menuinprogress

Browsing this thread brought back great memories of visiting Chiang Mai. Thanks for sharing!

Pastrami slicing time!

Here in San Diego, corned beef is generally obtainable under $2/lb at this time of year. We snagged two 4lb chunks of point - one at $1.69/lb (you could only get one at that price) and one at $1.99/lb. Both are destined to become pastrami at some point in the not-too-distant future.

A "Thai"-wanese mashup dish - a combination of Khao Kha Moo (Thai pork leg rice) and Gua Bao (Taiwanese pork belly buns). Braised pork leg and pickled gai choi (Chinese mustard greens) on a steamed bun. I guess they could be called "Bao Kha Moo"...

Mapo Tofu.

This was our first attempt at recreating Gua Bao, a Taiwanese street snack we enjoyed on a recent trip to Taipei. It is a folded steamed bun, filled with braised pork belly and pickled mustard greens and topped with crushed peanuts. Very pleased with how it turned out - we'll be making these again for sure.

Pad kra pao moo with a tomato cucumber salad.

Uttapam with some leftover Gujarati potato/zucchini curry and yogurt sauce (khudi).

Chilli-lime chicken. We've been making this dish for years - based on a recipe from a British-Indonesian cookbook. A chicken, chopped into pieces, marinated in soy, black pepper and salt and then shallow-fried. The sauce is red chilli, lime and some sugar. We eat it with a bowl of rice and some greens (this time it was gai lan).

Thai steak salad.

Bay scallops with andouille and white corn.

Tomato and tofu soup with fish balls and noodles (the rice noodles are hiding at the bottom of the bowl).

Our first go at making Khao Kha Moo (Thai pork leg rice). It is pork leg (with plenty of fat and skin) braised in a spiced broth, served with pickled mustard greens, a chili-vinegar sauce and egg. We fell in love with this dish at the famous "cowboy hat lady" Khao Kha Moo stand in Chiang Mai:

Roast duck fried rice.

Roast duck with asparagus, potatoes and mushrooms. After this picture was taken, it was drizzled with a sauce made from the drippings, which made it both more tasty and less photogenic.

Warm white bean salad with opah belly and garlic crostini.

Broccoli, carrot and onion soup. Fortified with some bacon fat and spices, and eaten with cheddar cheese toasts.

Jambalaya with andouille, shrimp and bay scallops.

Sure: 2 T black pepper, crushed 2 T coriander seeds, crushed 2 t paprika 2 t garlic powder That is for around 3-4 lbs of corned beef. The spices get rubbed on after soaking the meat in water for about an hour, and then patting it dry. Then it sits in the fridge overnight before smoking.

It is pretty much the same process as making pastrami from scratch, but you can skip the brining stage since that has been done for you. Instead of using the spices that come with the packaged corned beef, you rub the meat with pastrami spices and cook it on a smoker. It is basically just a shortcut to making pastrami, and takes advantage of the inexpensive corned beef that is available this time of year.

We also take advantage of the St. Pat's Day sales to stock up on corned beef, but we use ours for making pastrami. We currently have two 3lb packages in the fridge waiting to be soaked, coated with spices, dried and smoked.

Rice noodle soup with shrimp and assorted seafood balls.

A mixed batch of andouille and beer sausage coming off of the smoker.

Lamb shanks in red wine sauce. Recipes for this sort of dish often call for the vegetables cooked in the sauce to be strained out, but I unapologetically refuse to do so.

Bibimbap - hot off the stove, and after scraping up the crusty layer of rice and mixing it all up.