huiray

Some of the things I came home with from the Indy Winter Farmers' Market. Ramps!!! These came from just south of Bloomington, IN. Red-streaked sorrel & Dragon Tongue mustard greens, both hydroponic. Fresh-picked baby portobello mushrooms (and some giant shiitakes), grown by a fellow who looks just like the protagonist from that excellent TV series "Breaking Bad" :-) ; and beautiful fresh broccolini.

I read about this on eater.com 4 days ago. http://www.eater.com/2015/4/14/8417143/michelin-starred-chef-homaro-cantu-found-dead-in-chicago They had this to say:

Babi Assam. (This one was done with the one (recipe P39) from Irene's Peranakan Recipes as a "base") "Pull Mustard" (雪裡紅) stir-fried w/ garlic. White rice. On the way there. The lower left bowl in the left-side pic was tamarind pulp slurry. The lower-right bowl in the left-side pic was mortar-and-pestle-pounded chopped shallots, buah keras (candlenuts) & toasted belacan.

Top Chef Season 13 will be returning to California, spread over 6 cities: Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Palm Springs, San Francisco, Oakland, and San Diego. http://www.eater.com/2015/4/14/8315117/confirmed-top-chef-season-13-san-diego-california

Various meals. Ibumie "Penang White Curry Mee" (this one) augmented with tau pok, a poached egg & coriander leaves. Fried rice, w/ Chinese chives, green & orange finger chillies, Chinese long beans, Andouille sausage, eggs, salt. Yu Choy Sum, blanched in oiled hot water, dressed w/ oyster sauce & ground white pepper. Chinese Spinach & Pork wontons [Prime Food] in chicken broth w/ blanched kai-lan, chopped scallions & deep-fried shallots. Today's version of Pad Kee Mao. A riff off this one.

The term "curried" or "curry" is an Anglo-Saxon construct, by the way. Nevertheless, I think it might be worthwhile for you to look into the use of spices that would go into a dish from one of the "Asian cuisines" such as in the Indian subcontinent or SE Asia or Central or Western Asia to transform a braise or soup or whatnot. Mexican/Central American spicing would also fall under this rubric. But surely you have done some of these before? A "curried" soup really amounts to something not dissimilar from a diluted "curry" - using the Anglo-Saxon terminology, in my view - although there are various nuances that may be applied, of course. Many of them are quite delicious, of course. The term "curry" is an Anglicized bastardization of the Tamil "kari" which refers to a saucy dish of a certain type. If one dined out in India or Pakistan one would seldom see the word "curry" except in Western-oriented places. Each dish would have its own name which in itself incorporated a linkage to what was in the dish - but the word "curry" would not usually appear.

Yesterday... Chicken broth (from two stewing hens) w/ carrots, celery & maitake mushrooms. Clams stir-fried w/ ginger, garlic, scallions, orange & green hot finger chillies (un-deseeded), black bean garlic sauce, Shaohsing wine, sugar, sesame oil, ground white pepper, bit of corn starch, coriander leaves, more scallions & finger chillies. Water as needed. Patterned after this recipe. Fuzzy squash (skinned) & chicken breast slices in chicken broth. Scallions. Plus a couple heaping bowls of white rice.

A simple clean-tasting meal. Pan-fried salmon fillet, skin on. Salt & black pepper only; EV Arbosana olive oil. Nice crispy skin too. The pan residues w/ chopped smashed garlic, chopped de-stringed celery, a chopped Roma tomato; tossed w/ just-cooked fedelini [De Cecco] & fresh parsley; plus some of the pasta water.

Wolfberry leaves (枸杞菜) & pork spare ribs soup. (Oil, garlic, pork spare rib chunks, salt, water, simmer; wolfberry leaves, simmer very briefly.) Turmeric chicken wings. (Chicken wing segments sans tips, ground turmeric, hon-mirin, lots of black & white pepper, oil, salt, toss & marinate; then under the broiler.) Plus several bowls of white rice. Some of the stalks of wolfberry leaves. The leaves are detached (easy, just run your hand down the stalk) and soaked/rinsed in water (fair bit of sand & grit).

