huiray

The Bacon Mac & Cheese donut. Don't forget to take a peek at the embedded links for other stuff from this place (in Philly) Mind you, these doughnuts don't strike me as *that* different from so-called "kolaches" filled with savory stuff from this chain (local stores have a lot more varieties than listed on this "national" menu).

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/food-safety-education/get-answers/food-safety-fact-sheets/food-labeling/meat-and-poultry-labeling-terms/meat-and-poultry-labeling-terms http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/food-safety-education/get-answers/food-safety-fact-sheets/food-labeling/meat-and-poultry-labeling-terms/meat-and-poultry-labeling-terms/!ut/p/a1/jZFRb4IwEMc_DY-lx3AG90ZIFmUTZsxm5WUpehSS0pK2jrhPP9wyExed9p569_vn7v5HC8poofhHI7hrtOLy8C_G77CAcTBJIM0nwSPMsrdF_pQkEC3vB2D9D5CFN-ovvBiu6dMbGtyZeTIXtOi4q0mjKk2ZQEe4sj0aS1ml9ZZYXqHbk4pvHLE1ovstSF6ibJSgrEV-UG1Jp3fSmf2xRBya1l4HVrQ4HReCIWZZuBxN0yyEfPQXOOPnD3DZsMERIXX5fbx1rMowGlY3WKFB4-_MkK6d6-yDBx70fe8LrYVEf6NbD85Jam0dZack7dpX9vkcT6F5aVeRjb8Ay-NlYw!!/#5 http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/487e1e26-1421-4ac1-a86c-c8e65f6ce885/Poultry_Label_Says_Fresh.pdf?MOD=AJPERES

• Soup. Chicken stock, some water, red-orange carrot, yellow carrot, fresh maitake mushrooms, parsley. • Salt and pepper shrimp, today's version. With hot long green chillies, scallions, yellow onion, ginger, black & white pepper, corn starch, sea & Redmond salts. • Stir fried baby bok choy w/ garlic. • White rice (basmati).

I'm not the OP, and until he/she responds - I might murmur that "vegetarian" might be a better term, rather than "vegan" - insofar as the understanding of those two terms are concerned, with regards to a Western/NA audience. Certainly ghee, yoghurt, paneer (cheese) as just three things widely used in S Indian (and other regional Indian) cuisines would NOT be vegan in the Western sense. But - in my understanding (again, pending a response from the OP) vegetarianism in Indian cuisines is tied up with the religion and culture (Hinduism, Jainism - vegetarianism is favored; and Brahmins (who hold a lot of sway in S India as well) favor vegetarianism. Then also, the place is hot and humid. Traditionally, refrigeration was not a common feature - to say the least - and seafood (in your query) might, I suggest, not last too long when moved from the coastal regions to the inland regions...hmm? Of course nowadays the technology is there to do so but both tradition and "wide availability of refrigeration" are still factors in the place, I might venture. Certainly I expect fishes and seafood to be widely incorporated into the cuisines along coastal regions in S India (as well as elsewhere), while my knowledge of Tamilian and Chettinad cuisine certainly involves a fair bit of meat - in addition to seafood. Keralan cuisine is sort of in-between, in my experience, while *coastal* Keralan cuisine does feature a fair bit of seafood (spanking fresh, of course). Of course, translation of these cuisines to other regions of SE Asia (which is closer to what I am familiar with) would involve adaptation to local circumstances and ingredient availability but I imagine the basic framework would be the same or very similar. The other factor is, of course, the issue of cost-of-ingredients. Meat/fish is more expensive than vegetables etc, even in a place surrounded by the seas, disregarding the DISTANCES from coast to coat (it is not a small place) and in a society where, traditionally, family income was not and never was at 1st world standards having meat on the table for every meal every day was not a practical reality. But I'm sure someone will come along and correct or modify the things I am venturing.

