Hassouni

Either ice made in my freezer, or commercially made bags of ice. Either way, it's from directly out of the freezer, so it's considerably colder than 0º/32º

25%? It seems higher than that. This means a 3 oz drink would be less than 4 oz total. I just measured out 4 oz into my cocktail glasses, and I definitely get at least that much from shaking.

OK, this has bugged me for a while, so finally I'm gonna ask: I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or what. I'm under the impression that a standard "up" cocktail meant for a cocktail (martini) glass or coupe has 3 oz of ingredients. But every now and then I see recipes for such drinks with 3.5-4 oz. The issue with this is that the glasses I have are 6 oz, and most of the nicer martini glasses and coupes I see are also 6 oz or less, often as small as 4.5. With my 6 oz glasses, a shaken drink with 3 oz of ingredients comes out just below the rim of the glass. Anything more than 3 oz is right at the rim, which is messy and unprofessional looking. So, how do cocktail bars that use these smaller glasses manage? I tend to shake for a pretty long time, but my drinks don't taste over diluted. It might be an issue of ice, too, but home ice is colder, and I don't think a majority of places I drink at use Kold Draft. To illustrate, FrogPrincesse's Sidecar here has over 3.5 oz of ingredients, but those coupes don't look like they're especially large.

In my experience, Thai sweet basil (bai horapa) is much more easily substituted with Mediterranean basil than holy basil (bai kaprao) is with ANYTHING. Pad kaprao must have holy basil, but overall horapa is used in more dishes, from what I remember from my days cooking Thai frequently. Holy basil also goes off FAST - you can't even keep it for more than 2 days without it deteriorating. By 3-4 days it's unusable. I don't know if you can freeze it, but since it's almost always cooked, it might not matter if it turns a dark colour. You might be able to pack a jar of it with some neutral oil and freeze it; alternatively, one can buy chile pastes with holy basil, meant as an "instant pad kaprao" paste. I've never tried it, though, and I only make pad kaprao when I can find the basil in question. Another idea might be to put the basil in a vase with water to make it last a bit longer.

Ah Pouring Ribbons, what a good bar!

The shops in Chinatown, for what it's worth, have most of the typical thai veg, like the small round aubergines, water spinach, some of them even have holy basil

I don't know where you are in the UK, but in London, one of the shops in Chinatown (on the north side of Gerard Street) has a pretty decent Thai selection, and there is a dedicated Thai grocery in Shepherd's bush. I used to cook Thai food every other night when I lived in London, so it's easily accomplished there. Not sure where you might be though...If you're close enough to London you could at least make an occasional trip to get durable goods - fish sauce; kaffir lime leaves, galangal, and thai chiles to freeze; coconut milk; palm sugar; curry pastes, etc. As for the vegetables, as long as you've got that base of garlic, fish sauce, chiles, limes, etc, anything you make will have a "Thai flavor"

How does the Curaçao work for a Mai Tai? I've been long considering getting a bottle.

Joining the party late, but here are my must have cold-weather foods: 1. SOUPS OF ALL KINDS! I'm sure this goes without saying for everyone, but a really good soup with homemade stock can't be topped. Come wintertime, this could be a daily thing for me and I wouldn't complain. Favorites: basic chicken and veg, red lentil, and a hearty Iraqi soup with kubba, turnips, and swiss chard, thickened with pounded rice. 2. Chili, specifically a combination on Alton Brown and Kenji Alt's recipes, using larger chunks of beef, soaked and pureed dried chiles, and beer as the cooking liquid. Beans optional. Also green chili w/ hatch peppers and either pork or turkey. 3. Wintery Iraqi stews, like white bean and lamb stew, or stews with winter squash. 4. Nabemono - whatever can be thrown in (if I had to pick one, I'd say Ishikari nabe, with salmon and miso and butter) 5. Tonkotsu ramen. This is fine year round, but it's really good in colder weather. 6. Roasted (mostly root) vegetables - parsnips, turnips, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, carrots, leeks, squash.... I could go on and on, but if a winter passes by and I don't have those foods, something's missing

So wait, is it really just fried chicken?

Me! I'm a Laird's fan, I'd love it. Damn, I'm too late. How does one get a liquor company to give you free stuff?

I've never had it, but it's VERY popular in the Middle East..

What's an ice veil?

I'll have to give this a try. What do you use? I think the holes in my Chinese metal steamer are too large....

I was under the impression that most store-bought couscous is pre-cooked then dried?

