huiray

Hello, I suppose you are asking me this when you wrote "H:" in your post? (perhaps you might consider addressing me by my handle, "huiray" ;-) ) I am also guessing that "V.F." is "Vietnamese Flavor" and "C" is "Chinese" while "V" is "Vietnamese"? If so, then I should have more properly written "Vietnamese Style" sausage. I talked about this version of lap cheong in some detail in this previous post here on this thread. Here is a picture of the remainder of the current pack of this variety of lap cheong.

Couple of simple dinners. • Remainder of the beef & veal sauce from the previous day’s lunch (see here), doctored up w/ more sliced ginger and a few dashes/quick pours of this-and-that sauce and re-simmered for a little bit. Eaten w/ min6 sin3 (a.k.a. mee sua) [this brand] and plenty of chopped scallions. • Fresh watercress wilted in chicken broth. • Bauernschinken, coarse Braunschweiger, pressed tongue, semolina bread, butter, local coarse mustard w/ jalapenos.

Food shopping today: Broad Ripple Farmers' Market (various vendors): Baby daikon, orange carrots, ripe tomatoes (harvested before the freeze), leeks w/ really long white parts, turnip greens, baby curly kale, broccoli florets, brown-mottled eggs, green eggs, beautiful big fresh Napa cabbage, small orange sweet "snacking peppers". The Fresh Mart: Crème fraîche, California Olive Ranch EVOO, Godiva chocolate, nice fillet of turbot, salted potato chips [Kettle]. Claus' German Sausage & Meats: Bauernschinken, coarse Braunschweiger, pressed tongue, smoked Kielbasa. Amelia's Bakery: Half a loaf of semolina bread, honey-oatmeal biscotti.

Breakfast a few days ago: • “Instant Noodles Artificial Hot & Sour Shrimp Flavor” [Dragonfly] w/ halved hard-boiled eggs & scallions. ------------------------- Breakfast today: • Leftover Babi Pongteh (from the previous day’s lunch, see here) served over white rice.

An early breakfast from last week: • Fried rice. Chinese sausages (lap cheong; liver, & Vietnamese flavor; pre-steamed then sliced up), leaf celery (Western-type), “normal” celery hearts, scallions (lots!!), farm eggs (scrambled/”marbled” in situ), white rice (Basmati). Eaten w/ “Cap Jempol” chili sauce mixed w/ lime juice & some rice vinegar.

Some recent lunches. ------------------------ • Beef shin & veggie soup. Whole beef shin, trimmed, cut into 1½ - 2 inch rounds, browned in oil seasoned w/ lightly crushed garlic cloves (reserved); quenched w/ water, sautéed garlic added back in, sea-salt added, simmered for 30-40 min; whole cloves & stick cinnamon & a couple whole star anise added in together w/ halved scrubbed purple potatoes & halved baby scrubbed daikon; simmered some more. Halved (lengthwise) fresh carrots & generous quartered red & white onions added, simmered some more. Seasoning adjusted. [The only thing that had its “skin” removed was the garlic, and the onions with the dry skin taken off. ;-) ] • Broccoli florets, stir-fried w/ smashed garlic & fu yee (fermented beancurd) [Chan Moon Kee] simmered down in the sautéeing mixture. • White rice (Basmati). ------------------------- • Kon Lo Mein, using skinny wonton noodles; dressed w/ a sauce of minced beef & veal (1:1) sautéed w/ garlic and ginger & various sauces including oyster sauce [LKK], “Luscious Soy Paste” [Kim Lan], sesame oil [Dragonfly], mirin, light soy sauce, ryori-shu. • Steamed har gow & siu mai [commercial], eaten w/ a dipping sauce of mixed soy sauces w/ rice vinegar & chopped scallions. -------------------------- • Fried rice. Roughly chopped char siu (Chinese BBQ pork), chopped smashed garlic, a sliced-up Carmen Italian sweet pepper, 2-day-old white rice (Basmati), frozen peas, lots of trimmed Thai basil, sliced-up plain 3-egg omelette (fried separately; hot oil, hot pan, sizzle, flip). • Chicken broth w/ carrots & leaf celery. -------------------------- • Kangkong belacan, with dried prawns (har mai) added in as well. • Babi pongteh, with sliced pork belly (*definitely* skin-on). This time I loosely patterned it after this recipe but using peanut oil and Red Thumb & Austrian Crescent fingerling potatoes. I used palm sugar (gula melaka). • White rice (Basmati). There are discussions about removing (!) pork belly skin elsewhere on the forum as well as discussions that largely dwell on getting great puffed and crispy skin etc. IMO soft, yielding, fall-apart skin w/ lovely gelatinous textures (such as in this dish) are quite wonderful too, but perhaps not all will appreciate that. :-)

