huiray

Hazan tomato sauce & Parmigiano Reggiano on fresh spaghetti [Bettini Pasta]. Romaine blanched in oiled simmering water, dressed w/ oyster sauce & white pepper.

It probably won't fly in the USA. But it might work in Hong Kong and other places in Asia, India too maybe. There is a reason why they launched it in HK, not in some US city. Notions of what constitutes "Western Desirability" might differ from what that may or may not be in the USA. As it is, the initial reports seem to indicate the new places are quite popular in HK. ETA: Remember that McD earns money in many more markets than the USA. The East Asian markets, for that matter, have LOTS OF MONEY available for spending. Here's one chart to remind us that McD earns twice as much in the ROW than it does in the USA.

Sorry, no, there is no substitute for curry leaves. Some folks say to use basil or kaffir lime leaves, but these really don't taste the same or even close, IMO. Shaohsing wine is NOT required for "Kam Heong" dishes, just leave it out. Nevertheless, if you are shopping in an Asian market in the near future it's an idea to pick up a bottle of it - which, in such places, usually tend to be ones with salt added in (i.e. "cooking wine"). It;s a widely used ingredient in many Chinese and Chinese-affiliated cuisines, and you may find it pleasant to play around with recipes in this genre. I don't know what the liquor laws of the state you are in are like, but in some states (like in Indiana, where I am) grocery stores may not need a liquor license to sell unadulterated wine and decent Shaohsing wine may be available from them. Otherwise, decent (unsalted) Shaohsing wine can be obtained from liquor stores in Chinatowns in larger cities. As for the curry leaves and "Kam Heong" dishes, you could use the basil leaves and/or kaffir lime leaves insted - but the resulting dish cannot be called a "Kam Heong" dish in that case. Ditto if you do not have the dried shrimp (har mai) - without this it also cannot be called a "Kam Heong" dish. If you are sufficiently intrigued by "curry leaves", try growing it yourself. Small plants of it are available from a few nurseries and even on eBay.

Bone-in beef short ribs are the preferred type for me. I'm not that keen on boneless short ribs. I don't think there is a single preferred seasoning regime I use for beef short ribs, and I also use short ribs in varied ways. Here are some braises I've done and posted about on eG; there are various others here and there and unreported. (The braises are stove-top; I RARELY use the oven to do braises, let alone use the oven at all) https://forums.egullet.org/topic/143989-lunch-whatd-ya-have-2012–2014/?do=findComment&comment=1923881 (scroll down) https://forums.egullet.org/topic/143989-lunch-whatd-ya-have-2012–2014/?do=findComment&comment=1938642 (scroll down) https://forums.egullet.org/topic/150165-dinner-2014-part-7/?do=findComment&comment=2004416 https://forums.egullet.org/topic/150165-dinner-2014-part-7/?do=findComment&comment=2001348 https://forums.egullet.org/topic/151884-dinner-2015-part-5/?do=findComment&comment=2034439 https://forums.egullet.org/topic/148945-dinner-2014-part-4/?do=findComment&comment=1980046 (scroll down) https://forums.egullet.org/topic/150922-dinner-2015-part-2/?do=findComment&comment=2015536 There are others. Are you also open to using them in stews and soups? I use short ribs in many permutations of these and have posted many of them here on eG.

"Kam Heong" Chicken Wings. Last night's version. Chicken wings – flats and drumettes, chopped into halves across the bones; tossed w/ and marinated w/ Shaohsing wine, sea salt, jaggery, oyster sauce, sesame oil, corn starch, rice flour. Then: shallow-fried in a hot pan w/ hot oil, full flame, till slightly browned. Reserved. Into medium-hot pan w/ peanut oil: sliced shallots, chopped garlic, minced pre-soaked dried shrimp (har mai), julienned ginger, trimmed & washed curry leaves (Murraya koenigii), chopped de-seeded hot green chillies; sautéed till fragrant plus a bit more. Added in a slurry of {the soaking water for the shrimp w/ Madras curry powder, bit of jaggery, a few dollops of oyster sauce, some fish sauce, dash of double-fermented soy sauce, dash of dark soy sauce, a good squeeze of fresh lime juice}; cooked everything on high heat. The reserved fried chicken wing pieces were added back in, tossed and stirred a minute or two (the sauce is also reduced a bit). Served NOTE: "Kam Heong" (金香) is a style of flavoring/cooking for dishes like this; other meats or seafood or shellfish are used as desired. Common in Malaysian-Chinese cuisine. I've also posted a few preps of "Kam Heong" Clams on eG before. Simple stir-fried yu choy sum hearts. Eaten w/ white rice, of course.

