trillium

You might like to play around with pandan leaves, they're sort of the SE Asian equivalent of vanilla. Although the season is past, you might also like to check out kaffir limes and buddha hand citron, the later good only for infusions, not juice. On the canned front, jackfruit stands up to the process pretty well. And then there are all those "nectar" type drinks that go so well in cocktails, like soursop, passionfruit, etc. I like soursop with gin and soda water. regards, trillium

I buy the fresh kaffir limes from my local (and wonderful) grocery store, but they only have them every 2 years or so. The season seems to be Jan. These are grown in California. When I was in Chicago I would buy them frozen at the Thai Grocery on Broadway and Argyle. If you don't see them, ask one of the friendly shopkeepers, they'll tell you when they'll be back in stock. We would also buy kalamanzi limes at grocery stores along the strip, which are much more readily available, and the juice is used in a lot of Malaysian and S'porean cooking. Come to think of it, they made good cocktails too, but our favorite was salty lemonade. I never see them here in pdx, which is a shame. regards, trillium

Last summer when some friends did a wedding I got to taste a lot of the cakes they tasted. They ended up going with Polly's cakes because the dude getting married is European and hates buttercream. She could do marzipan "frosting" and no one else could. The cakes were very beautiful and tasty (and pricey!) but the servers at the Shogren House didn't really know how to cut them and they butchered the cakes, pulling the marzipan off because it wasn't cut through when they plated them, smashing the cake to crumbs, etc. etc. If it had been me, I would have been pissed to spend that much money on a cake and have it trashed...the pieces were really sad looking...but still tasty. JaCiva's cakes rated the lowest on the list and the stories they tell of visiting the place are pretty darn funny. Let's just say the European still talks about the awful "champagne" cake (you could have a pink! cake). They didn't bother bringing me any to taste so this is second-hand. The bride actually liked Joseph's cakes (out by Sellwood) and I did too (got to taste them). They're your basic American style cake (everything is really really sweet) but done nicely, and lots of frosting and filling options (just no marzipan). The prices were very reasonable for the quality. Good luck! trillium

I like Tra Chang the best for what I can get at my grocery stores. regards, trillium

Roasted banana ice cream with something warm and chocolatey and not too sweet is a favorite of mine. regards, trillium

I don't think that should matter, I actually keep them in a deep freeze, and while it's no -80 like we use at work, it doesn't have defrost cycles! thanks everybody trillium

I have a bunch of left over egg whites from summer ice cream projects stuck in the freezer. I've used them in baking and sorbet making, but I'm wondering if they'd work ok in soufflés (an apricot almond soufflé to be exact). Opinions? thanks, trillium

Yes, ever since you mentioned them, I've been using them too, they are a nice sub for maraschino cherries. They're very processed though (pitted, put in a syrup that is flavored), so I'm wondering how the fresh fruit compares to the marasca. If I had to guess I'd guess they were very similiar. regards, trillium

I think brandied cherries are nicest made with sour cherries, left with their pits and a short stem. The pits really give a nice almondy flavor to the whole cherry after they've soaked in booze for a while (I also do ones in bourbon for Manhattans) and the little stems are just nice is a style way. Probably long stems would be even nicer but it's hard to fit them in the jar. Has anyone actually had a marasca cherry? Is it similiar to amarone in Italy, also a dark sour cherry? Because there is a couple of cultivars available in N. America now, and one of my favorite growers has planted them because I've been begging and they are suckers for obscure stuff. Now if they'll just produce before I have to move! regards, trillium

There are plenty of "curries" that don't involve coconut, jungle curry for one, and southern curries like gaeng tai plaa. Also, the curry pastes are used as much for stir-frying stuff as they are for "curry", so if you like the taste of Thai curry but not the coconut, you could try something like pork and long beans stir-fried with red curry paste, or chicken, onions and fresh hot green peppers stir-fried with yellow curry paste, or pork and eggplant stir-fried with green curry paste... well you get my drift. regards, trillium