I much prefer natural casing dogs. That SNAP! when you bite into it is very satisfying. Of course, the filling and taste etc matters too but skinless dogs are not as favored with me. In my parts natural casing Nathan's dogs are sometimes available but usually I pick up a pack of Dietz & Watson Natural Casing beef hot dogs which are placed in the deli area in my local supermarket, not with all the other dogs out on the general meat shelves. I like Chicago Hot Dogs quite a bit (made with Vienna Beef dogs, usually; natural casing requisite). I try to drop by Portillo's (for the downtown convenience; they are a chain but they're really fairly good) whenever I'm in Chitown, and get a Chicago Italian Beef sandwich too (dipped), naturally; or at one of the other places if I'm nearby. (There are long-running disputes about which place has "the best" - and there are many candidates) Short of that, Indy has Fat Dan's Deli for a fix of all this stuff without driving up.

Chee Cheong Fun (rice noodle rolls) (made w/ har mai (dried shrimp) and scallions incorporated in it) [commercial], simply steamed & dressed w/ Teem Cheong** ("sweet sauce"), chopped scallions & coriander leaves. ** Hoisin sauce, dark soy sauce, light soy sauce (sang chau), water, dash of sesame oil, some peanut oil; bring to a boil in a small saucepan and immediately kill the fire. (The proportions and ingredients vary each time I make it depending on my mood) Shrimp wontons, w/ Taiwan choy sum in broth w/ sliced fresh far koo Chinese mushrooms & sliced fresh baby garlic heads simmered in the broth.¶ ¶Chicken stock diluted w/ water, simmered w/ a bit of oil, "stock fish", smashed garlic, Chinese mushroom stems; filtered (fine sieve) at the end. Shrimp mixture for the wontons. Chopped shrimp, diced baby garlic, chopped scallions, ground white pepper, some salt, dash of sang chau. (I forget if that was everything) The shrimp were de-shelled, deveined and soaked in cool water that had a few dashes of kan sui (aqueous potassium carbonate - sodium bicarbonate) for a while before draining and rinsing well in fresh water.

Various meals. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Another serving of chicken rice (leftovers from here). With chilli sauce** and baby kai-lan in the chicken poaching broth. Chopped scallions. ** A mixture of Lingham's Hot Sauce, Kokita Bangkok chilli sauce, Marukan rice vinegar, Kong Yen aged rice vinegar, juice of a fresh ripe calamansi lime, salt, finely chopped smashed garlic, grated ginger w/ all juices. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chicken soup – rest of the chicken from here, in chicken broth w/ wilted yu choy sum & sliced fresh baby garlic (see here) simmered in the broth. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fried rice – made w/ chopped scallions, chopped hot long green chillies (fully seeded), farm-fresh eggs scrambled in situ, ground white pepper, salt. Dressed w/ lots of chopped romaine lettuce hearts when plated. Plus Kiam Chye Ark Th'ng. (see below) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Leftover fried rice (see above) refried w/ more chopped romaine lettuce hearts folded in while in the pan. Dressed w/ deep-fried sliced shallots. Eaten w/ pickled Persian cucumbers & scallion pieces, plus toasted sesame seeds. More Kiam Chye Ark Th'ng (a.k.a. Itek Tim). Duck legs (chopped up), galangal, garlic, generous tamarind pulp slurry, salted plums, preserved/pickled mustard greens (harm syun choy), palm sugar, additional duck fat. Water, of course. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fresh winter bamboo shoots (suitably prepared beforehand) stewed w/ garlic (lots), pork spare ribs, pork hocks slices, quartered fresh flower-patterned small thick-cap Chinese mushrooms, shiro miso, plus a bit of this-and-that. With rice. With soba noodles. (The stew diluted to a more soupy state and seasoning adjusted) Chopped scallions.

