huiray

Charcuterie & stuff w/ crusty bread. Balsamic glazed red & yellow cipollini onions. Charcuterie plate: From top left, going clockwise – Prosciutto Rossa (Berkshire pork prosciutto), pressed tongue, Westphalian ham, blood sausage (with some coarse Dijon mustard below), Bauernschinken (Farmer's Ham); and coarse Braunschweiger (with scallions) in the middle. See here for details on sources. Glazed cipollini onions: EV olive oil in pan on medium flame, trimmed red & yellow cipollini onions; brown on both sides (top end first); then some 10-year Modena balsamic vinegar, move the onions around + turn them over; then chicken stock with some rock sugar dissolved in it added, sprigs of fresh thyme; cook down (turning onions over as needed or desired) till the glaze is satisfactorily developed and onion-coating.

I've used them for several years at least (more than 5++, I *think*). I simply "played around" with oils I noticed, and that didn't cost two arms and two legs for more-routine use. I didn't "read up" about them until after the fact. I like California Ranch oils - I find them quite decent. (And I am also supporting a home-grown business) HTH. (I *do* have - and buy - a couple or more of olive oils that are, um, not cheap - but I don't use them for "everyday/routine" stuff on the whole. (Alziari and Maussane-les-Alpilles are two of such oils I have on hand)

Today at the Indy Winter Farmers' Market: Details here.

Today: Indy Winter Farmers' Market (1st day of the season): Purple carrots, yellow carrots, Blue Oyster mushrooms, 2 doz eggs, red & yellow Cipollini onions, Swiss chard, Stangenbrot (German crusty baguette). Claus' German Sausage & Meats: Pressed tongue, coarse Braunschweiger, blood sausage, Bauernschinken (Farmer's Ham), Westphalian Ham, smoked Cajun sausages, calf's liver slices. No pic, everything went into the fridge a while ago and I'm not hauling them out... Goose the Market: Fresh duck legs, a slice of Pig & Fig Terrine, La Quercia Prosciutto Rossa, Nickajack cheese, Adelegger cheese, fresh Barramundi fillet, Laughing Bird shrimp. No pic, ditto as above. The Fresh Market: California Olive Ranch EV olive oil - "Everyday Fresh" and "Arbequina" varieties, cod fillets; plus other stuff. Namaste Plaza: Two bags of Z Reserve basmati rice (good stuff), curry leaves (Murraya koenigii), house-made vegetable samosas.

patrickamory, you're welcome.

Thanks, Anne_T. Your meals look good; miss seeing your posts here. -------------------------------------------------- Spicy tofu & minced beef with stuff. White rice. Peanut oil, medium-hot pan. Minced crushed garlic, julienned ginger, ground beef (good chuck), Pixian doubanjiang, preserved black beans with ginger, chili-garlic sauce, oyster sauce, cubed firm tofu, cubed soft tofu, chopped scallions. Seasoning adjusted. Serve w/ Thai hom mali rice, dress w/ finely chopped green parts of scallions. Yu choy sum, stir-fried w/ sliced garlic.

Couple of meals. ---------------------------------------------------- More of the pork meatballs & daikon in peppery pork stock soup from before, with thin Fuzhou (Fookchow) type wheat noodles.¶ ¶ min6 sin3, a.k.a. misua; 麵線; this one - hand-made, Taiwanese brand. Baby kai-lan, blanched in oiled simmering water & dressed w/ oyster sauce and white pepper. ---------------------------------------------------- Shallow-fried soft tofu chunks. Eaten w/ sliced Persian cucumbers & Linghams Extra Hot Sauce. Chicken broth w/ maitake & bunapi-shimeji mushrooms, plus coriander leaves and scallions. "Ants Climbing a Tree" (螞蟻上樹), made with the requisite glass noodles. Ground pork mixed with Pixian doubanjiang [Juan Cheng brand] (鵑城牌 四川郫縣豆瓣醬) (this one), double-fermented soy sauce, good Shaohsing wine, corn starch; left to sit a bit. Hot peanut oil in pan, chopped garlic, julienned ginger; the pork mince mix; stir-fry, breaking up clumps. Then chopped scallions added in, stirred around; chicken stock w/ some rock sugar dissolved in it added; then glass noodles (presoaked/softened in water, drained). Toss and stir around gently but well, till the liquid is largely absorbed into the noodles. Plate, dress w/ more chopped scallions.

Josh71, I can't answer your question – but I will note that Kenji in his Seriouseats article (see in my previous post) said that he used a pressure cooker in trying to do a "short-cut" for making Tonkotsu Ramen stock and was not successful in making one with the desired milky character.

