patrickamory

Went to Bangkok Center Grocery in NYC's Chinatown today... as usual the holy basil bin had already been picked clean at 1 PM. Bought bird chiles, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, coriander with roots on, fresh turmeric and a bunch of other stuff, but none of the more unusual items above was available there or at the southeast Asian grocers on Bayard or Mulberry. Anyone able to find this stuff locally?

First course was Vietnamese chicken salad from Hot Sour Salty Sweet (inspired by the thread devoted to this book - I'm keeping it now): Then on to Delhi with Madhur Jaffrey... plus a Persian influence... Tah-dig! We got fresh peas at the greenmarket yesterday, and shelled them: And added them to the beef kheema with fried onions:

Ack Bruce the last thing I need is more Thai cookbooks! I still have Sodsook in my sell pile. Do I really need to buy this one? Would you recommend it over Kasma's two?

Sourced by Andy Ricker for his new Pok Pok in New York: http://newyork.seriouseats.com/2012/06/andy-ricker-pok-pok-pantry-thai-ingredients-slideshow.html#show-249226 I would seriously kill to lay my hands on some of these, some of which he sources from a Florida grower who imports seeds from Thailand. The larger, softer dried chiles, the homemade shrimp paste (I have considered trying David Thompson's recipe for this), sadao, khao tawng, bai makhok, and apple eggplant that's truly delicious and flavorful eaten raw on its own (the ones I find don't even have much bitterness - they're mainly textural carriers for nahm priks and the like). "Why don't we ever see them at Thai markets? Ricker's theory: the community knows what day and time the herbs come in, and they buy the store out immediately." I think this is exactly true - even to get something as relatively well known as holy basil, you have to get Bangkok Center Grocery in Chinatown here early in the day - the guy has told me that they have a rush on that stuff and it's generally gone by mid-afternoon. So frustrating! But this does make me want to go to Pok Pok - maybe as real Thai cuisine gets more well known here, the ingredients will become more common.

Also - try Ida Davidsen for lunch if you can.

Hi Percyn - we grind the saffron in a spice grinder, but you need to add a sugar cube to keep it weighed down. It takes a while, and you need to grind a lot of saffron at one time - 5-10 grams. You can do a smaller quantity but it's more difficult to reduce it to powder. (You don't use all the saffron at once of course - you can mix the remainder with rosewater and keep it in the fridge and use it as you need it.) For cookbooks, check out Najmieh Batmanglij's Food Of Life. There's a new anniversary edition and it's terrific. Beautiful as well.

Wow, nice homemade pita robirdstx! Persian food again - fava bean khoresh. Fava beans, freshly shelled: Dill, chopped with sea salt: Saffron mixed with rosewater and verjus (you must use copious quantities of good saffron, and really get the threads pulverized - not easy): The requisite tahdig (note: I will be very disappointed if people only comment on the tahdig): The rest of the basmati rice: And the khoresh, which contains whole chicken thighs slowly braised in the stew, along with eggs on top added at the very end:

Wow. Those dishes look amazing. I have this book in my to-sell pile (I found it too basic for Thai after Su-mei Yoo and David Thompson), but maybe I'll pull it back out and try some stuff.

I really like the Spice House too. I have a Penzey's near me and for the few spices that I don't get from my local Asian grocers, I generally choose to mail order from The Spice House over buying from Penzey's - not that Penzey's is bad, but The Spice House seems fresher. I recommend their paprikas particularly.

In general for Thai brands and ingredients I recommend checking out Kasma Loha-unchit's site - her recommendations are really spot-on, and have greatly improved my Thai cooking: http://thaifoodandtravel.com/brands.html http://thaifoodandtravel.com/ingredients.html The shrimp paste she recommends has a green dancing shrimp on the plastic jar. The name is not translated from Thai script. I'm not sure whether you can order it online, but have a look around. On a related note: from an old eGullet cook-off or tutorial, there's a note to always roast Thai shrimp paste for 5 minutes in a preheated 450F oven in loosely wrapped tinfoil. I always do this now, and it never fails to improve it - it's rounder, warmer, nuttier.