Try one with rye. Not that there's anything wrong with a bourbon Manhattan when the mood's right. Yes, true - rye is the traditional whiskey used and I do use/ask for it. So I should have said "bourbon/rye"...

Panaderia, you just soak the barley at room temp for barley water? You don't boil it? Perhaps you might also find this interesting: http://www.mummyicancook.com/2012/09/old-fashioned-barley-water.html

Pearl barley: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_barley https://www.google.com/search?q=pearl+barley&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a Hordeum vulgare L. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barley Chinese pearl barley: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job%27s_Tears https://www.google.com/search?q=chinese+pearl+barley&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a 薏米, Coix lacryma-jobi You're welcome.

"Hong Kong supermarket" - I assume that is the local place for you? I imagine others will have other sorts of "Asian"/Chinese/East Asian/SE Asian markets accessible to them. I myself have a bag of commercial frozen calamansi juice also, in my freezer, for occasions when I wish to use it.

For myself, it depends on what it is, what the season is, what I want to make, and what is appropriate for the dish or preparation in mind. All have an influence in what I get. Following on from my posts above - as an example, if I wanted to make Teochew-style steamed fish I would need preserved/pickled plums, NOT fresh plums. If I were to make Szechuan-style dry-fried green beans - even according to Fuchsia Dunlop - I would need a certain kind of preserved, salted, spiced mustard greens (Szechuanese "yacai"), NOT fresh mustard greens. Dried Chinese-type (shiitalke-like) mushrooms cannot be replaced with fresh mushrooms of the same type if one is aiming for a certain flavor profile. And so it goes. Even in something like Italian cuisine with something like Marcella Hazan's simple tomato sauce the use of fresh tomatoes versus canned tomatoes (a good grade) gives sauces with different characteristics and it depends on what one wishes for on that particular occasion, as an example. I also like jarred marinated mushrooms and artichoke hearts, as another example, or "marinated artichoke salad" much more over their fresh counterparts, when I am looking for a certain taste or am in the mood for them. Oh, what about dried porcini and dried chanterelle mushrooms, in the Western idiom? I think they are great when used appropriately, at least in part due to the concentration (and subtle change) of the flavors with decent dried stuff. So - I buy fresh and dry and canned and jarred vegetables, many sorts, and do not consider that only fresh vegetables are to be the be-all-and-end-all of vegetable shopping. ;-) Frozen - definitely frozen peas. Frequently frozen green beans as well. They're great in Chinese-style fried rice. :-) p.s. There is a lot of other ground covered if one considers foodstuffs other than vegetables. ;-) Bacon is not thought to be a poor substitute for fresh pork, is it? :-)

Pierogi, ah - I see. Thanks for the elaboration.

There are many brands and types of packaged bamboo shoots of various sizes etc, OTHER than canned brands. Have you tried those? Fresh bamboo shoots are also available but those are a PITA to prepare. Jicama is not, IMO, a substitute for bamboo shoots. It is an error to think that fresh vegetables are always better. Many dried or preserved or salted vegetables are ingredients in their own right and are valued for the distinct taste and/or texture they acquire. They are not just replacements for the fresh. There are many such examples in Chinese cuisine, for example.

Does the topic include dried vegetables and packaged/preserved vegetables?

A Manhattan has, to me, bourbon, angostura bitters, a maraschino cherry (or two), sweet vermouth, etc ... AND STIRRED NOT SHAKEN.

