huiray

I tend to agree more with SobaAddict70. I use stock for many of my soups, especially things like "quick soups" and "wonton-type soups" etc, augmenting them with various ingredients (e.g. I sometimes simmer chicken stock w/ dried anchovies &etc to make wonton soup) - but use just plain water when preparing various soups from scratch especially when I want that "Ching Mei Tou" [Cantonese - "clean" or "pure" taste]. Still, "Ching Mei Tou" can be achieved with stock. It helps if one resists adding everything but the kitchen sink into the soup. (I know someone who throws all sorts of stuff into her soups, after starting from the "basic" composition, and like it - I found her descriptions of them unsettling at times.)

Regarding Stephanie Izard's "Little Goat", mentioned above - here's the latest "summary" of takes on it posted on eater.com: http://chicago.eater.com/archives/2013/02/26/the-early-word-on-tasty-diner-little-goat.php

http://www.savorychoice.com/products/nutrition/chicken4_lowsod.html

I can almost hear the skin crackling. Looks great I could be wrong, but the duck looks a lot like the Cantonese roast ducks one can get from Chinese restaurants (in Chinatown & elsewhere)? If it is, then the skin isn't exactly that crispy but would have a slight chewiness/limpness to it (and it would be meant to be so)? The one piece at the top right corner does also suggest that the duck was given the "classic treatment" of a "meen see" (bean sauce) marinade inside the cavity when it was roasted, a liquid marinade - not just a rubbing - which is recovered/"poured out" from the closed-up body cavity when cooked and then "opened".

Lunch on Monday: • Fried soft tofu slices. • Deep-fried Vietnamese vegetarian spring rolls (Chả giò chay). • Kokita sambal Bangkok, diluted w/ fresh lime juice. (dipping sauce) • Nước Mắm Pha Sẵn. (dipping sauce) Lunch on Tuesday: • Snow fungus & button mushroom soup w/ chicken stock; scallions & cilantro. • Stir-fried beef slices w/ baby bok choy. • White rice. (Thai Hom Mali) [snow fungus - rehydrated, torn into small chunks. Button mushrooms, sliced. Sliced fresh ginger sautéed in veg oil, chicken stock. Chopped scalions & cilantro at the end.] [sliced ribeye, marinated w/ cooking wine, peanut oil, light soy sauce, ground white pepper, bit of cornstarch. Tossed w/ finely chopped garlic & grated ginger in hot oil in a very hot pan. Trimmed washed baby bok choy added, tossed till bok choy just short of wilting.]

Lunch today (which happens to be "Chap Goh Meh"). No oranges or rice balls for me - I had wontons instead. Shrimp & Pork wontons - with skinny wonton noodles, sliced Chinese BBQ pork, "Yu Choy Sum" blanched in oiled hot water, in a chicken-derived stock. Chopped scallions & cilantro. [stags Leap 2008 Petite Syrah beforehand and while preparing the wontons & stuff. :-) ] The wonton filling was prepared from deveined and coarsely-chopped shrimp mixed w/ a little minced pork, finely chopped scallions, finely sliced "Muk Yee" (wood ear mushrooms) which had been simmered in the stock, ground white pepper; and dashes of sesame oil, Shaohsing wine, Pearl River light superior soy sauce. The soup/broth was prepared by briefly sautéeing a few slices of fresh ginger in veggie oil, quenching w/ chicken stock, diluting w/ water, then simmering with a small handful of whole dried achovies ("Ikan Bilis"), a few dried shiitake mushrooms ("Far Koo"), and some soaked wood ear mushrooms ("Muk Yee").

What you really mean is that "Asian" food [again, what does that mean?] is just "non-European" or "OTHER". I think the responses here have established the Eurocentrism prevalent here. Differences between shades of grey in European cuisines are readily grasped but everything else does appear (from the responses) to be just "OTHER". I suppose that is to be expected due to the backgrounds of those posting here (so far as I gather). Too bad. Over and out.