I would love to know how to make the dishes in Com Tam, none of the Vietnamese cookbooks I have contain recipes for the meat cake or the pork rind. But I'd also love to hear how you make Nem. We eat lots of things that aren't "cooked" traditionally so that doesn't bother us, and we have a great source for homegrown pork. regards, trillium

I think 2 cups of water to 1 cup of rice or even 1 3/4 c are too much for old rice, let alone new. You can read what I wrote about cooking rice in the eG class I did hhere, but I would go with something much closer to a 1:1 ratio if you really have new rice. (I don't always trust the packaging claims). 1:1.5 if you're feeling like you need to add more water. Have fun experimenting. regards, trillium

Oh, sorry, I didn't mean that Vietnamese only eat broken rice, of course they don't, just that the stuff that gets bagged and sold at Asian grocery stores, in my experience, is bought, and I presume eaten, by Vietnamese, not Thai customers. I always assumed that they were buying it for dishes that are traditionally served with broken rice. I'd love to know more about how that came about (broken rice with Com Tam). Com Tam is one of my favorites and I'm always on the lookout for a porkrind recipe. Do you have one? And Ben, I happen to know of couple of self-respecting Asian families that have it in their kitchens (along with whole rice). They're neither beggars nor penurious, they just eat a lot of jook and gets done faster with broken rice. On the new vs. old rice debate, I think it depends on what you're using the rice for. New rice has a better fragrance, but it's texture is not as firm and the rice sticks together more. For things like curries or fried rice I think it's nicer to have an older rice which is firmer when cooked. But there are probably more opinions on what rice is best then there are rice varieties! I was fascinated in by the rice shops in Thailand that sold different grades, ages, and kinds, we just don't have that sort of variety here. regards, trillium

I think that mostly Vietnamese consume the broken rice, regardless of where it is grown. There are certain dishes it's always served with. It has a different texture and is worth a try if you're into rice. It usually comes in smaller bags then good quality whole jasmine rice. I think at the small bag level the quality of the rice is higher in the broken rice then the whole stuff, in terms of fragrance, but that is boardering on heresay, I know. regards, trillium

Mr. Thompson doesn't think curry pastes should be frozen either. He's right that they do lose something when they're frozen, especially if they are not frozen carefully and exposed to the defrost cycles in a frost-free freezer. However, I freeze curry pastes/rempahs/sambals, lime leaves, cilantro root, lemon grass, tumeric, galangal, grachai, chillies, fresh green peppercorns, pea eggplants, etc. I would rather have something frozen then not have it at all. I would love to only use fresh stuff, but that isn't a reality where we live, and we cook SE Asian food year round. Some things, like galangal, I'd rather buy frozen from Thailand then fresh from Hawaii, because I think the fresh US grown one isn't pungent enough. There are a few things you can do to minimize loss of flavor when you freeze things, the most important is to wrap them carefully and in a way that you can get just a few out at a time without exposing the rest to air (and subsequently, moisture). The other thing is to store them in a freezer that doesn't have temp cycles. Lastly, if you start with the freshest and most vibrantly flavored stuff you'll be ok. Freezing something subpar to start with is a bad idea. For lime leaves, if you buy them fresh, what works best is to lay them out on a sheet of heavy duty aluminum foil and then roll it up tightly and store it in a freezer ziploc bag. When you need to use some you just unroll as much as you need. The quality does deterorate after a while, but we usually use ours up by then. You should be able to tell pretty quickly if they're not good anymore, their fragrance will be gone and they'll look oxidized. regards, trillium