Whatever I will be having, there will be NO TURKEY. I have not cooked any turkey(s) - by choice - for any Thanksgiving. Any turkey I have had had been at other people's places or at work (cafeteria) in years past when the only choice on "Thanksgiving Day" (usually the week before) was turkey - and when I didn't feel like going outside the company to avoid the turkey.

Anna N, consider trying a stir-fry of the amaranth with dried shrimp (har mai) (softened in a little warm water) & garlic next time, or a soup with or without the dried prawns and/or with other proteins in it, and see if you like it in those ways too. (There are some dishes w/ amaranth in the lunch thread)

http://chicago.eater.com/archives/2013/11/04/lee-wolen-out-at-the-lobby.php Wonder what really happened.

I don't usually refrigerate or freeze my leftover rice. It is left out on the stove or counter at RT. Reheated rice never quite has the same texture as rice-before-reheating. My fried rice is usually made with 1-2-3 day-old rice left out at RT. Inspection & etc of the rice has served me just fine for more than 30 years as to its viability. Nevertheless, I *do* reheat rice either in the microwave (usually covered w/o additional water) or re-steamed in the pot w/ a little water & plopping onto the gas ring, but not when I aim for fried rice. Those who would faint at the notion of rice held out at RT for more than 2 hours would probably not be folks I would invite to sup with me. ;-)

Anna N, I used good ol' "Simply Heinz" Tomato Ketchup. :-) But w.r.t. your question, I don't use tomato paste (sauce) that often and don't have an actual can on hand that I can find without digging too deep into my cupboard but IIRC many will be just tomatoes, some will have salt added, some will have some spices added - but no, they will not have the extra sugar & vinegar etc added to ketchup. p.s. "sốt cà chua" should really be simply "tomato sauce", I think. p.p.s. Mind you, the word "ketchup" has several theories about its origin, including the Chinese term for a kind of sauce. :-)

I lived in Asia for a time - Hong Kong and the Philippines - and at one point had a particularly tasty fried rice dish. I asked the cook about it but she spoke no English, only Thai. My dining companion was Thai and she engaged the cook in a chat about the dish. Finally, after they finished talking, my friend began explaining the dish to me. She went through the usual list of ingredients and then she said, "And you have to add American-style ketchup. That's what makes it Thai." I swear to you this conversation happened, some forty years ago, between two native Thai, in Hong Kong. Well, I was prompted by these reflections on the judges' dissing of tomatoes in Vietnamese cuisine to make a riff on tôm sốt cà chua last night: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/145774-dinner-2013-part-5/page-11?p=1939597#entry1939597 Y'know, I've certainly had prawns/fish/chicken/etc in tomato sauce dishes done in a Chinese-type/SE-E Asian style in Malaysia/S'pore/SE Asia when I was growing up, as well as occasionally elsewhere; and have posted about not dissimilar prawn-in-tomato-sauce dishes here on eG...(see here (scroll down the post) and elsewhere on that thread) In my old age I plumb forgot about dishes like these when I was watching/listening to the TC judges rip into the Green Team for that prawns-in-Italian/American-red-sauce dish. A favorite dish of mine in my youth was chicken wing pieces in tomato sauce - the wings (bone-in, skin-on) are chopped across the bones into chunks that have all of the "knobs" intact then stir-fried in a tangy-savory tomato sauce with stuff like ginger, garlic, etc (not too many things!), sometimes w/ hot green chillies added in if desired. (No, I don't recall problems with bone splinters. They were chopped by Chinese chefs with their large, sharp, honkin' big cleavers.) OK, back to Top Chef.