That still begs the question what the F*CK does "Asian" mean, or for that matter "Pan-Asian"? I refer you to my post about folks thinking of "Asia" as an entity which all jumbles together. I wonder if y'all think of "Pan-European" cuisine. I don't follow what the PRC (if that is the country you really mean) or the ROC has to do with the definitions of what constitutes Asia. I question if it is a pipe dream of the PRC rather than the ROC regarding the definition of "Asia" that you seem to sneer at. It is also interesting that the PRC and ROC appear to be interchangeable to you - heh, that is what the PRC wishes, in fact. :-) @Dignan - sorry, if you think of Sheldon cooking "just Pan-Asian" then I think of Kristen Kish as cooking "just Frenchie-influenced". It might be an idea too to ask Sheldon S what he actually understands by the term "Asian" when he uses it, rather than superimposing what you think of the term on him. For that matter I would consider "Pan-Asian" to cover more ground than "Frenchie-influenced", if push came to shove. I wonder again about the generalized Western propensity to lump all things "Asian" together while maintaining differentialtions between shades of "European" in their minds.

Lunch on Saturday: • Beef shanks stewed w/ sautéed smashed garlic, a few slices of ginger, "Fu Yee" (fermented bean curd preserved in sesame oil), bamboo shoots, "Kum Chum" (lily buds), and "Far Koo" (flower-patterned thick-cap shiitake mushrooms). Eaten w/ "vegetarian" egg noodles (Vietnamese brand). • Trimmed "Gai Lan" inner parts/hearts & stems blanched in oiled hot water, drizzled w/ Ponzu sauce & dressed w/ ground white pepper. The beef shanks being browned w/ the "Fu Yee" & sautéed garlic:

A pipe dream of the ROC? Really? Wow. I wonder where you are coming from. The definition of of what constitutes "Asia" is not a "pipe dream" of the ROC - and if you think that it is, I wonder about what else you think about the global makeup of the Earth and its accepted political and geographical entities. You seem to simply dismiss out of hand the official definitions of "Asia" to suit some purpose of yours which I cannot discover at the moment. Do you have citations to prove the governments of the countries you cite have officially rejected the notion that they are classified as countries within the geographical entity called "Asia"?

Annabelle, Officially, the "Middle East" is considered to be essentially "Western Asia". Whether folks prefer to call it the "Middle East" as an entirely separate area non-contiguous with any larger region depends both on semantics and where one stands, one imagines. FWIW here are the UN definitions of Asia, and some related links. http://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/CD-ROM_2009/WPP2009_DEFINITION_OF_MAJOR_AREAS_AND_REGIONS.pdf http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Asia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_cuisine

Dignan, that may be because you may be seeing "Asian" as a monolithic thing. Many Westerners do - which is why I have been asking all along what "Asian" even meant, as commonly used and so cavalierly bandied around in the West. I, being Cantonese-Hakka, see Vietnamese, Filipino, Thai, an undefined "Chinese" (more Cantonese than other regionalities), a quasi-Northern Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Native Hawaiian, Italian, New American, and Korean-American cuisines/influences in that list of dishes. The cuisines are distinct. There is even a touch of Indian/Pan-Asian in there. Compare that with "French-influenced". If I said "so-and-so only cooked European" (let alone "only cooked French") I could imagine the outcry from folks saying that "European" encompassed such a panoply of cuisines - like French (Provençal, Parisian, Brittany, etc etc), Italian (Venetian, Tuscan, Emilio-Romagna, Calabrian, Sicilian, etc etc), Polish, Spanish (Basque, Catalan, etc etc), German (need I go on about regions?), Greek (ditto), Hungarian, etc etc etc. BTW, the term "Asian" cuisine by rights also includes Turkish, Persian, Tamil, Bengali, Punjabi. Uzbekistani, Siberian/Russian, Israeli, Maharashtrian, Sindhi, Tibetan, etc etc etc cuisines. Here's a useful listing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_cuisine

Not "Classic French" stuff with all those traditional heavy cream sauces and barrels of butter, but heavily French-influenced most of the time or "nouvelle" French-derived stuff with whiffs of East Asian influences on occasion. The list you give above seems that way to me for the majority of her dishes. I do not consider those dishes which she had no choice in (e.g. the momos) or the challenges when working in a team (the Pike Place stuff, for example). I seem to recall that she has said herself that she does French cooking. She even said in one of those LCK episodes that she wanted to try to do something different to get away from the idea that she only did one kind of cuisine [and what would that be, other than French? ;-) ]. Even the judges have said (I believe) that her signature & style is "French". By the same token, why should Sheldon Simeon be accused then of "cooking Asian" all the time when a similar review of his dishes shows a great range with influences across both the Eastern/E/SE Asian Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere?