Couple of recent meals. Toulouse sausages [Goose the Market/Smoking Goose] "toasted" in a pan w/ some EV olive oil, then reserved. Bulk sauerkraut [Hengstenberg; from Claus'] browned/toasted in the same pan. Halved German Gold potatoes added, bay leaves, rice vinegar, hon-mirin, water, simmer. Browned sausages added back in. Plated & eaten w/ romaine lettuce. The potatoes were some of the best I've had, smooth and creamy in texture. Winter spinach & fresh small shiitake mushrooms in chicken stock. Plus another helping of the Toulouse sausages and kraut and potatoes from above.

"Chee Cheong Fun" (literally, "pig intestine (rice) noodle")** more accurately refers to rolled tubes of this slippery-texture rice noodle sheets, with or without dried shrimp (har mai) or chopped scallions and maybe some other bits incorporated into the rice sheets, commonly served with a sort of special sauce (a sweetish-savory sauce) and with or without a hot chilli sauce as well. The dim-sum article like the one pictured are usually referred to as "xx cheong fun" where xx refers to the filling that the rice sheets enclose. I took a close look at the photo and I think I see shrimp as well as mince in the filling plus some greenery and some other things – I am guessing that Kerry Beal & Co. ordered item #55 from their menu, the "Rice Noodle Roll Stuffed w/ Shrimp, Beef, B.B.Q. Pork" ? These are more commonly called "rice crepes" on English dim sum menus in my experience; they are also less frequently offered with a combination of all the three fillings; more usually they are offered as crepes with just one of the three - i.e. with either a shrimp, or beef mince, or B.B.Q. pork (a.k.a. "char siu") filling. The Great Eastern menu does show a shrimp-only rice roll/rice crepe, item #54. ** Because they "look" like the large intestines of a pig (BY FAR the most common non-poultry animal slaughtered for meat in Chinese cuisine)

Braised pork tongue [Love Handle] sliced up and browned in an oiled pan, a headcheese egg [Love handle], fried farm eggs [eggs: Schacht Farm], coarse Braunschweiger [Claus' German Sausage & Meats], icicle radish [Nading Farm]. Semolina bread [Amelia's Bakery]. Winter spinach blanched in oiled simmering water, drained, dressed w/ ponzu sauce & white pepper.

Checked out the Indy Winter Farmers' Market in its new location. Picked up just a few things - including the first "real" winter spinach I've got my hands on this winter: stout, fat-stemmed, thickened-leaves, sweeter stuff than the spring/summer ones. Carrots, German Gold potatoes, winter spinach. The spinach is about 1/3 to 1/2 of what I got. Plus baby Blue Oyster mushrooms and randomly-bagged shiitake mushrooms. New location of the IWFM at this address on Google Maps. After that... I was so close... so drove down 10th Street to Love Handle. :-) A pound's-worth of braised pork tongue (I asked for and got the softer ends) plus two headcheese eggs in disposable ramekins. Hmm, I did feel like some semolina bread and some Kouign-Amann...and Amelia's stall at the IWFM doesn't do half-loaves. So - a small detour down to Amelia's Bakery's shopfront... No Kouign-Amanns, so I picked up a white chocolate-walnut brownie instead plus the bread and also stocked up on some local fresh spaghetti from Bettini Pasta. Then...home. ;-) Oh, on the way back I did pick up some white asparagus and sweet cherries (both Chilean) from The Fresh Market; and some nice collards and a green cabbage from a neighborhood grocery. :-)

