do most things over rice noodles (either dry or in soup) or rice if requested. Practically everything has a small heap of pickled mustard green tucked into a corner and you can ask for more for an extra $1 or so... https://silkykitchen.com/menu/

That wouldn't surprise me - the Cantonese were the original Chinese settlers in NY a long time ago - up until recently, anywhere you went in Chinatown, the defacto language was Cantonese but that's changing now, especially rapidly in the outer borough Chinatowns like Flushing, Queens and in Brooklyn.

Thanks. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with it. I was debating between some Thai Khao Soi (I assume the Thai pickled mustard green would be similar enough - and the ones I've gotten before from the Thai store were NEON yellow, unrefrigerated and really unpleasant) of maybe making some Hunan stir fry - my local Hunan place puts pickled mustard greens in everything. I'm also open to suggestions.

that meal looked amazing. If I had time, I could picture myself booking a trip to Chicago just for that.

When I cook meats SV I usually don't salt prior to bagging - I find that it changes the texture giving it a cured meat consistency. My best results came from a fast hard sear, then bag and SV, then pat dry, season and resear.