How about using whole vanilla beans? Good stuff can be obtained online (not from Amazon) for remarkably decent prices, and the more you buy the cheaper. ETA: I've bought nice, plump, decently fresh beans from this place and this place before. I have not got stuff from this place yet although nice things have been said about it too. Regarding those Top Chef recipes: y'all might be entertained by these weblinks below. There are more out there. http://ajswordstochewby.blogspot.com/2008/04/top-chef-cookbook-or-recipes-to.html http://www.thecreativityexchange.com/2011/02/spicy-tomato-soup-top-chef-recipes.html http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/592241 (The Chowhound TC threads have many posts about the unreliability of the posted recipes) http://boards.bravotv.com/index.php?s=0e925f4cce699d4c6ea633ee383f834a&showtopic=184143&st=40#entry1486059

Regarding "rice porridge" and what Pangty suggested: have you seen this recent thread? http://forums.egullet.org/topic/144096-slow-cooked-congee/

rumball, I posted about the rendition of "Yee Sang" I made a week ago for this year's "Yun Yat", on the "Lunch" thread (http://forums.egullet.org/topic/143989-lunch-whatd-ya-have-2012/page-6#entry1909399) where I listed the ingredients I used. Was it from this post that you saw that turnips was mentioned? I see now that I made an error and have posted a correction here: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/143989-lunch-whatd-ya-have-2012/page-7#entry1910129 . I used TARO ("Yam") (芋頭), not turnip, in that list of ingredients. The "radish" that would be commonly used would be what is commonly known as DAIKON in the West. There are several varieties of it, use whichever one you like, but in my understanding the traditional one would be the long and relatively narrow "white" ones like the one pictured on this webpage (白蘿蔔) rather than the shorter fatter ones (or the round ones). There are those which are sort-of greenish in color (like these) but they are less commonly available; I believe those are the ones Keith_W were referring to. Those "cured or cooked garlic cloves" you see on the plate are pickled (large) scallion bulbs. I buy them. The ones I happened to use were a Japanese brand, Shirakiku Pickled Scallion (Rakkyo) - they're salty, sweet, sour. I like them and eat them at odd moments through the year too. :-) BTW I used oroblanco segments in my recent "Yee Sang" platter (on the "Lunch" thread) but pomelo segments, both white and pink, in those "Yee Sang" platters shown in this (salad) thread. Pomelo is the traditional fruit used. Grapefruit (of which oroblanco is one variety) could be used instead, of course, but I myself would not use orange segments. Here are a couple of web recipes to get you going, if you like: http://www.noobcook.com/yu-sheng-chinese-new-year-raw-fish-salad/ http://www.rotinrice.com/2011/02/yee-sang-and-chinese-new-year-feast/ Don't be "bound" by the strictly traditional list of ingredients. :-)

Looks like I made an error in the list of ingredients - I used TARO, not turnip, dyed green and red then deep fried.

Let us know how that Brown Butter Cake turns out. Over the various seasons, the recipes posted on Bravo's Top Chef website have been known to sometimes (even often) contain errors - sometimes small, sometimes significant, sometimes with entire steps or various ingredients missing, wrong quantities, etc etc. I for one would put more trust on what Michael Voltaggio presents in his recreation of winning recipes. Nevertheless, what I was really referring to was what the show presented of how the cheftestants came over - their demeanor, their utterances, their behavior, their perceived personalities, etc etc - in response to what David Ross said about Brooke Williamson's character. Certainly there has been various comments made about the apparently less likeable folks - John Tesar, for example, seemingly based on what one saw as presented on the episodes as broadcast.

Lunch on Wednesday: • Soup of chicken broth with snow fungus, chopped scallions & cilantro, and celery heart & leaves. • Chinese BBQ pork (store-bought) with white rice (Hom Mali). • Long-stemmed (Chinese-type) spinach blanched in oiled hot water, drizzled w/ oyster sauce & dusted w/ ground black pepper. Lunch on Thursday: • Soup of short-cut pork spare ribs sautéed w/ a bit of garlic & ginger then simmered w/ water, small thick-cap "flower pattern" shiitake mushrooms ("Far Koo"; 花菇) & sea salt; sliced daikon added, simmered a while more, loads of ground white pepper added and simmered to finish off. The soup is nicely "hot"/peppery. • Simple stir-fry/sauté of zucchini sticks w/ a head of garlic (individual cloves well-smashed but unchopped) & sea salt. Eaten w/ white rice (Hom Mali).