TC California episode 6 – Banannaise. I can't say I particularly cared for this episode. Fish tacos n the QF - didn't grab me. But Angelina Bastidas not assembling her food on the plates --- um, whut? They were right in front of her in front of the board...so strange that she couldn't start composing them on the plates just inches away...But yay! she lost the sudden-death and went away. Ah, the beer pairings for the EC - that was why Man-Bun was poking the beer bottle opening up his nostril in the preview last week. One saw that lots of others were doing that too this week - sniffing the aroma of those weird concoctions the 4 judges threw together, besides tasting them. Of the dishes that resulted from this beer pairing --- the ones with that banana Tom-beer did seem to be the most difficult one, but Kwame Onwuachi did very well with it. Yes, he is definitely in the top tier of the current crop of cheftestants. Amar Santana does good with his Padma-beer, glad to finally see more of his cooking. Karen Akunowicz redeems herself from last week with thatRichard-beer and wins. Maybe she could watch her complaining about certain others winning all the time, though. Isaac's banannaise and crab saves him - it was hard to see him struggle this week, though. Jason's pork & squid meatball – I wonder if he had kneaded it and "thrown it repeatedly" he might have changed their texture to something like the "springiness" (Cantonese: "song hou") that one achieves with Chinese/E/SE Asian type fishballs, meatballs, cuttlefish+fish balls, etc and if so whether it would have made a big difference in the dish. But maybe the very idea of pork+squid was repellent for the judges anyway? (Chinese fish/meat balls with cuttlefish in it are common in those cuisines) Certainly in Jason's case pork plus squid/cuttlefish is a common combination in Catalan food (and Spanish/Portuguese as well) and is not just "historical" I think; although it would be pork meatballs with squid/cuttlefish as another component in the dish (i.e. not incorporated INTO the meatball, I think?) Perhaps others more familiar with Catalan and Spanish/Portuguese cuisines could comment here. Wesley True – alas, the Top Chef damnation of mangling the protein (overcooked lamb) and technical faults does him in and he leaves (over Jason, I would imagine). (Whereas Angelina Bastidas got away with rubbery shrimp in episode 4, versus "just corn" which Grayson Schmitz was dismissed for) I'm a little sorry to see him go. LCK – I have slight misgivings about the subject being hamburgers as chosen by Tom Colicchio. Yes, chefs should be able to put together decent burgers; but I got a faint sense that Angelina Bastidas had an immediate edge - Tom C mentioned that she serves burgers in her restaurant, and the yellow flags went up... I checked afterwards and indeed at the restaurant where she¶¶ was working then (Piripi, in Miami) there is what could be considered as a "signature" burger on the menu, which one might suppose she would have worked on to "perfect" while she was responsible for it. Still, Wesley True also had a burger on the menu at The Spence, where he§§ had "just taken over"††. I wonder if Grayson Schmitz even makes burgers in her professional work - according to her website she "...focuses on Italian and French inspired cuisines..." which aren't exactly where one turns to for burgers. Besides, she *did* lose time by having to grind the slab of intact pork belly she got (with less-than-ideal texture) and therefore less time to put everything together properly. Whatever. Angelina Bastidas did manage to make the superior burger and she got Grayson's TC coat. Too bad. ¶¶ Bastidas was kicked out as EC from Piripi after just three months on the job. Interesting... }:-) Here's the Eater report on this. §§ Wesley True joined The Optimist in August as EC - a "sustainable seafood" place. Eater report on this. †† Remember that TC California was filmed during the summer, before True joined The Optimist and before Bastidas got kicked out of Piripi. Some recaps of episode 6 from elsewhere: http://www.eater.com/2016/1/15/10774198/top-chef-califoria-season-13-episode-6-recap http://www.ew.com/recap/top-chef-season-13-episode-6 http://www.grubstreet.com/2016/01/top-chef-season-13-episode-6-recap.html

Earlier – Miso soup. Water, hon-dashi, sliced aburaage, cut wakame, slurried mutenka shiro miso. Chopped scallions. Later – Steamed Faroe Islands salmon; soba tossed w/ sautéed cabbage; sobayu. Faroe Islands salmon fillet marinated & steamed w/ enoki mushrooms, bunapi-shimeji mushrooms, ryori-shu, hon-mirin, squeeze of lemon juice, rice bran oil, sea salt, ground white & black pepper, nigori sake, julienned ginger, trimmed scallions. Soba cooked as usual, drained & rinsed well; tossed in pan w/ sliced cabbage sautéed w/ oil & sea salt. The water from cooking the soba retained = sobayu; a bowl set out for sipping w/ the meal.

What about Yank Sing for Cantonese-style dim-sum? The one on Stevenson is close to the Moscone Center... (the one at the Rincon Center is probably too far away to be easily walkable) The place gets both hate and love, depending on whom one asks...what's your opinion?

"Sapporo Ichiban Japanese Style Noodles & Chicken Flavored-Soup" with Westphalia ham, red & green mizuna, hard-boiled eggs & scallions. Beef short ribs stew w/ garlic & carrots. With vague thoughts of Moshari Kokkinisto & chez-huiray notes at the back of the mind. Served w/ mint rice. Beef short ribs browned w/ Arbequina EV olive oil & sea salt. Lots of garlic, half a cube of caldo de tomate con sabor de pollo [Knorr], whole peeled tomatoes [SMT] chopped w/ the spatula, sliced cipollini onions, fresh bay leaves, water, simmer. Whole cloves, cassia stick, simmer. Carrots, seasoning adjusted, simmer till done; leave to "mature" overnight, rewarm w/ some skimming of excess oil. Arbosana EV olive oil, chopped crushed garlic, gentle sauté; sea salt, long grain rice, fresh lemon juice, toss; water, simmer; chopped fresh mint (I used pudina) & Italian parsley, stir in, continue simmer then cover on low heat to finish off rice. Getting there:

Well, even the French Laundry has not been at the top of the lists for a while now. And what about that HUGE kerfuffle about the health violations for Per Se back in 2014? And as for Thomas Keller being THE top chef in the USA - hmm, not sure about that.

Maybe not for your first duck, but think about this for another time: 燒鴨

The grassy smell of cut grass, for example, is not due to just hexanal or hexanol (which is practically odorless (I used to work with it too)) as McGee states, but is primarily (but not only) due to cis-3-hexenol and cis-3-hexenal, the latter of which is somewhat unstable and isomerizes into trans-2-hexenal.