I have trouble finding the MB stuff at all in Oregon, which is still stuck in the dark ages of alcohol consumption. Oddly enough, the only MB I can find is Parfait Amour, and I still have not convinced myself I need a bottle of it. I'm kicking myself for not buying the Apry when I hauled home my stash from New Orleans. As a sidenote... I wouldn't pay $40 (or probably even $27) for a bottle of Charbay. When I was in Sacto recently and talked my friends into driving me to BevMo (I have nice friends) the store had all of the Charbay for something like $14/bottle. I bought the grapefruit and the lime to play with. They are both good, but not anything I'd pay more then $15/bottle for.... I think some of the infusions I do myself are better and have much more complexity. They taste like most of the aromatics are coming from the peel, so I'm not sure how exciting the blood orange would be. My friends bought the grapefruit and the meyer lemon, and we all agree that both the lime and the lemon have a sweetness to them that we don't really care for, the grapefuit seemed to be the best of the lot. Back to your regularly scheduled programme.... regards, trillium

What exactly do you mean with the road kill fish? Are we talking about the small sized snack mixtures with nuts and other stuff, or are we talking about the bigger fish done the classic deep fried until crispy and then sprinkled with deep fried garlic? If it's either of those two, I can imagine why you'd avoid them.... regards, trillium

The beans that Anthony and Carol grow are really amazing. I've bought specialty beans everywhere I've lived, and while it's true that he grows some varieties that are even more "specialty" then others (tarbais, zolfino), what makes them stand out is the care and attention that gets put into growing, picking, curing and finally selling them. You really can taste the difference. I'm very excited that they're venturing into grinding corn, I'd been meaning to mail order fresh ground corn for polenta and making, but now I don't have to. Fresh polenta is a revelation, it tastes and smells like actual fresh and creamy corn, not dust. Summer brings melons worth their weight in gold, fresh shellies, and wonderful berries and currants. regards, trillium

Unless you're one of the very, very few people who actually has a legitimate problem with MSG (in which case you're also avoiding nearly all processed foods, fermented bean products like soya sauce, aged meats and cheeses like salami and parmagiano) there is absolutely no reason why MSG is an "absolute no-no". Free glutamate exists in nearly any food, and many of the foods we really love and use for flavoring contain copious quantities of glutamate all on their own. I would readily admit to using it, I view it just as I would any other flavoring in the kitchen, in bad hands nearly anything can wreck a dish, but if you know what you're doing, why not? regards, trillium

If you're using Sevilles for marmalade, they're not harmed at all by storing them in the freezer...if you have room for 38 lbs! regards, trillium

We use them to make glutinous rice wine, which I'm guessing is the close to making fermented rice, but maybe you let it go longer and add more liquid. I think it's pretty Chinese too, not just SE Asian. We buy ours at an medicinal herb store. regards, trillium

Did my partner pay you to say that? We have Chinese mushroom, light and dark soyas, kecap manis, Japanese light soya, Korean light soya, Thai light and mushroom soya and he was eyeing the Thai dark one at the store the other day... They really do taste differently, though, so I make room in the pantry for all of them. regards, trillium

That's lovely looking... now show us your crumb! For the candied fruits, I use a combination of sour orange/tangerine, lemon and citron peel instead of just orange...sorry, shoulda mentioned that. Sometimes I will also add dried sour cherries in addition to the dark raisins. I don't like the bleached taste of those so-called "golden" raisins, so I rarely add them. Maybe I should make my own raisins now that I have a dehyrator...hmmm. Homemade candied citron (I like Buddhand best) is really tasty and has almost no resemblence to even the fancy European ones sold by King Arthur flour and the like. I should have also mentioned that I never cut the cross in it, because no matter how sharp the blade is, it always causes the loaf to deflate a little on top, it looks like it happened to yours as well. If you leave it uncut it makes a nice dome shape and I've never had one split. When I'm ambitious and baking them for gifts, I buy those paper panettone molds, but it looks like the coffee can worked well for you, doesn't it? If you want to get really crazy, you can experiment with doing your proofing at colder temps and stretching out the time to a day or two. regards, trillium

Hmmm. I think it has orange flower flavored components as well, but you could certainly mess around with a combination of all three. I personally don't care for it, but people that like the "commercial taste" do. regards, trillium

Yup, that's the one, but I double the fruits. regards, trillium