From the National Archives (US), Records of the Forest Service. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7035823 https://homes.yahoo.com/photos/national-archives-cocktail-construction-chart-1974-1428020636-slideshow/national-archives-cocktail-construction-chart-1974-photo-1428020603799.html

My April 5th ("Easter") "dinner" - the Sunday spread/buffet at Sichuan restaurant in Carmel, IN. What I had included: Pork meatballs & daikon soup (hot); Chillied beef honeycomb tripe, smoked tongue, pig maw (chillied and garlic-style), marinated pig ears, ma-la chillied pork, sichuan-style chillied glass noodles, dan-dan noodles, marinated mung bean sprouts, savory "pickled" cucumbers (all cold); tea-smoked duck pieces, Sichuanese "pancake", pork pot-stickers w/ savory soy-sauce, battered deep-fried chicken pieces (all lukewarm), seasoned salted pickled & chillied broccoli stems; mapo tofu w/ rice, garlic stir-fried baby bok choy, crunchy prawns stir-fried w/ peas and carrots; more pork meatballs & daikon soup. I passed on other items (which I have had before at this place) including various "traditional" renderings of this-and-that such as beef brisket stewed w/ daikon, fried shell-on shrimp, pork chunks w/ carrots, etc etc ... I just didn't feel like them today.

I'm just curious, palo – what do you (and fellow diners, whether "intimates" or "acquaintances") do when you go to a Chinese restaurant, say? Do you order individual plates/dishes which each person eats solely alone, or do you order dishes to be placed in the center of the table from which everyone helps themselves? (Yes, of course if you and companions were having the "Lunch Specials" where single individual plates were prepared then that would not fall under this query) What about other culinary traditions (many) where sharing of dishes was "standard" (a.k.a. "family style") - what is your approach? Just asking. It may be that this conversation really relates to the Western manner of individually prepared and assembled plates - as suggested by the conversation - but that was not specified in the topic as broached. (Various posters have already alluded to non-Western modes where dishes are shared...)

Those "etiolated" green onions in the Korean market - by any chance did they look something like these or these (but smaller, maybe)? If so then they were purposely grown that way, using selected varieties of (usually) Allium fistulosum. Called negi (as the most generic name) in Japanese. (and, a Korean market is likely to carry Japanese stuff as well as Korean stuff, even more than a Chinese place or an "Asian" place while "Pan-Asian" places should have at least some Japanese stuff, of course.) There have been discussions about negi here on eGullet also. I can buy negi and/or their Chinese equivalent ("tai chung") in my local Chinese/Japanese/"Asian" markets, usually the larger-sized varieties but occasionally the small, slender ones (both of which would have large lengths of the white stalks)

I dropped by a relatively new "Asian" grocery in my area last night. (Viet Hua Supermarket. caroled, you might want to check out this place if you haven't already done so) I was actually hankering for some baby clams when I drove over - but the ones they had were pitiful this time - so I changed tack...and of course picked up other stuff as well. :-) What I got: Fresh winter-type bamboo shoots (Thanks for the Crepes, I include here a pic of these) Fresh ginger Fresh "flower-patterned cap" Chinese mushrooms ("far koo") Vietnamese/Thai basil (rau hung que) Fresh young garlic - YUM!! ** Green onions/scallions (9 bunches for $3) "Yu Choy" a.k.a. "Choy Sum" A skinny type of mustard greens (雪里紅), I've posted these various times on the dinner/lunch threads Coriander leaves/cilantro (3 bunches for $1) Garlic Lee Kum Kee oyster sauce Lee Kum Kee garlic chili sauce Lee Kum Kee black bean garlic sauce Fresh BLACK POMFRET (黑鯧魚) -- I have seldom seen this around here -- so when the clams turned out to be a bust this caught my eye and were an irresistible buy. :-) Pic of the bamboo shoots and the young garlic: p.s. The garlic bulbs had already been decreased by two, as i had fished two out last night to add to the "chicken soup" I was preparing. :-) ** ...and I can't help comparing this to the ones that would appear in my local Farmers' Markets in a month or two, where they would be at least 50¢ to $1 EACH bulb... Oh, I might buy those too, if not anything else because I wish to support local growers – but the "organic" nature of those bulbs versus what would be presumably the "non-organic" nature of the ones in Viet Hua (or other Asian markets) doesn't really excite me or motivate me that much...

