Keith_W

You made?? I'm fascinated ... would you be able to start another thread on making knives?

I use a garlic press as well. My friend recommended that I buy one, but I resisted the idea for years. Eventually he just bought one and gave it to me - now i'm a convert! After that I went out and bought all the presses that I didn't own before (potato masher, citrus press).

mm84321, if you served me that tomato and crab feuille I would not eat it. I would be too busy admiring it and crying over its beauty - too afraid to stick a fork into it to ruin its perfection. It is a masterpiece - shame that it had to be eaten. Should be sitting in a gallery somewhere.

mm84321 I have to commend you on the amount of work you put in your food. I would probably do 1/3 as much and call it a day.

I have lost the reference now, but I think that Chinese and Japanese soy sauces are fermented for a couple of years in earthenware pots. If I find it I will link it. Or perhaps one of our Chinese members can chime in.

Hope this is not too late. Yes it is safe to cook them ALL at once, the only issue is whether your circulator can provide enough heat. If it is a tender cut of steak, you don't need 3-4 hours SV. All you need to do is bring it up to temperature - I would suggest 60-90 minutes. If your circulator is struggling to maintain temperature, it will need longer.

Thanks for the recipe, Liuzhou. Since I can't get those Zhuang preserved lemons here, I might have to make my own. There is an abundance of lemons here, and you can easily get preserved lemons, but these are usually made by Greeks or Middle Easterners. I think that would be completely different to Chinese preserved lemons! Can you comment on whether these can be substituted?

I posted this in the dinner thread a couple of nights ago. Baby fennel with honey, blue cheese, lemon, and fig. You need: - 1 baby fennel per person, halved lengthwise - good quality honey (I used Manuka honey) - good quality blue cheese (St. Agur or Roquefort) - lemon, fig Preheat your oven to 180C. Panfry the fennel in butter until golden. Turn the fennel over, add some salt, then put the whole pan into the oven for 5 minutes. When cooked, drizzle honey on top, crumble over the blue cheese. Grate some lemon zest then add a small squeeze of lemon. Garnish with fennel fronds and fig.

I'm in Australia. I struggle to think what our "national dish" would be. I think national dishes are more readily identified by people outside the country than by the people in it. However, I do think some foods are uniquely Australian. The dishes I am about to name are NOT the height of culinary perfection, or even refinement, but they ARE uniquely Australian: - Kangourou Cuit a'la Terre. (Fancy French name for "baked kangaroo in an earth oven"). Dig a hole in the ground. Shovel in some hot coals. Throw the whole kangaroo in, fur, guts, and all. Cover with leaves, then bury the whole thing. After 3 hours, dig the kangaroo out, peel off the singed fur, and enjoy. Method also works for goanna (a type of lizard) - Damper (i.e. campfire bread). Mix self raising flour with a pinch of salt, sugar, oil, and water. Wrap in foil. Throw into the same pit the kangaroo went into. Retrieve and eat. - Prawns and Snags on the Barbie. Gather overweight beer swilling mates around. Throw the prawns and snags (sausages) on the "barbie" (not actually a barbecue, it is more like an outdoor electric hot plate). Massively overcook the prawns and snags, then douse in ketchup or BBQ sauce. Eat, avoiding the corks swinging from your akubras. - Dimmies (i.e. "dim sims"). An Aussie dim sim is a bastardized version of a Chinese shumai. The Aussie version is a giant meatball as big as a fist, and about as subtle. It can be either steamed or deep fried. - Moit Pois ("meat pies"). Real Aussie meat pies must have at least 10% meat in it. The rest can be ground up snout, anuses, and the like. Microwave your frozen moit poi and slather on ketchup. Eat whilst watching the cricket or footy.

Baby fennel with Manuka honey, St Agur, lemon, and fig. The inspiration came from an Ottolenghi recipe, but I modified it by adding the honey, blue cheese, and fig. I thought it tasted great - the grassiness of the fennel, the aroma and sweetness of the honey, the richness of the cheese, and the lightness of lemon zest (with a pinch lemon juice) was a great combination.

The standard recommendation would be Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking.

mm84321 how do you put a sorbet in a ravioli? Looks incredible as always.

Some restaurants precook their steaks by poaching them in butter. It is then held in butter at 50-55C (50C for rare, 55C for medium rare). When an order comes, the steak is removed from the butter and thrown on a grille for a brief period to develop colour on the surface before the steaks are served. If you have a sous-vide machine, you can approximate this by sous-vide'ing your steak at 55C with a big knob of butter. The advantages of this method are many - temperature control is more precise, and you use much less butter. If you don't have a sous-vide machine, you'll have to do it the manual way. Melt the butter and hold it at 55C, then place your steaks in the melted butter. If it is a tender cut, then it only needs an hour. The easiest way to hold the temperature that steady is to place it in a low temperature oven and check the temperature frequently with a thermometer.

You're definitely eating the wrong baos if you don't like baos! The ones available here (Australia) are properly made. There's even a trend towards ultra-fresh baos where the dough is rolled and steamed minutes before you buy. These are even more killer than the standard baos, which are delicious enough already.

Could it be that these bad "ethnic" dishes that you do not like is more a function of bad restaurants in your area rather than the cuisine itself? I have never had good Korean food, but then i've never been to Korea - so i'm reserving judgement for now. It looks like it could be something amazing, but all the Korean food i've served so far has been pretty underwhelming.

Thank you for your detailed explanation, Elizabeth

Wow Liuzhou, that is incredible. To think that they were unknown in the Old World until the Spaniards brought it back from the Americas. How is it possible that corn achieved so much regional variety in such a short time? Why is it that these fancy coloured varieties aren't grown anywhere else? I remember reading that corn has a very low rate of genetic polymorphism, so theoretically there should be nothing stopping it from crossing borders - that is, unless certain climates encourage certain colour varieties? Any science types like to comment?

How to clean a Hotmix Pro: pour water into it, set it to boil, speed 10, run for 5 minutes. Pour water out. Repeat. Your HMP is clean.

mm84321 would it be possible if all your posts from now on include pictures of how you assembled the dish? Everything you make is incomparably neat and pretty. I would love to see how it all comes together. Syzgies - a Komodo kamado? Only the best Kamado in the world

Spectacular, Baselerd!

It will be OK without the pandan leaves, but will be lacking a certain aroma. If you can't get pandan leaves, try using pandan extract. Pandan extract is usually used for making cakes and pastry, so it is often dyed green. You want the non-dyed version. Be warned - pandan extract is pretty powerful, even more powerful than the leaves! You probably need only a drop, if that.

mm84321 that gratin is incredibly pretty. How did you cut it into a perfect circle shape without it falling apart? Are the vegetables glued together with something? An aspic perhaps?

Couple of dinners over the last week. Minestrone with garlic bread. It is incredibly cold in Melbourne - this Italian classic really hit the spot! Yes, that's Hainanese Chicken Rice sitting on a bed of choy sum. Experimented with plating to irritate the traditionalists

XO sauce contains: dried prawns, dried scallops, fermented tofu, sweet shallots, chilli, ginger, and some other things. It will go with nearly everything you would eat the above condiments with. You could stir fry it with Asian greens - something like Chinese watercress or pea sprouts works well. You could steam it with fish, mussels, or pipis. You could slather it on tofu and eat it cold, or fry it, or steam it. You could fry rice with it, or fry noodles.

Strange, I must be the only one here who seems to like the slimy texture.