A riff on tôm sốt cà chua. (prawns in tomato sauce) There is a bit of a back-story to this and why I made it, which can be gleaned by taking a look here. I took a look around and used a simple, straightforward recipe (this one; Google translation), added more ginger, used sliced shallots instead, made more sauce, and added lots of trimmed scallions towards the end. Eaten simply with white rice. It was tasty. :-)

For those interested, the links to the Grubstreet recaps of the last three episodes: Episode 3: http://www.grubstreet.com/2013/10/top-chef-season-11-episode-3-recap.html Episode 4: http://www.grubstreet.com/2013/10/top-chef-nola-recap-eddie-huang.html Episode 5: http://www.grubstreet.com/2013/10/top-chef-season-11-episode-5-recap.html The reviewer has a stinging rebuke of Travis in the the episode 4 recap. (The "Vietnamese episode")

Which makes me wonder if, had the shrimpers' wives said that since they've arrived in New Orleans they're all using an Italian-American red sauce, would Cap'n Vietnam be praised for "capturing the spirit of the Vietnamese community in New Orleans"? I think that ruining a key protein seems to be the worst sin. Overcooking shrimp until it's rubbery and unpleasant does demonstrate screwing up a pretty basic skill, regardless as to what else you do with it. Some further thoughts... Gail Simmons' blog on episode 4 (Vietnamese challenge): http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef/season-11/blogs/gail-simmons/lemongrass-gate-and-other-oddities The comments (from readers) there raise objections to the judges' dissing of the Green Team and point out that tomatoes are indeed used in Vietnamese cuisine. One poster indicated that Travis was trying to make an actual Vietnamese dish, namely http://foodaffairvietnam.blogspot.com/2011/07/tom-sot-ot-ca-chua-tomatoes-and-chilli.html . (See here also) The issue of tomatoes and (that) tomato sauce is a grey area, at least for me. Certainly tomatoes are used in Chinese, Thai, Malay, SE/E Asian etc cuisine, even if the fruit is not native to the region - but it has become absorbed into the cuisine. (Yes yes, we've had discussions about "fusion cuisine" versus "gradual incorporation of foreign influences into the cuisine")¶ Even tomato ketchup is used in various dishes in the SE Asian repertoire, too...(and I myself have no difficulty with using it in certain dishes I might whip up) That Bene's sauce in episode 4 was trashed by the judges as an American-Italian sauce and inappropriate to the challenge may have been true - although he said he put in fish sauce - but tomatoes themselves are no longer "foreign" to the cuisine(s). Perhaps it still came down to execution and how the flavor/character of the sauce was developed. What exactly was it, in the end, that made it an "Italian-American" or "American-Italian" red sauce rather than the Vietnamese sauce for the dish in question? Nevertheless, I still tend to agree with the posters' comments on Simmons' ep 4 blog that Tom Colicchio is off on his commentary about cuisines such as this (i.e. "ethnic", in a general sense...) - I've had doubts about him in this regard from previous seasons, (as an example) like when he slammed Ed Cotton's tea-smoked duck, the very one that had been praised by a Chinese diplomat as being very good, very authentic. ¶ ...and Vietnamese cuisine of course has many French influences absorbed over the years that became defining parts of the dishes, including bánh mì and phở, two things which are considered to be signature dishes of the cuisine by many. ETA: The commentators on Hugh's blog on episode 4 also weighed in about the dish Cap'n Vietnam was thinking of as being a bona fide dish. Execution may have been the issue but "tomato sauce" was not the problem.

No comments about episode 5? Well, for myself I can't say i was too sad to see that fella with the mop for a hairdo get sent off. He didn't make it in LCK either. Big catering events like this one (again!!) never seem to appeal to me that much in the context of this show, "reality game show" or not. R**nolds Wrap up to the ceiling w/ product placement *very* at the forefront... Ehh, but the QF was decently entertaining. Lea Michele's Halloween bash yet again resulted in a set of dishes that the cheftestapants (Max Silvestri's term, :-) ) put out that hewed to her limited specifications a little too much, even if Justin (for one) disregarded her specifically stated direction for "no beets" - but he got away with it. It still seems weird to me that they ended up with *three* arancinis, for example. Lots of cheese. (Not a favorite foodstuff for me, with exceptions) Surely there are more ways to put out vegetarian/vegan dishes. Hugh Acheson's blog on episode 5: http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef/season-11/blogs/hugh-acheson/quin-whaaa Gail Simmons' blog on episode 5: http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef/season-11/blogs/gail-simmons/substance-over-style