Pasta with crème fraîche, parsley, lemon & parmesan. Basically the recipe from Bluebeard, Indianapolis.** Gremolata: Chopped parsley, minced garlic (Music), lemon zest. Sauce: Crème fraîche, Arbequina EV olive oil, fresh lemon juice; grated parmigiano reggiano, hot red chili flakes, gremolata. Combination: Just-cooked fresh spaghettini [Nicole-Taylor's] straight from the cooking water, the sauce, sea salt & black pepper, toss well. Serve. I varied the quantities &etc in the recipe. ** BTW it's just Abbi Merriss now at Bluebeard. (see here, here for more info)

Gail Simmon's blog on episode 5. She devotes almost two entire paragraphs to the kerfuffle over Man-Bun's potato puree at Judges' Table and commented that he alienated the other chefs (plural); and that they (again, plural) readily spoke up against him (Phillip) and that the judges didn't even have to ask questions, the other chefs (plural) laid into him.

TC California episode 5 – Big Fat Gay Wedding. The QF was cringe inducing. Ick. Please, Teigen, just stop. (And Kwame, get a grip on yourself.) Jason finally got a win, glad about that. The EC and SSM wedding part was nice. Good to see Art Smith again. He looks very happy with his husband and his cake didn't fall down this time. :-) Kwame Onwuachi got a well-deserved win. But - HOW was it that Angelina Bastidas managed to slip through AGAIN? Oh, that's right, she was carried on Jason Stratton's sails. Most of the dishes looked good. I'd liked to have been there to sample stuff! Wesley True is a nice guy, really; I don't mind his messiness anymore, and the others mostly also seem to be taking *that* aspect of him in stride. Man-Bun --- Sigh. Bye, Giselle Wellman – it was about time, I guess. Grayson Schmitz pulls off the win in LCK so she still is in the running. Some recaps of the episode from elsewhere: http://www.grubstreet.com/2016/01/top-chef-season-13-episode-5-recap.html http://www.ew.com/recap/top-chef-season-13-episode-5 http://www.eater.com/2016/1/8/10735172/top-chef-season-13-episode-4-hot-dates

Rice with chorizo & stuff. Sautéed flat-head tatsoi. Sliced cipollini onions, chopped smashed garlic, oil, a cube of caldo de tomate con sabor de pollo plus a half cube of caldo con sabor de pollo [both Knorr], cut-up de-cased chorizo sausage, chopped hot green chillies, chopped de-stringed celery, whole peeled tomatoes [SMT] chopped into quarters w/ the spatula, the tomato juices, long grain rice, water, lightly crushed fresh bay leaves, dried oregano entero, simmer, chopped parsley. On the way there.

Ah! Very nice. Thanks for revealing that.

Heh. I assume you didn't actually have the whole deer in your freezer and that you braised only some trimmed, dressed cuts from the deer which was processed somewhere else. :-) Or maybe you did mean it! In which case could you tell us a little more about your butchering it?

Earlier: Fresh-cooked carnitas w/ salsa on the side, fresh tamales. Both from a local carniceria. Later: Carnitas w/ salsa spread on top of it then rewarmed; a spinach pita and a za'atar pita. All made "in-house" from local establishments. Bit of red mizuna & a few broccoli florets.

Saturday...one thing led to another... Broad Ripple Winter Farmers' Market: A sort of flat-headed type tatsoi, red & green mizuna, broccoli florets. Chicken backs for stock, eggs. Then I thought...let's check out the Carmel Winter Farmers' Market: Icicle radishes, carrots. OK, I wanted some spinach pitas and the place was not far away... Al Basha Mediterranean Restaurant & Grocery: Spinach pitas (the triangular ones), za'atar pitas, pickled cucumbers. Then, driving down Allisonville in the direction of home...eh, Namaste and Morelos is right there... Namaste Plaza: Hot green chillies, flat Valor beans, turia (a.k.a. angled loofah, chinese okra, Luffa acutangula), fresh mint (they just got delivered!), curry leaves (Murraya koenigii; I've always known it by the Tamil name: either kariveppilai (கறிவேப்பிலை) or karuveppilai (கருவேப்பிலை)). ...and just 10 yards or so away... Carniceria Morelos: Fresh tamales (made in-house that morning), carnitas (ditto) (picked from the big tray of freshly-prepared still-steaming stuff) w/ some salsa provided for it, costillas de res (beef short ribs), chorizo, corn tortillas. ...and then back home I wondered what happened....

Just cook more Thai, Nyonya, Filipino, SE Asian food etc (other than just Vietnamese). You might find you DON'T have enough limes. (BTW what sort of limes are they?)