I tend to cook my duck livers till it is *just* cooked through, provided I catch it in time. A little "over" is still fine by me. A little pink is nice but I don't worry too much about it. I buy duck livers by the small tubful (1+ cupfull or so), usually fresh = unfrozen (I don't believe they were ever truly frozen in that case) when I get them from Goose the Market in Indy. Here are three duck liver dishes (here, here and here) and a liver sauce I described (see also the post above that) where I sometimes use duck livers also.

Time for a kick-up of the thread. Grocery shopping 2014-1122 Indy Winter Farmers’ Market: Winter spinach (nice & stout & thick-leaved) Fresh shiitake mushrooms (Japanese-type fairly thin-cap type) Red-skinned, deep orange-red, yellow/green shouldered carrots (stocked up) Teeny broccoli florets/heads Claus’ German Sausage & Meats: Fresh calf liver slices Smoked pork hock (bone-in) Coarse Braunschweiger Pressed tongue Bauernschinken (Farmer’s Ham) Weisswurst Grillwurst Asia Mart: Whole beef shanks/shins, sliced pork belly, frozen stewing chicken, duck wings, Kimlan aged soy sauce, Lee Kum Kee double fermented soy sauce, preserved plums in brine (bottled), Lingham’s Extra Hot Sauce, canned young baby corn, sweet & sour pickled green peppercorns, fried shallots, fresh lotus roots, Opo squash, bitter melons, lettuce stems (celtuce), Vietnamese coriander, long hot green chillies, mung bean sprouts, scallions (6 bunches), Persian cucumbers, garlic, Prime Food Shrimp & Pork Hong Kong style frozen wontons, Prime Food Shanghai style Chinese spinach & pork wontons, rice shrimp rolls, dried Chinese mushrooms (small “tea flower mushrooms” type), Paldo “Fried Kimchi Instant Noodles” pack.

Early dinner. • Loosely-fried soft tofu. With quick-pickled Persian cucumbers. • Harm Choy Tong (Pickled mustard soup). Made this time w/ beef slices¶ & preserved plums in brine (this one; I like these, new brand for me); plus wet pickled mustard (briefly soaked & rinsed)[1 pack JHL brand + 1 pack Dragonfly brand], sliced ginger, salt, rice vinegar [Kong Yen "aged gourmet"], palm sugar, fresh tomatoes. ¶ with connective tissue/tendons --> nice stuff after the hour-long simmer.

"Wonton Soup Flavoured Instant Noodle King" [sau Tao]; w/ fish ball with roe [Jane Jane] (the roe is encapsulated in the center of the fish balls), "seafood mushroom" [Xuerong] (bunapi-shimeji on steroids) and chopped scallions. Later on: Taiwan cabbage (a type of flat-head cabbage), chicken drumstick, smashed garlic & sea salt soup. Parsley pinched from the pot in the breezeway.

I confess I find puzzling the tendency of many folks to remove all fat from their stocks. I, on the other hand, PREFER that fats from the rendering of the meat/whatnot in making the stock (whether chicken, pork,. beef, etc etc) be left in (whilst taking out large excesses, true). There is so much more taste obtained from leaving at least some of the fat in. The issue of clarity or non-contamination or supposed spoilage or whatnot does not hold water with me. Perhaps there are those who feel that any fat in a soup is undesirable but I am DEFINITELY not one of them. In fact, if there isn't enough fat/oil in my soup - coming from a stock - I will add more into it. Chicken fat chunks and duck fat chunks as well as liquid fats (vegetable oils, peanut oils, etc, for example. And no, please don't go into lectures about eliminating fats from one's diet - you are free to rip every vestige of fats from your meal but you are not free to obsess about doing so for my meals, just in case you feel inclined to drift in that direction.

Here's one guide to UK flat fishes, with photos. ETA: ...and for the (US) Mid-Atlantic (water) states – fluke vs flounder.

"Mustard Green Duck Soup Flavoured Xiao Qiao Rice Vermicelli" (雪菜火鴨湯味 小橋米線) [sau Tao]. Augmented w/ the rest of that Chinese roast pork [from Asia Mart], gai lan hearts & chopped scallions. Picture of the pack with contents spread out:

Just wondering, are those rice noodles or glass/cellophane noodles? They look just a little translucent to me to be standard rice noodles...