Regarding the roti and other assorted "Indian breads" -- I've never consciously noted the Pillsbury products. I'll look for them too. I *do* pick up frozen naan, paratha, chapatti, samosas, etc from my local Indian grocers from time to time; as well as fresh samosas (and some of the others as well) when available. Yum. One thing that has become harder to find in this regard are lamb samosas as the local places here have tended to just carry the vegetarian ones. Lately I've found lamb ones again, however. The brands have all tended to be "Indian" types or even "SE Asian" types...(some may be actually made in the USA but carry an "Indian" name, heh) but Pillsbury -- as I said I didn't actually notice. Hmm.

radtek, glad you joined us here! Nice shopping trip. Heh, alcohol does tend to drive up the overall coat - but is certainly a "necessity" to those of us who enjoy imbibing from time to time ;-) or, uh, at shorter intervals. :-) I'd be interested in what sort of things you get from your local Asian grocer. As for the green onions you got from your H.E.B. -- y'know, I've walked into my local (Western) supermarket and held a bunch of green onions in my hand...and put it back, got back in my car and actually drove the extra miles (yes, yes, I know, cost of gas etc) to the Chinese/"Asian" grocery to pick up the green onions/scallions I had needed for something or other for vastly less money, and in a much larger quantity. Of course, I'd pick up other stuff as well so I could make the extra mileage "work out". :-)

Interesting. More details, please?

I think this is a thread that tends towards putting too much value on what others think, as some posters have already said. Whatever you bought and/or have in your pantry was a result of your desiring it, or being gifted it, or thinking you might like it, or that you got for one reason or another - convenience being another reason. There is nothing wrong with any of those reasons, even if it might be the case that some items might be recognized as less desirable than the utterly fresh equivalents. Other folks who might sniff with disdain at those items need to find more meaningful things to do with their lives. Besides creating the impression that they might be, as others have also said, food snobs who might not really have even tasted the stuff they sniff at for that matter. I have lots of stuff in my larder that I expect food snobs will exclaim in disgust over. Well, honey, don't expect an invitation to a meal at my place then.

Simple chicken rice. Small B&E chicken poached in seasoned water w/ tons of crushed ginger. Rice cooked w/ the poaching broth (scooping up most of the chicken fat) plus finely chopped smashed garlic. Chopped Savoy cabbage simmered in the poaching broth. Ginger-scallion-salt-hot oil sauce.

Oops. I forgot to list: 1) The ground-up (mortar & pestle) buah keras (candlenuts). That went in between the turmeric&galangal and before the coriander&cumin; and 2) Tamarind paste (a generous amount) slurried w/ hot water, added in after the coriander&cumin and before the water. (The curry is therefore purposely made slightly "sour") ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ann_T, what kind words. Thanks.

p.s. One is generally told to boil fresh bamboo shoots (after removing the bracts and trimming**) for a while in water to remove/destroy toxins (specifically, cyanogenic glycosides/hydrocyanic acid) before using them to cook with. Some varieties don't contain (or contain very low levels) of these substances, but "wild foraged" bamboo shoots are almost always said to need boiling first. I usually do 15-20 minutes of boiling (a vigorous simmer rather than a full-blast boiling will do) Then thoroughly rinse the boiled bamboo shoots. ** ETA: slicing it before boiling is a good idea. Simply halving or quartering is fine too (the thick fat winter type I used, for example) and simmering for a bit longer then wouldn't hurt. If one has the thin, skinny/thick-pencil types, boiling/simmering them whole (after removing bracts) is fine. Some folks (e.g. some Japanese) boil the entire shoot (stout winter-type) bracts and all, maybe with some rice bran added, but do it for a more extended time - like 1-2 hours. I myself have always taken the bracts off and trimming/slicing first.

Thanks for the Crepes, hope you find some nice bamboo shoots. :-) I believe most types found here (the US) are edible but I don't know for sure and haven't eaten any to my conscious knowledge. I've read about others harvesting them (in the US) though, and their SE Asian acquaintances being thrilled when they got hold of them from this person. The ones I used look like these, FYI. Imported. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Last night's meal: Fish curry, this night's version. Generous oil, chopped smashed garlic, bashed-up and roughly ground (mortar & pestle) fresh turmeric & galangal (coarse salt added in while grinding), additional sliced galangal, ground coriander seed (lots) & a little ground cumin seed (both commercial), the paste "fried" for a little; water added, simmered (covered), un-deseeded hot long green chillies sliced lengthwise added, seasoning adjusted, simmered; firm tofu chunks added, simmered; cod pieces added, seasoning adjusted, brought back to a simmer for less than a minute, heat shut off. White rice (basmati).