Joe's Crab Shack is reported to be (probably) the first National Chain to try out the no-tipping model. http://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/news/joe-s-crab-shack-chain-tries-no-tipping http://consumerist.com/2015/11/10/joes-crab-shack-tests-no-tipping-policy-raises-server-wages-to-14hour/ http://www.eater.com/2015/11/9/9700130/joes-crab-shack-no-tipping-policy

A kind of "Kon lo hor fun", sort-of. With simply blanched Taiwan bok choy heart leaves. I used fairly narrow-width bánh phở [Dragonfly] (this one) as a stand-in for hor fun. :-) Sauce was made w/ lots of chopped garlic sautéed in peanut oil quenched w/ a mixture of oyster sauce, double fermented soy sauce, hon-mirin, good Shaohsing wine, water, ground black pepper, black sesame oil, plus some fish sauce. Poured over the cooked bánh phở already-dressed w/ deep-fried shallots, sliced scallions & coriander leaves. Pork meatballs & daikon in peppery milky pork stock. Milky pork stock (see below) diluted w/ some of the "Second Stock" (also see below); peeled young daikon (Farmers' market stuff) cut into chunks, simmer for a while; pork meatballs formed from {ground pork, chopped scallions, panko crumbs, some rice bran oil, sea salt, splash of light soy sauce; mixed well by hand}; plus LOTS of ground white pepper. The pork stock: For this batch I used very meaty assorted bones (mainly shoulder blade region) plus some shin bones. Not really enough of the proper bones to give a really good milky stock but these sufficed for a reasonable one. Bones were boiled for a few minutes ("fei sui" treatment) and washed under the tap. Some residual blood/myoglobin still in the meat and bones but I left it at what they were. The "cleaned" bones went into fresh water and back on the stove, on fairly high flame, sea salt added in. After a minute or two: Gently BOILING along after a few hours (covered; the cover was taken off for the pic): Note: NOT simmered - but BOILED. The idea is to get a milky stock. See here for a discussion on milky stocks: https://forums.egullet.org/topic/147367-if-you-skim-fat-off-soup-is-there-any-fat-left-over-from-emulsion-eg-ramen/ The "First Stock", after around 9-10 hours (I think) of moderate/gentle boiling** and after decanting through two nestled fine mesh metal sieves: Thick with gelatin and lip-gluing-ly tasty. ** Yes, additional water is added throughout as needed – quite a few times. The meat+bones residues are re-boiled for a couple hours with fresh water (not too much!) plus some salt for a "Second Stock". This one goes milky quite quickly after starting the boiling. (I believe a not dissimilar phenomenon happens when one does the second and third boiling in the prep of seolleongtang with beef/ox bones) Decanted through a fine-mesh metal sieve.

A simple dinner. • Chinese sausages (generic variety) rinsed then steamed/cooked with the rice being cooked in my usual pot. Eaten w/ deep-fried shallots & a small scattering of scallions. • Baby kai-lan (those are whole plants seen in the dish in the photo) stir-fried w/ garlic & peanut oil, and quenched w/ a mixture of oyster sauce, hon-mirin, water, splash of double-fermented soy sauce.

Yes. I've posted some recent meals on the dinner thread where I bought live shrimp and brought them home in a bucket of water. There are also a number of salt-water shrimp farms here in the state as well. I'm not sure where the grocer that I buy those shrimp from gets his live shrimp, but those shrimp farms around here do supply many higher-end restaurants in Indianapolis and other more-upscale (Western) shops that sell seafood.

This one?

Have a look here and the subsequent posts.

Sounds good, Crepes! That thin-shaved ribeye – for a while I would get it fro my local (definitely non-Asian) butcher (NOT supermarket) when they did it at my request with good ribeye - I explained to them it was for PHO, what else!! then they started offering it as "Philly Cheesesteak" cut. Heh. ETA: It is a regularly offered cut at various other places in my area, such as, yes, the Korean-owned Saraga International supermarket here. Mind you, one can get not-quite-as-thin beef cuts from Hispanic/Spanish/Mexican/Central American groceries – sometimes pre-marinated, sometimes as-is.

You're welcome, mssurgeon81. I shall look forwards to your posts in due course! You might take a peek, if so so inclined, at the "grocery shopping" thread which also shows a lot of stuff I get from here and there in Indy, which might be of use to you as you have just come here. :-)

A riff on pad woon sen (ผัดวุ้นเส้น). Eaten with pickled Persian cucumbers w/ scallions & sesame seed. Fresh shrimp shells & heads (the shrimp were swimming around a couple hours before) sautéed w/ a little chopped garlic & sea salt, water added, simmered for a while to make shrimp stock. The stock was sieved off, reserved. Hot pan, hot oil, a wee bit of chopped garlic, peeled & de-headed fresh shrimp, toss for 30-40 secs, remove shrimp & reserve. Peanut oil added to the same pan, then chopped garlic, sliced yellow onions, chopped de-seeded hot long chillies, quartered Thai eggplants (good fresh stuff), glass noodles (pre-softened, cut across the bundles), a well created & a couple eggs scrambled there in situ & folded in, a mixture of good soy sauce, oyster sauce & fish sauce, the reserved shrimp stock, trimmed scallions & coriander leaves, washed & trimmed mung bean sprouts, the reserved shrimp, toss/stir everything around. Plate, garnish w/ fresh trimmed coriander leaves. The shrimp shells and heads (chopped somewhat w/ the spatula and w/ a kitchen shears) being sautéed before water going in...

I'd say "light details" includes a rubric of what one did, without the details typical of a full-fledged recipe with quantities and timings. I've often included such things as you might notice. I dislike a bare statement of, for example, "Lamb Curry"; or "Fried Chicken" and any other similar abrupt descriptors.

Sort-of Cantonese-style steamed bass. The fish was swimming around a few hours before. (From the tanks at a local Vietnamese grocery) Cleaned & gutted fish was marinated w/ scallions, ginger, oil, white pepper, Shaohsing wine; then steamed. The fish only was recovered from the steaming dish, discarding all liquids and other stuff (the scallions, ginger etc) and plated, garnished w/ fresh scallions, coriander leaves & ginger, then dressed w/ a sauce of {hot oil quenched w/ a mixture of good light soy sauce¶ and hon-mirin [Takara] diluted w/ some water & with a good grind of white pepper} ¶ I used Wei Chuan "Naturally brewed soy sauce with Hokkaido kelp flavor" just for the hell of it. Taiwan bok choy with mushrooms. Peanut oil, chopped smashed garlic, cubes of "Wet Bean Curd" (白腐乳) [Liu Ma Kee] (this one), chicken stock, water, sliced fresh Chinese mushrooms ("heong koo" (香菇) variety), Taiwan bok choy (the store calls this "King vegetable"); simmered till done, seasoning adjusted. Several bowls of white rice.

Ah, OK, great. Thanks for showing the ingredients. Oh, of course one cooks what one likes and tradition be danged. I was puzzled by what it was, though, simply because "Malaysian curry" is a very vague term and could refer to all sorts of styles/cuisines within Malaysia and doesn't tell me what's in it.

Looks interesting. Does not look "familiar", though. Is the one you made of Malay, Nyonya, Chinese-Malaysian, Mamak, or something else derivation? What was in it? Snow peas???!

Rice bran oil, onions, Knackwurst [Claus'], Sauerkraut [Hengstenberg], Russian Banana fingerlings, baby corn [Asian Best], rice vinegar [Kong Yen], hon-mirin [Takara], salt, black peppercorns, water. Hot oil, Brussels sprouts, salt, some water.

Chinese chive flower buds (and stalks) omelette. Some hon-mirin (and water) were added to the beaten-egg mixture. Chopped-up chive flower buds etc were sautéed in the hot oil before the eggs went in, cooked till the whole thing/eggs retained some runniness. Pork stir-fried w/ chopped smashed garlic/rice bran oil, finely chopped curly kale & trimmed Thai basil. Fish sauce [Red Boat], ryori-shu [Morita]. Served w/ white rice (Thai hom mali) [Three Horses]. The chive omelette was eaten alongside.

Yesterday's batch. Pastured chicken backs & necks chopped up, skimmed repeatedly. Sliced ginger, halved garlic cloves, sea salt – kind-of a "Hakka-ish" character to this batch. As before, the chicken pieces are mostly floating at the top when still barely simmering. After the heat is shut off the pot is left undisturbed and unshaken till the chicken pieces slowly sink and drift down largely as a "connected raft" of pieces with the stray piece doing its own thing. Drank several bowls of the stuff simply (and gently) scooped off from the top, with the fat being scooped off after ladling into my soup bowl. Nicely lip-coating, very satisfying to just drink it as-is. The full decant was done somewhat later.

Various meals. Shallow-fried firm tofu chunks, raw grated daikon, "pickled cabbage" (雪菜), chopped scallions. Lingham's Hot Sauce (Extra Hot). Fuzzy squash (peeled, cut-up) w/ garlic being sautéed in peanut oil, dried shrimps (rehydrated), "golden needles" (dried lily buds, pre-soaked), a cube of 'Caldo con Sabor de Camarón' [Knorr], water, salt, cellophane noodles (pre-soaked). Pork & shrimp wontons [Wei Chuan], pork meatballs [Venus], skinny wonton noodles [Twin Marquis], kai-lan blanched in oiled simmering water, fresh chicken broth, scallions, deep-fried shallots.