huiray

Another variation on what has become a returned-to dish for me... Tuna in olive oil [Ortiz] together with the oil in medium-hot pan, sliced garlic (Siberian Red); hot red chili flakes, Salina salted capers [Mongetto] (rinsed & soaked & drained); dripping-wet just-cooked linguine [Rustichella d'Abruzzo], several splashes of AgroDolce Bianco Delizia Estense, fold in on heat w/ a little more pasta water; chopped parsley (from my deck). Plate; lots of ground black pepper; garnish w/ parsley leaflets.

@DianaB, I made some comments here. Also in this thread earlier.

Try this with the Mexican chorizo: see here, here, here (scroll down). I get mine from the Mexican supermercados (like this one) or smaller carnicerias (like this one); both places have house-made, aromatic, chorizo. Do you have a clearly Puerto Rican place near you? Puerto Rican chorizo is said to be very similar to Spanish chorizo. "Andouille sausage" in the USA indeed tends to mean a Creole-type "Andouille" where coarse-minced pork is seasoned with spices and other things then stuffed into the casings and smoked. Yes, different from "Andouille sausage" in France, and not the same, I think, as French andouillette either. The "Andouille sausage" that Smoking Goose here in Indy makes (which I get from its sister shop Goose the Market) is one of the most fragrant and appetizing sausages I know of. @Arey, perhaps what they produce might be a consideration for you?

Blanch them & drizzle with a sauce. Stir-fry them. Do fried rice with them. Put them in soupy dishes. Their volume will decrease markedly in all cases. :-) Why not harvest them as whole plants? Like what one gets in farmers' markets and the groceries? That should winnow out the number of plants forthwith.

...and I see a spiking Phalaenopsis... :-) ... the spike of which might be appreciated by some critters running around the place too.

Various meals. Sautéed zucchini. Leftover bak kut teh w/ rice. Chioggia beets w/ EV olive oil, 10-yr balsamic, salt, black pepper. Sliced lamb sauce w/ shallots, garlic, celery, carrots, fresh tomatoes, fresh thyme & parsley, plus this-and-that; on Cipriani pappardelle. More of the lamb sauce from above, on fedelini w/ basil from the deck.

I think I would have appreciated both meals but in different contexts. The EMP meal looked wonderful, even if the actual tasting of a few of them was not exemplary. But that meal falls into the Western fine dining - Western haute cuisine sphere where great resources are brought to bear on the meal. Franci's meal looked very appealing but it is in a different context, that of a home-environment (with elegant and lovely touches, but of course). They are not directly comparable, even if nowadays there is a lot of grey area between both spheres in some circumstances. (I would hope that Franci does not take this the "wrong way" – I think what was shown of the spread she laid out was excellent and illustrative of her skill)

I do it as a "covered-partial-steamed-stir-fry" thing. REALLY hot pan/wok (NOT non-stick) w/ really hot oil (at smoking point) (I never use olive oil for this - I use something less "greasy", rice bran/peanut/corn/etc) some salt sprinkled in, then dampened (washed) snow peas or sugar snap peas or even just green beans bunged in and the wok/pan covered IMMEDIATELY. (I usually put the damp peas/beans in the bowl of the lid, invert into the pan/wok, and immediately slam on the lid) Wait 10-20 secs or so (explosions and vigorous popping will be heard; if you have never done this before you will be greatly alarmed), holding down the lid if needed, then shake and semi-toss the pan/wok w/ contents with the lid on and holding it down with one hand while shaking the pan with the other. Wait 20-30 secs more, open the lid, stir around w/ a spatula, splash in a little water if needed. cover briefly again if warranted. Serve. The stuff is usually nicely semi-charred like in HC's pic and with some wok-hei imbued as well. Crunch, crunch.

FWIW the ingredients list for the Lao Gan Ma 'Chili in Oil', 'Hot Chili Sauce', and 'Oil Chiui Condiment with Mushroom' products list 花椒 (= Sichuan peppercorns) as an ingredient. (See here, call up the Javascript pop-up and click on to the image of the ingredients part of the label) The bottle of 'Chili in Oil' I have with English on the label instead (presumably meant for export to the US) lists 'Prickly Ash' - and since it is stated to be made in China I assume it is referring to Chinese prickly ash and not "Northern (American) prickly ash" which is a related species. But of course the potency of the numbing principle is no doubt greatly decreased if even still present after the processing and storage of the sauce.

