TylerK

Thanks for the recipes. They both look great, especially the fish.

I think I'm going to have to do something like this, or at least produce versions without the chillies since some of the people confirming their attendance have an inability to handle any spice whatsoever. Thankfully for most of the dishes that will mean just keeping some of it aside and using a different sauce/dressing. Thanks for the recipe suggestions. They both look great. I'll do my best to get some shots.

That grilled chicken in the video looked great Thanks for the great suggestions. Some green onions in the potato salad for sure. I'm also eyeing a shrimp and cucumber salad from Davit Thompson's book. He makes it with dried shrimp, but it looks like it would be good with fresh salad shrimp, dressed with fish sauce, lime juice coriander and mint. Something for the guests that won't appreciate the heat in some of the other dishes. ElsieD - I got your PM and responded. The coleslaw looks great. Thanks Almost two weeks to go until the BBQ, so if anyone has any other suggestions I'd love to hear them.

It's almost time for my annual August long weekend BBQ (15 to 20 people) and I'm thinking of switching things from the normal fare by adding in a bit of Thai. I don't want the main event to deviate too much from what people are going to expect (pulled pork, sausages, burgers, potato salad, some kind of slaw), but I'd like to add in some new flavours as well as provide some thai inspired appetizers through the day. Some of the ideas I've been playing with: Pulled pork - once smoked and pulled toss with a Larb-like dressing. Do you think this would work? Any suggestions for a rub to go on before smoking? Sausage - David Thompson has a recipe for smoked chiang mai sausage in his book that I'd like to try. In this recipe he smokes the sausage with dessicated coconut. Has anyone tried this before, or know what kind of flavour this would give? Burgers - I don't want to mess too much with ground beef perfection, but are there any condiments that I might look at providing for them? I saw a recipe for a green curry mayo online that looked interesting. Potato salad - maybe some kind of creamy/coconut red curry dressing. Toss in some ground peanuts and cilantro? slaw - any suggestions here? Suggestions for the appetizers? So far I haven't been able to think much beyond salad rolls and satay.

Thanks for all the great comments. Unfortunately for some reason egullet stopped sending me emails so I missed a lot of them before I did the wings. I ended up dredging them in a mixture of seasoned cornstarch and rice flour and did a single fry at 375F for about 15 minutes. I've tried the two step frying in the past but they ended up coming out dry (my fault I'm sure). With the single fry and the starch coating they came out nice and crispy and still juicy on the inside. For the sauce I did a Dijon/honey/garlic/bourbon mixture and spiced it up a bit with a habanero based hot sauce (just a few dashes because I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to hot foods). The leftover sauce was great with the ribs I did on Saturday night.

Sriracha sounds like a good idea. The taste is great, but may end up being a little too spicy for me in that quantity. Do you think it would work if I cut it with some mustard or something like that? Thanks for the links huiray. Lots of great ideas in there.

I'm likely going to be frying up a batch of chicken wings for dinner tonight, but I don't want to douse them with the usual Frank's Red Hot or a commercial BBQ sauce. Do any of you have recommendations for a good sauce other than the typical buffalo/BBQ/Honey-Garlic? It can be home made, "semi home made" or store bought.

I made a nice refreshing drink this weekend for some guests. It went over well, but unfortunately I didn't do any measuring: - chilled jasmine tea - lemon juice - St. Germain - gin - some bruised mint leaves Slightly sweet, slightly sour, very floral and refreshing.

It's amazing how those cravings go away after a couple weeks. I started a lower carb diet a few weeks ago, something approximating the paleo diet though not strictly, and for the first while I had carb cravings so bad they physically hurt. I was constantly short tempered, had difficulty sleeping and was probably difficult to be around. Then one day after a couple weeks all that disappeared. I feel great now and have more energy. Even if it doesn't result in much weight loss it was worth it just to get control over my food cravings. Even though I allow myself small amounts of bread now, I have far more control over myself and make better decisions when I walk down the isles of the grocery store.

From a practical standpoint I would say it should be of higher viscosity than the melted chocolate you`re using to back your shells. For instance, when I`m making cherry cordials and the cherries exude too much liquid, the juice floats up through the melted chocolate making it impossible to seal. From a safety standpoint, if your sugar concentration is not high enough the chocolates will have a short shelf life. There are other techniques for getting highly fluid fillings into chocolates. If you`re interested there`s some great information on here in other threads if you do a search for "starch molding".

To get the purest fruit flavour I would go with a fondant centre flavoured with the fruit you want to use. I'm certainly not a pro, but when I want to do this I buy a dried fondant powder and hydrate with the fruit in question, adding extra acid if it gets too sweet. There are also freeze dried (real) fruit powders you can buy to amp up the fruit flavour without adding in extra water.