I don't know that the title needs further explanation, but where the hell do I buy the old-fashioned, 3-steamings and it's done couscous from? Even the bulk stuff at Whole Foods is of the quick-cook variety.

There are a few times of hummus b'lahmes out there. One uses ground meat, another chunks. Sometimes even shawarma meat is used. The best, however, is with 'awarma, which is basically lamb confit.

Anybody think it's odd that something with such a name uses Bajan rum? Why not Gosling's gold, for example?

I bet 1/2 oz wray, 1/2 oz SC, 1 oz Appleton 12 would be SICK! Too bad it's getting chilly here (and I'm still recovering from the worst hangover of 2013), or I'd mix one up right away

Yes, traditional meddle eastern hummus is made with raw, not toasted, sesame tahini. Usually the choice is between shelled and unshelled sesame seeds for making the tahini. That said, hummus, even traditional hummus, lends itself to numerous personal and regional interpretations, so why not try it with toasted sesame seeds? How about an "Asian-style" hummus? Could be interesting. Over the years I've made various types of hummus. A favorite is "Southwestern" style hummus, made with black garbanzo beans and chipotle peppers, or an Asian style made with black soy beans, roasted sesame seeds, and some plum vinegar. These are far from traditional, but very interesting and make a surprising appetizer or side dish. Definitely go for it. Middle easterners can get a little shirty about this. The word "hummus" means "chick pea" in both Hebrew and Arabic. In the west, we use the word "hummus" to refer to almost anything with that same spread-like consistency, no matter what it's made of. I think the spreads are all good, but I can't bring myself to call them "hummus." As the resident Middle Easterner on this thread, shirty is right!

Having been to Kuwait I have to say it's the least interesting place I've been, both from a cultural/aesthetic/goings-on perspective as well as a culinary one. The most unexpected thing I came across was the rampant love of crappy fast food, both western chains and local attempts.

I can second the suggestions for Alounak and Koya, both are great (especially Alounak, probably the best Persian restaurant I've been to anywhere in the world). I think Koya is better than Tonkotsu, even though they're slightly different. Tonkotsu is still good, however. For something similar to Persian but with a twist, try Iraqi food! Le Chef Masgouf on Connaught Street, off Edgware Road, is quite good and definitely not grungy like a lot of the Edgware Road places. For Mediterranean: I'll also add that a lot of the more casual Spanish places can be done for £50, such as Fernandez & Wells, Brindisi, and maybe a few others. There's also Comptoir Libanais, that could do you well too. If you want to go up to Stoke Newington, there are several cheap-as-chips and very legit Turkish places too.

Okra stew is THE national dish of Iraq, by which I mean a proper Iraqi household will make it several times a month. I grew up with it and love it, but even my white American, picky eater dad doesn't mind it. The basic recipe is: Brown meat (preferably bone in cuts of lamb) Deglaze with water, add enough to let the meat braise When meat is halfway done, add lots of tomato sauce and/or paste (it should be VERY tomatoey), add the okra and at least a head's worth of unpeeled garlic cloves Towards the end (after about half an hour) add the juice of 1-2 lemons, to taste (it should be slightly sour). Once the meat is cooked and the okra is tender, it's done. There are a few tricks for cooking it in liquid. The first is to cut off the stem end and tail end such that the holes show, then par-boil the pods and rinse very well. The boiling water will be viscous and slimy, so ditch that. The other way confines everything in the okra itself - just trim the stem such that the holes DON'T show. This is more time consuming, though. Of course, I don't mind the mucilage It goes without saying that I like Indian preparations, okra gumbo, pickled okra, etc. I've never had fried okra that was that interesting, it just seems to dry it out.

I just thawed some TJ's wild sockeye salmon in my fridge overnight and proceeded to cut it up into little chunks for a stew. I pretty much never do this, I only cook the fillets whole or in simple cross-grain slices. The texture was terrible! Lots of the pieces fell apart. I've noticed that thawed frozen fish often has a looser texture, but this was really unacceptable. Has anyone else noticed this with TJ's salmon?

So I want to go on record as possibly creating this drink. The Lion's Tail Swizzle. I did this once at home, and had it recreated tonight (my birthday) by the masterful bartenders at the Passenger, DC It's a basic Lion's Tail (bourbon, pimento dram, lime), but swizzled - so a bit of mint and bitters added, with crushed ice as a long drink. I'm drunk so excuse the language, but FUCK YEAH!