Mouthwatering, Shane! The most delicious looking meal out of a host of delicious looking meals - the summer seems to be bringing out the best in eGulleteers

Bruce is that Chiang Mai dipping sauce a nahm prik? or something else? And you know what my next question will be... which cookbook??

Fantastic meals as usual everyone. liuzhou: that looks like a dish I might try. What cut of beef did you use? mgaretz: OMG those ribs! unbelievable.

Hill Country's juicy brisket is really good, and their sausages come from Kreuz in Lockhart. I've never gone to the actual restaurant, because the vibe looks absolutely awful, but they deliver to my address I quite like the ribs at Rack N Soul, and they beat some southern contenders at the Big Apple BBQ a couple years ago, a slip-up I'm sure on the part of the visitors. But the absolute best is Fette Sau in Williamsburg... vaut le détour

Prawncrackers normally I'm against doing anything with lobster other than steaming it with saltwater and some seaweed, but that looks and sounds incredible.

I once bought a Salmanazar of Veuve Clicquot for a special New Year's event. It was difficult to wrangle. I believe that Elizabeth David stuck to her own measurement terminology because she didn't want you to be precise - she wanted you to go by your sense of smell, taste and experience.

I actually think many foods taste better warm, or even at room temperature, than hot. (That said, I'm not into plated or paletted foods, and can't stand dots and drizzles on the plate - it doesn't do anything for me aesthetically, and tends to add little to the taste.)

We have a gas broiler... it's fantastic for strip steaks. Much preferred to stovetop methods. (We don't have an outside grill - NYC 11th-floor apartment-related.)

Beautiful pork chops Kim.

Thanks Bruce. I do use Kasma's website as a reference for information, techniques, ingredients and occasionally recipes, but I've yet to pick up either of her books. I do have them on my list, but I'm running out of space for cookbooks!

Bruce, the crispy tamarind bay scallops look lovely. David Thompson? I made Boston-style baked beans. It was a weeklong process. Recipe devised from several John Thorne recipes, mainly because I didn't have the right ingredients to make any single one of them. This is mainly a combination of his "Up-North Beans" and his "Downeast Baked Beans" from Serious Pig. First, we made salt pork by taking pork belly from Eataly and soaking it in a brine of salt and brown sugar for four days: We fortunately have lots of extra in the freezer for summer chowder. Next we soaked Rancho Gordo's EXCELLENT Jacob's Cattle beans overnight: And then put them in the dutch oven and boiled and simmered them with their soaking liquid "until a sharp breath will split the skin of a bean" (this direction has got to come from one of the old recipes Thorne researched), and drained them, reserving the cooking liquid: Meanwhile, boiling water gets poured over the salt pork pieces and left to soak for a few minutes, then drained. The next step is to combine the beans with the salt pork, along with molasses, rum, mustard powder, salt and pepper, and then add back enough bean liquid to be visible through the beans, and bake for 5 1/2 hours at 250 degrees. Every so often you have to check that there's still a minimum of liquid, and add back bean liquid as necessary, moving on to water once the bean liquid has run out; here's a shot partway through the baking process: And at the end:

Boring looking, but it was delicious. Stracciatelle made from scratch, according to the David Tanis recipe in the Times from April (while the broth was from Marcella Hazan). I didn't quite get "little rags," more like little clumps. Possibly because I didn't stir vigorously enough, possibly because I substituted grana padano for parmigiano-reggiano.

Despite the intense heat and humidity in NYC, we have been cooking as if it's midwinter - or at best early spring: - Friday: roast chicken with rice and spinach - Saturday: beans borrachos with rice and sautéd fiddleheads, followed by red-braised pork - Sunday: dry-rubbed pork chops with rice and spinach, also started making salt pork - Monday: making chicken stock for stracciatelle Alas, on the 11th floor, even with an outdoor space, we cannot grill

I'm making salt pork today. Recipe from John Thorne, Serious Pig. I intend to use it in chowders and baked beans. Excited!

Two courses (partly because the second one was going to overwhelm anything that accompanied it). First was sautéd fiddlehead ferns - sadly not photographe, because they're so photogenic. And rice with beans borrachos (made with Good Mother Stallards and Chimay Grande Reserve): Second was red-braised pork: