huiray

Thanks, Crepes. Music garlic - yes, a hardneck goodie. Keeps well too. The most common named variety grown around here, and also the one grown by all the Amish farmers who turn up at the Farmers' Markets here. I also like Siberian Red garlic (amongst the limited named varieties I come across around these parts), another hardneck, which also keeps very well. (I showed some Siberian Red, as well as others, in earlier posts here on this thread)

Nice. Just wondering – why were all the menus in English?

Fish congee with stuff. Water, jasmine rice (starting ratio 10:1) (more water added later), sliced ginger, a bit of rice bran oil, sea salt, simmer. Sliced aburaage. Sliced cod fillets added at the end just before being ladled out into the serving bowl. (Cod marinated in good Shaohsing wine, sea salt, julienned ginger before slicing) Topped w/ deep-fried shallots & ground white pepper. Accompaniments and toppings: L-R: sliced scallions, chopped coriander leaves, "pickled cabbage" (雪菜大王) (this one - top left in photo) zapped in the microwave for 30-40 sec, finely julienned ginger, Tung Choy (Tianjin preserved vegetable; 天津冬菜). Almost done eating the bowl of congee with stuff added while going along.

Yesterday at BRFM: Details here.

Yesterday (Sat. 2015-1031). Broad Ripple Farmers' Market: Delicata squash, Music garlic, daikon, baby carrots, French Breakfast radishes, farm-fresh eggs, pastured chicken necks & backs. Asia Mart: Frozen pork & shrimp wontons [Wei Chuan], frozen fish balls [Venus], Hong Kong style wonton wrappers [Twin Marquis], skinny wonton noodles [Twin Marquis], regular (fresh) firm tofu [Hinoichi], Penang Lad Mie [ibumie] four-pack, unpeeled straw mushrooms (canned) [Dragonfly], small bamboo shoot tips (canned) [Evergreen], abalone-chicken flavor noodle bowls [Noodle King], "Japanese Udon" (soy sauce based flavor) bowl [Assi brand] (Korean provenance), "Seafood Udon" bowl [Assi brand] (Korean), Mei Cai Sun (梅菜笋), "Pickled Cabbage" (雪菜大王), "Preserved Vegetable" (pickled radish shredded - chili flavor) (榨菜大王), Thai hom mali (jasmine) rice [Golden Elephant], Thai hom mali rice [Three Horses], Thai eggplants, coriander leaves, long hot green chilli peppers, water cress bunches, Persian cucumbers, 2 fuzzy squashes, a bunch of ong choy (water spinach, kangkong, Ipomoea aquatica, water morning glory), Thai basil, Vietnamese coriander (rau răm, "laksa leaves", daun kesom, Persicaria odorata), young Kai-Lan, scallion bunches, Chinese chives (garlic chives), Chinese chive flowers, fresh bunapi shimeji (white beech) mushrooms, fresh maitake mushrooms, Asahi norimake arare (flavored Japanese rice crackers wrapped w/ seaweed). Selected items: Top L-R: "Pickled Cabbage", Mei Cai Sun, "Preserved Vegetables". Bottom L-R: small bamboo shoot tips, unpeeled straw mushrooms. Top L-R: Seafood Udon, "Japanese" Udon. Bottom: Ibumie Penang Lad Mie. One World Market: Takara hon-mirin (2 bottles), Rihaku Nigori Sake 'Dreamy Clouds' (a premium cloudy sake), Kameya hon-wasabi paste (made with actual wasabi). Goose the Market/Smoking Goose: Salame Yomami. (This is an uncured pork salame that contains: pork, bacon (sea salt, brown sugar, cane sugar, maple syrup, celery juice), parmesan cheese (milk, skim milk, rennet, salt), sea salt, dried shrimp, dried mushroom powder (shiitake, porcini), whitewine, black pepper, dextrose, garlic, vegetable powder (celery juice, sea salt), wter, lactic acid starter culture.)

Watercress in chicken broth. Cod fillets steamed w/ salted plums, Shaohsing wine, hon-mirin, sea salt, ginger, garlic, scallions, white & black pepper. Leftover white rice.

Glad you had a good time on the whole! For myself, the Blanca meal does seem like very little food on vast expanses of dish acreage...but that's just me. I do note you had to go for pizza and whatnot after the Blanca meal --- which suggests to me you left hungry. Even the Empellon meal does seem a little skimpy on quantity, also on lots of plate space - but that is what "fine dining" seems to entail. Also, lots of EtOH --- I enjoy wine pairings myself on occasion but generally dislike drinking too much alcohol when eating** - though I do plenty fine with alcohol by itself. How was the dim sum (I assume) at Asian Jewels? Did you do any general walking around? ** (As a related BTW and for the record FWIW, I do not like wine with Chinese food and shake my head at those who insist on wine pairings with Chinese food)

Ah, OK, thanks. I missed that before. I am unfamiliar with this one although I've used the imported "Regular soy sauce" grade Yamasa stuff before.

Peanut oil, ginger, garlic, scallions, onions, shrimps, Shaohsing wine, salt, black pepper. Oil, garlic, Taiwan bok choy. White rice. Plus 4 Jamaican beef patties a little later.

Sure, cook them the way they are laid out as the first iteration --- but then one adjusts as one would usually do with other recipes as well. I don't have the impression that the recipes in this book are the be-all-and-end-all of every recipe on Earth. Perhaps some may do so. ETA: Even Chris Hennes, who started this thread, has talked about how some of his dishes cooked according to what Rick Bayless laid out in his cookbooks has not been entirely satisfactory to HIS tastes on other threads here. Yet no one has lambasted Bayless for those recipes which didn't work out as specified, at least as far as I know here on eG.

Yet the "best" recipe is still the reflection of the author and his testers. It says nothing about what you, as a personal eater, prefers, or what you insist on as the only way to do something. If you think the line adjust for personal taste HAS to be included in print for any cookbook you have seen you have problems.

Crepes, I don't know what sort of wrappers you have available in the Chinese/Korean stores you shop at - but the Crab Rangoons in that Yelp picture look like they were made with wrappers no thinner ( or even thicker) than the one I would usually use when I make my wontons myself. A common brand I like is Twin Marquis brand Hong Kong style wonton wrappers (the square ones). I usually get the yellow ones - like this one. There are many different types of wrappers of round or square shapes and flours and thicknesses - the smaller thicker round ones (usually white), for example, are frequently meant for making certain types of dumplings, or pot stickers, and such. Cantonese/Hong Kong type wontons are almost always made with very thin skinned wrappers. Shui Kow (even Hong Kong style) are often made with slightly thicker wrappers.

A simple night of grazing. Earlier: "Singapore Laksa La Mian" [Prima Taste] (this one) with sliced aburaage, a hard-boiled egg and some chopped scallions. I've posted more elaborate gussied-up preps on earlier threads here on eG. Later: a plate of Prosciutto Rossa [La Quercia], Everton cheese [Jacobs & Britchford], Raclette cheese [Emmi Roth], semolina bread [Amelia's Bakery]. Plus a cup of hot Ti Kuan Yin tea [Yun Ding].

Heh. Well, I thought of a dirty water dog because it is an iconic "thing" - isn't it? And yes, the iconic brand for those dirty water dogs is also Sabretts. :-) http://newyork.cbslocal.com/guide/1010-wins-iconic-food-10-dirty-water-dog/http://www.eatouteatwell.com/dirty-water-dogs-tasty-treat/ It's fun to have one, just for the hell of it, while walking around taking in the city. Besides, from what Rob has written in earlier posts here he has a very healthy appetite so I wouldn't think a little hot dog would fill him up. :-D Of course, he is perfectly free to NOT have one!

Crepes, that was the main reason I posted the link. (Maybe the only real reason) It's interesting and informative to get a look at what goes on, at least at this particular place, which *is*, as Porthos commented, the flagship store for Panda Express. It's also a visual signal to pause and consider that a lot of folks do like chain American-Chinese food, it does serve a purpose for many folks, it can be decent, some folks do like it, and so on and so forth.** As for whether I like the food at Panda Express (in general) or not, I'm not even sure if I have eaten their stuff - at least not within recent memory. ** (And also a reminder that in many ways one should remember that American-Chinese cuisine is a cuisine in its own right, which can be delicious (or not); and available in badly-prepared ways as well as excellently prepared ways¶¶ - as your further comments illustrate) Yes, I've eaten at other chain places and at take-out joints - and considered them for what they were --- not as necessarily bad places simply because they were not the epitome of the very bestest Chinese-Chinese cuisine. ¶¶ Just like for Chinese-Chinese food. :-)

What soy sauce did you use? (They vary from dark and pungent to sweet to light and airy to delicate to salty as hell etc) In any case I believe "adjust for personal taste" is a common caveat for all recipes, I think?

Eater.com followed the activities of the Panda Express near the corporate headquarters (in the SGV, Calif.) for a day from opening to closing. Quite interesting. http://www.eater.com/a/panda-express-one-day

Steamed pork spare ribs. Short-cut pork spare ribs cut into single riblets, sliced fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced deseeded mildly hot red chillies, preserved black beans, julienned fresh scraped ginger, minced smashed garlic, peanut oil, sea salt, good Shaohsing wine, trimmed scallions, ground black pepper; mix everything together by hand, let sit for a bit; then steam till done, dress w/ fresh chopped scallions & coriander leaves. Braised bamboo shoots & stuff. Pot on medium heat, peanut oil, crushed garlic, white fermented wet bean curd (白腐乳) [Liu Ma Kee] plus some of the steeping liquid (salty! but also containing rice wine), slender bamboo shoots (小竹筍) [Evergreen], chicken stock, pre-soaked dried lily buds (金針), pre-soaked & trimmed dried black wood-ear fungus (黑木耳), a dash of ajinomoto, water, simmer for a fair while. Trimmed wong nga pak (黃芽白) (Napa cabbage) leaves added, simmered for a short while more. Eaten w/ white rice. On the way there:

I think he should simply walk around the place too, taking in the vibes of the city, the people, the buildings,** the general interaction of what makes up NYC. By all means graze as he does this, including any of the "iconic" places, or even a dirty water hot dog from a cart vendor at some point, or whatever else. He might consider walking around the West Village/Greenwich Village, Christopher Street, Sheridan Square, Hudson Street,¶¶ Bleecker Street, etc --- and graze on stuff while he does so (or have a drink)(or look in on THAT butcher shop there); take in Washington Square while he's going about that, maybe try a chess game or two (and lose his money doing so) and so on and so forth. ** One of the pleasures I had when I first moved to the greater NYC area back in the 1980's was to simply walk down 42nd Street observing the human tapestry passing before my eyes but also lifting my gaze above street level to around the second floor of the buildings --- the amazing and wonderful architectural detail and friezes and decoration and details were simply amazing. Much of that, unfortunately, is now gone - but the blocks around Grand Central still retain some if not all of this architectural splendor, even if so many of them are obscured from street level by those horrible sidewalk protector/covered passages. ¶¶ Of course, the former Meatpacking District and the Hudson/14th Street/Waterfront area are now unrecognizable from what it used to be and has become sterilized, over-commercialized and prettified, IMO. But that is not meaningful to Rob, unless he knew the place before.

Fettucine w/ lemony tuna & capers. Oil from a can of Ortiz tuna in evoo, sliced garlic, hot red chile flakes, the tuna, pre-rinsed salted capers, cooked fresh fettucine w/ some pasta water (w/ the caper-soaking water), zest & juice of half a lemon, chopped parsley. Salad. Red-tip oak leaf lettuce, Taiwan bok choy, Alziari evoo, balsamic vinegar, Maldon salt, black pepper.

Perhaps 1++ billion Chinese, Japanese, E/SE Asians might have some comments. Ditto about another billion South Asians.

Yes. Quite so. I got my copy today and from a scan through the index and a riffling through the book it is clear that the book is almost wholly about Western/European cooking. I spotted only one "Thai-style" recipe as an "Asian" bit but I may have missed others. In this context the discussion here about the Julia Child/Jacques Pepin treatises being THE reference books etc is sensible ONLY in the context of Western European cooking, really (and distinguished from Western/European cooking), and the comparison with Kenji's book is sensible only in that context.** His approach is also not fixated on French techniques as the "starting point" however "scientific" or not his discussion is and I think that is useful even within Western/New World cooking. p.s. I ordered it on Sunday from Amazon, I got it today (Tuesday) - and that was with "free shipping". I threw in some salted capers to bring the total over US$35 - which is the cutoff for free shipping - and I still got it in two days - delivered by a special courier in her hatchback (must be the new Amazon push for speeding up deliveries to everyone) and I am NOT an Amazon Prime customer. ** I also looked at his section on making stock, and he does talk almost wholly about chicken stock, which is indeed limiting. He also talks about getting clear stocks while saying that cloudy chicken stocks are just fine for home use. However, there is no mention of any of the purposely milky stocks (pork, beef) found in East & SE Asian cuisines, which he HAS talked about at great length on the website -- another reflection of the almost exclusive focus of the book on Western/European cooking. Notwithstanding all this, I think I still look forwards to browsing through it.

A very late night meal. Small seasoned-potato-filling börek (İkramlık Patatesli Mini Börek) [superfresh] (this one), baked in the oven. They were kind-of stuck together so I dropped (OK, smashed) the not-yet-opened package on the floor a few times, then arranged the chunks on the baking tray. :-) About two-thirds of them on the plate. Fish balls [Venus] & wong nga pak (Napa cabbage) in fresh chicken broth.

Rob, have you ever read this?

Soup. Broccoli florets & thinly-sliced negi (Kanto-type) in fresh chicken broth. Pan-fried (rice bran oil) slices of smoked beef tongue [Love Handle], sunny-side-up fried eggs, slices of semolina bread [Amelia's] pan-toasted in the residual oil after doing the tongue & eggs.