KennethT

That makes sense. Growing things is fun - that's part of why I have my indoor jungle of herbs (soon to be expanding). Mushroom cultivation is supposed to be pretty easy, not very labor intensive (compared with what I do) and certainly resource friendly - no need for expensive lights/fertilizers/etc so I can see the appeal. If I didn't already have a lot of my free time taken up with the herb plants I'd be doing it also.

Lately on my Facebook feed I get tons of ads selling "grow your own mushrooms at home" kits. Unfortunately, most of the offerings are versions of oyster mushrooms which are readily available and pretty inexpensive here. If I could grow my own maitake, shimenji or especially chanterelle I'd be all over it!

What types of potatoes are common in China? Are they more waxy or starchy? Any non-Chinese equivalents you can think of?

Wow... I'm in shock. I never knew him well, but his recipes always impressed me and he always seemed just so nice. I feel like I was just commenting back and forth with him the other day (although it was probably a week or two ago).

Congrats!!! Hope we get to follow along...

huh - so you just send the wings through the mail? Doesn't it stink?

you could always replace your bed with a captain's bed (which has drawers) - lots more room for storage!

@liuzhouThanks so much for this!

Yes, and I will say that the texture was great - each individual grain was distinct, yet you could pick up a chunk of it and roll it into a ball.

Cleanup was easy - although I didn't do it. In general, I cook, my wife cleans... but I specifically asked her about it and she said it cleaned up really easily. This makes sense because there wasn't really much to clean - when I removed the tamis from the CSO, I put a plate over it and inverted - after a bit of a jiggle, the whole mass sort of plopped off with only a couple grains remaining that weren't too difficult to remove.

Yay!!! Do you prune the suckers of your tomato plants? So much vegetative growth! I'd be worried about mold in the middle, but that's just me thinking indoors where mold is probably much more of a problem.

Thanks! Sticky rice in the CSO is super simple. I started soaking the rice in a bowl of cold tap water in the morning. Just prior to steaming I drained and washed several times. Then I spread it out on a 9" or 10" tamis (I didn't measure it) evenly in about a 3/4" layer leaving a border around the side and poked a few holes around with my finger to allow steam to circulate easier. I have a few of them from when I used to make the Bouley/Robuchon potato puree. Thinking back, I probably shouldn't have worried about poking the holes or anything since the whole chamber is filled with steam - it doesn't come from the bottom.. duh... Anyway, I set the CSO to steam at 210 for like 30 minutes (that's what it was set previously) and turned it on without adding the rice yet - once the chamber was full of steam, I put in the rice for 15 minutes, then changed modes to keep warm at 150 without opening the door and let it sit for another 15-20 minutes or so. That's it.

I made the traditional Yunnan "beef with mint" (as discussed here) tonight. It was really tasty and addictive - it will definitely be in heavy rotation! I assume that the cows from that area would traditionally be quite lean, so I used some ground Elk that I got from Wild Fork; 3 of the 4 herbs (sawtooth, laksa and thai basil) came from my garden and I had the garlic chives left in my fridge for the past 2 weeks left over from another dish. I can't get fresh Heaven Facing chilies too easily here, so I used 3 Prik Chee Fah (spur chilies) and 1 Thai chili since my wife doesn't have as much of a tolerance for spicy as I do and I wanted to make sure that she enjoyed it. Served with Thai sticky rice (made in the CSO - which worked amazing for it, btw) and some smacked cucumbers.

Slightly OT but I couldn't find anything else close to it. After the move, I discovered a glass jar with Thai sticky rice that is of an undeterminable age. It's old. I was planning to make a Dai beef with herb dish discussed on another thread. When I opened the jar, I noticed a slight rancid smell. Can rice go rancid? I was planning to throw it out just because it doesn't smell good, but it got me curious...

When you make orzo, do you dress it with anything? How do you keep it from sticking together in a solid block?

Wow... that's a great looking schnitzel-fry as I've ever seen!

If adding some kind of cream, maybe try some coconut milk - I love the combination of coconut milk and mango.

I salted/seasoned and sat the fridge for about 5 hours prior to cooking. If I do decide to do in teh oven again, I might try it with steam rather than just convection. But the SV is just so easy - I usually put 4 legs in the bath at one time, and once done, they'll keep in my refrigerator for months ready for whatever I want to do with them.

2 for $5 at the farmer's market... I think this is the last pack in my freezer - but since I've got so much in there now, there could be another package or so buried at the bottom.

I finally had time this weekend to make another batch of Teochew style Bak Kut Teh. It's basically a pork broth with lots of garlic and, depending on which school you come from, either lots of white pepper or black pepper. At one point, I had read that a famous place in Singapore (where I fell in love with this dish) uses a special black pepper from Malaysia which has a rounder flavor than most other peppercorns - so I was able to find a Sumatran black peppercorn which is quite similar. Since I cooked the crap out of the pork ribs in the pressure cooker to extract every last bit of flavor and gelatin I could (the bones collapsed almost under their own weight), the ribs then went in the garbage as they tasted of nothing and were really dried out. So I like to make this a healthy version (with shrimp) in the defatted broth. To give it a bit more bulk, I added a knife cut noodle that I get at H-Mart. What better pre-Rosh Hashanah meal could there be - both pork and shrimp!

Duck legs cooked in the cazuela on top of potatoes and garlic. Chanterelles were cooked separately with some butter and shallot (in the wok). While the duck skin and potatoes were amazing, I was less than impressed with the duck meat. The legs were cooked at 275 for about 2 hours - at which time they were just cooked. Legs removed and the oven temp increased to 400 for 10 min to attempt to brown the potatoes a bit (fail) - moved to the broiler for another 5 (a bit better). Duck legs back in for about 5 minutes to crisp the skin a bit more. The duck meat was dry and still a little tough. Next time I'll go back to my SV method. The glass of burgundy was quite nice - it was hard to believe it was an '05 - it was still so fresh!

What type of rice did you use for the pilaf?

I started it in a cold oven set to 275 with a tablespoon of reserved duck fat in teh bottom. Once preheated was finished, I took it out, spread around the duck fat, then added cut up potatoes and duck legs on top, then back in at 275 for the foreseeable future.

But if the whole thing is glazed (bottom also) how will any water get in other than through the two miniscule (by percentage of surface area) circular ribs?

I received this cazuela many years ago as a gift. As you can see, the bottom is glazed also, except for the 2 rims it sits on. I've never actually used this for cooking in all the years I've had it - I've only put a towel in it and used it to keep tortillas warm (I preheated it in a 150F oven for a while first). Everything I've found discussing curing a cazuela before use talks about ones with unglazed bottoms - soak it for 12 hours, drain, rub it with garlic and then bake or put on a flame tamer or something. But what about a fully glazed bottom? Does this need soaking and curing if I actually wanted to use it in a 300F oven? Since it's almost fully glazed, I can't imagine what soaking would do for it. Plus it does say that it's oven safe - unfortunately I don't have the packaging or documentation that came with it so I don't know if they recommend some sort of curing process first - and I can't find it on Sur la table's website. I guess it's been discontinued. Any help would be appreciated!