I didn't mind the Sriracha, if only because it was the least salty/sour and so had less of a tendency to overpower the taste of the food I was putting it on. My favourite so far has been the Cholula. Toasted/buttered english muffin with a soft boiled egg and the Cholula on top was amazing. How hot is El Yucateco compared to what I've tried so far?

Over the past month or so I've been trying to acclimatize myself to hot foods and hot sauces. I'm making some progress I think. Currently in my fridge I have (in order of hotness according to the web) Frank's Original, Jalapeño (green) Tabasco, Sriracha and Cholula, and I'm able to enjoy them all for the most part. I'd like to keep going, but I have a few questions I was hoping some of the resident hot sauce experts could answer. 1. The order in which I listed the above sauces was according to scoville units I was able to find on the web. This is not the order I would have given based on my perception of their hotness. I would have placed them something more like this: Jalapeño Tabasco, Cholula, Frank's Original, Sriracha. Any idea why my perception of the heat would be different than the scoville ratings? 2. I'm finding it more difficult to get used to the acid and salt in some of these sauces, particularly the Frank's and the Tabasco. Can you suggest other products that might be more to my liking? 3. I think I'm ready to move on to something hotter. What should I be looking at next?

Does anyone have a good resource that describes the taste/textural differences between different types of white fleshed fish? For dinner last night I poached some cubes of fresh cod in a saffron infused fish broth and tossed in some chopped scallions and roma tomatoes just before serving for a very delicious fish soup. Unfortunately the cod flesh was so delicate that it flaked during the cooking process before it was even cooked through, and I didn't get the large chunky pieces of fish I was hoping for. It would be nice if I had a resource that could help me pick the right kind of fish for what I want to do with it.

Variation on pigs in a blanket. Puff pastry slathered with a maple bourbon mustard and wrapped around home made fresh chorizo sausage (casings removed).

I have to add my voice to the truffle oil haters. The first time I tried it I spit it right back out thinking it had gone bad....but no, that's apparently just how it tastes.

No Trader Joe's up here in Toronto as far as I'm aware, but thankfully access to great cheeses from around the world is not an issue. I have a large indoor market within walking distance to me with several great cheese vendors. They have more blues that I even knew existed. Even most local grocery stores around here carry a decent selection of imported cheeses (including the Bleu D'Auvergne). I'll pick up something to try next time I'm there.

Thanks. I'll give it a try for sure. Can you recommend a blue that this would work well with? I live in a condo, so preferably (if possible) one that won't have my neighbours knocking on my door wondering if someone died

I've always taken my cheese out of the fridge long enough for them to come to room temp before eating, but I'm not aware of what leaving them out significantly longer would accomplish if the cheese was purchased properly ripened in the first place. Would one of you mind explaining please? The Cremeux du jura I had last weekend almost turned to liquid by the time it was at room temp.

I'd third tamales but I can't get masa or corn husks where I live. Every place I've found them online that will ship is in the U.S. and charges 2 - 3x what I'm paying for the product for shipping to Canada. So tamales are no longer something I do. Same problem with banana leaves... so I'll be faking it a bit if I do tha kalua pork. Do you have a Longo's nearby? The one I go to sells masa harina.

I've never been able to find a Canadian online vendor that has one stop shopping for everything I'm looking for. The following list of places has most of the stuff I haven't been able to easily find on store shelves. http://www.goldaskitchen.com/ - food ingredients and cooking supplies. This is the first place I check. https://www.qzina.com/catalog - mostly sell larger quantities but have a some things I can't find anywhere else for pasty/confections http://www.chocolat-chocolat.com/home/pure-chocolate/index.html - All your chocolate making needs. https://www.halfordsmailorder.com/eSource/ecom/eSource/items/1-S1-lV1BS.aspx - I get most of my sausage making supplies from here

I toss often my panko with a little melted butter before I apply it to the meat. It seems to brown up better that way.

A friend of mine returned from a trip to Hong Kong early last year and brought me back a bag of wasabi pistachios. They were one of the best snacks I'd ever tasted. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find them around here. I've been wondering how hard it would be to make my own.

Thanks, it sounds very tasty. I've never tried lomo before. What final texture should I be going for? Have you tried hanging in the fridge to dry? The inside of my fridge is more humid than my house at this time of year. Alternatively, would an oiled cheesecloth work to slow down the drying? Interesting. What purpose does the ash serve?

Just reading through the recipe again right now. Below is a short quote from the recipe text (RLB's "Rose's Christmas Cookies): "Today the mixtures are often prepared in ahead (in olden days as much as a year in advance) to ripen in large vats until they lose their stickiness." She then says that the fermentation adds flavour and leavening. I did a web search and found very little regarding pre-baking fermentation. That said, there appear to be as many recipes for Lebkuchen as there are recipes and blogs that discuss it. Some use a lot of flour while others just the ground nuts. Some even treat it more like a cake than a cookie.