Although I generally agree with the comments here about Sheldon Simeon being correctly sent home this episode I was still a little sad to see him go. He did do himself in by trying new things with which he did not have great empathy with and which, it seemed, he was not quite skilled enough in yet.** I agree with Colicchio [oh, the shock! ;-) ] (and with the other judges) in his blog that he wasn't true to himself for this meal. I wonder, though, whether their expectation of getting stuff from "the old Sheldon" interfered in any way with their judging of his dishes. Sheldon Simeon did say in his exit interview that he "overthought it" and forgot who he was (i.e. what he naturally did, as I interpret it). Interestingly, he also seemed to "overcompensate" in the saltiness department with his "underseasoned" broth for his spot prawn dish - maybe after being raked over the coals for his oversaltiness (twice) previously? As for assessing Brooke Williamson and the others on the show, well, we only have what we are presented with on the episodes as broadcasted - howsoever they may be edited. So as viewers of the show they choose to send out, we make comments and draw inferences based on what we see as *viewers* of the show, no? So - yes, Brooke Williamson does come across as somewhat patronizing and a bit snobbish, a bit of a nose-in-the-air type, etc. I commented before that I, too, found her increasingly unlikable... Heh, I read somewhere just yesterday (where was it now...) that she married her sous chef to avoid a lawsuit from him...I wonder if that was said entirely in jest... As for Kristen Kish - she primarily does Frenchie stuff - yet no one has said anything about that. OTOH, Sheldon Simeon does "Asian" stuff (whatever "Asian" means) and the comments [both good (less) and bad (more)] keep flowing in... **...and yet the judges keep telling them to expand themselves and try new things. Damned if you do and damned if you don't?

As I mentioned a while ago...dinner in Mercer House...

BTW, the Chinese do have specific cuts of pork and beef, etc - they just don't correspond to Western/UK/USA standardized cuts. In my experience, many Chinese folks also like a fair bit of fat in their pork - it contributes to the deliciousness. Pork shoulder, for that matter, is a less-preferred cut of pork for many Chinese customers insofar as I know. It's tends to be on the lean side. It is also frequently up to the customer to tell the butcher what sort of cut he/she wants and the butcher chops out the requested part; or the customer just selects what he/she wants from pre-cut meat. Western-style "pork chops", for example, is not really a "Chinese cut". British Colonial Hainanese cooks, OTOH, would know exactly what "pork chops" were. Here are some links for your interest: http-::www.thebraiser.com:chris-cosentino-swastika-pork-you: http-::www.forumosa.com:taiwan:viewtopic.php?f=98&t=95929 http-::www.porkytorky.com:2012:06:hohhot-meat-markets.html http-::www.thebeijinger.com:forum:2008:01:15:Cuts-of-Beef-in-Chinese http-::www.yelp.com:biz:bayard-meat-market-new-york

Sorry, the name "Bacon Bomb" has already been taken. :-) See, e.g., , here, here, or here... a.k.a. "Bacon Explosion", see here or here &etc. ...but don't let that stop you. :-D

Late lunch Tuesday: Beef & veggie "stew". Beef short ribs (meat sliced) browned in veggie oil w/ garlic tossed in at the end, then simmered w/ water, sea salt, bay leaves, some chopped shallots for ~ 1+ hr. Chunked ribeye¶ then added, followed by carrot chunks (scrubbed, skin-on), Western celery [de-stringed] & halved small red potatoes (scrubbed, skin-on); then mainly-whole small shallots & Mexican oregano.** Simmered for a while more till done. Seasoning adjusted. Eaten w/ white Basmati rice. ¶Ribeye steak that had been left around in the fridge just a little too long for my taste to cook as a nice medium-rare steak. **See here, here, and here.

I usually just get the stuff from supermarkets or, more frequently, from the Chinese grocery I go to. I don't mind the fat in it (in fact, I rather like it that way*) and the stuff from my Chinese grocery is more "porky" than what I get from Marsh or Krogers (supermarket chains). *ETA: Not for everything, of course. If it is visually too fatty that day for my purposes I pass it by.