Now that looks interesting. Details, if you could, please?

An early dinner. • Winter melon soup. With sautéed smashed garlic, pork spare ribs, Chinese mushrooms (far koo type), sea salt. • Steamed shrimp. With julienned ginger, trimmed scallions, coriander leaves; marinated w/ various sauces (commercial). • Blanched big-leaf tong ho (edible chrysanthemum), dressed w/ oyster sauce [LKK] & white pepper. • White rice.

A very late dinner: Pork, shrimp & XO sauce Hong Kong style wontons [Prime Food]; plus pork, shrimp & snow pea sprout shui kow dumplings [Wei Chuan]. With baby bok choy, fresh maitake mushrooms & chopped scallions in chicken stock/soup.

And this is interesting in light of various things - including a recent thread lambasting "Chinese foodstuffs" as the spawn of the devil, while other folks pointed out that food contamination on a LARGE scale also occurred in the USA but seemed to be disregarded or glossed over by some folks.

Don't forget the cinnamon and touch of chocolate for the Cincy chili! YUM. I now have an urge to go get a large 4-way (onions) at one of the outlets here.

Tonkotsu ramen [sun Noodles], with Chinese roast pork [from Asia Mart], big-leaf tong ho¶ (edible chrysanthemum), hard-boiled egg, and sliced Tokyo negi. ¶ See here. The big-leaf type is shown in the bottom picture. This is the type that is preferred by many Cantonese, including myself, and is the type I almost always ate when having tong ho both in my growing-up years and in my earlier adulthood, even in the UK. For some reason this is seldom found (in a general sense) in the USA, at least in my parts, while the small-leaf type (the upper picture in the link) is far more common.

• "Shumai Dumplings with Crab" [JFC brand], steamed; with a dipping sauce made w/ sang chau soy sauce [Kimlan], dark soy sauce [Yuet Heung Yuen], "aged" rice vinegar [Kong Yen], and chopped scallions. • Chicken stock/soup; with sliced celery, some fuzzy squash (skinned, of course), and fresh maitake mushrooms [Hokto Kinoko Company] briefly simmered in it. (That's chicken fat floating on top, left in the stock when made)

I had another pack of "Singapore Laksa La Mian" [Prima Taste], gussied up this time w/ chicken pieces (chopped up drumsticks retrieved from making chicken stock/soup), mung bean sprouts (blanched separately), de-shelled & de-veined shrimp (yes, they're in there), fried tofu puffs [Nature's Soy brand] ("Soy Puffs"), laksa leaves (Persicaria odorata) and some of a mixture of "chili in oil" [Lao Gan Ma brand] with toasted belacan [North South brand] fried/mixed in (done separately in a pan on the stovetop). Dang, this time I forgot the hard-boiled eggs!

True. I usually throw out most (but not all) of the chicken pieces after I have made the stock. The exception is when I've added in meaty pieces to "boost" the meaty flavor, usually added at a later stage of making the stock – and which I may or may not remove and save when the stock is done, or even before it is done. If I do chicken stock using just chicken spare parts. feet, carcasses, stewing chickens, etc - most of the time the "chicken pieces" simply get tossed.

Chicken soup w/ carrots & celery. Yes, the soup has a mauve-ish coloration - from the bleeding of the pigments from the red-skinned carrots into the soup when being simmered. Plus some other odds-and-ends.

Perhaps the context is a *roasted* whole chicken done in the Western style in an oven? And even then it might depend on individual taste...

Some marriage business. :-) "Tai Yee Ma Kar Lui" (大姨媽嫁女) for lunch today. (Fuzzy squash pan-cooked w/ garlic in hot oil, pre-soaked dried shrimp ("har mai"), water, salt, then cellophane noodles)

Thanks, caroled. Regarding Asia Mart - They get fresh stuff usually on Thursdays so Thursday nights or Fridays (better) - or Saturdays (but big crowd) - would be good times to drop by there.