That's too bad. Oh well. Indiana, even in Indianapolis, is an early-to-rise-early-to-bed kind of place. It is much better now in Indy, for example, but 15-20 years ago it was true that past about 9 pm or so, 10 pm tops, one's dining choices tended towards the few all-night diners around. Which weren't that bad themselves as diner food. At the company I used to work for, the front parking lot in front of the building where I worked would be full by 7 am, and the back parking lot would be already 4-5 rows deep. A work acquaintance once said to me that he basically rose with the sun and went to bed when the sun set. Medical offices (including my doctor's) even now frequently would be open for business w/ the 1st appointment at 7 am, in some offices even earlier. I once, early on, was offered a follow-up appointment (after an office visit) for 7 am when I murmured that it was uncivilized at that hour and was given a death stare by one of the receptionists. So subsequently I simply specified a preferred time range for appointments. Naked Tchopstix is an Indiana chain. It started some 10 or so years ago at Broad Ripple Village, in fact, with the original and sole restaurant just round the corner on College from the main drag in Broad Ripple. We drove past it. It's a Japanese-Korean-some Chinese kind of place. I haven't eaten at the place or its subsequent outlets for many years but it used to be decent. Just for the record, a looksee-looksee on Google maps turns up a restaurant near the Homewood Suites that should have been open till 11 pm on Monday night...here; and a diner a little further, here. (Oh, that diner appears to open at 5.30 am Sun-Thurs and 24 hrs Fri-Sat)

Thanks. The Weisswurst (there were two of them) were scrumptious. :-)

Yes, that's what I do too and what I understand is the correct expectation for those cuisines. If I were served a Thai or Indian/S Asian curry, for example, with non-separated oil (even though the flavor profiles are very different), I would consider the dish not quite done properly. Thai cuisine regarding the treatment of coconut milk/cream, as just one example in this regard, requires (or at least prefers) that one cracks the cream/milk so that the oil SEPARATES from the rest of the stuff. Ditto when I make curries from the Indian sub-continent, in most cases that I can think of off the top of my head in the appropriate cases I WANT the oil to separate out and rise to the top before I consider the dish done. Ditto various iterations of my Italianate-style meat sauces. It is French cuisine (as the dominant example) that treats sauces where oil has separated out as "broken sauces" and lambasts such sauces. That's fine and dandy for French cuisine, but it may be an error to apply French standards to distinctly NON-FRENCH cuisines.

I can't say I know all the sauces available with Szehuanese peppercorns - as I don't look out for them. I'm not personally interested in sauces that include them. I don't consider Szechuanese peppercorns to be a vital ingredient in my cooking – whereas others might, I'm sure. I find that I am more partial to cooking where the inherent taste of the ingredient itself comes through.** Hence my affinity for Cantonese and Italian cuisine. ** ETA And in this context I really don't want my taste buds to be "numbed" by the active principle in Szechuanese peppercorns - a loss in sensitivity/discrimination for the inherent taste of the food would not be welcome. Perhaps some find it stimulating. I find it detracting from tasting the true taste of the food.

Commonly available in my area; and in other places, I believe. Not something that is WOW, UNKNOWN. I have a jar or two sitting on my counter. Not something I use with regularity or enthusiasm, because what I cook does not always encompass the BANG! KAPOW! characteristics of food** with tastes that are BIG!!! HUUUUGE!!! and which do not encompass the subtleties of the taste of the food itself, as distinct from the seasonings applied to it. Still, having said the preceding, they are good chili sauces and very nice when one want to use something like them in a dish. There are also peanut-inclusive and peanut-free versions, i believe. ** ETA: Or, for that matter, HOTTTTT!!! SPICY!!!!!

A version of Fagioli Corallo al Pomodoro using young Roma beans & fresh ripe tomatoes. Served over fedelini.

Another Goku-Uma Bowl Ramen. The packets inside & noodle block. The packet contents emptied onto the noodles. Finished, transferred to a real bowl with some fresh mizuna & sliced red-skinned young onion. The noodles were decent. The soup - eh, not the most memorable.

Culantro (a.k.a. sawtooth coriander) is readily available and cheap in Indy, so long as you know where to go. In Southern-style pho it might be thought of as a sign of "authenticity" in the USA if you get a plate of the herb fixings with this instead of (or in addition to) the more usual cilantro (normal coriander leaves). It is not native to SE Asia but, like so many things in the cross-cultural fertilization that occurs around the world over historical periods, after it was introduced it was absorbed into the Thai and Vietnamese cuisines and became part of them.

Steamed halibut. The saucy dressing includes Shaohsing wine, rock sugar, double fermented soy sauce, white pepper, sesame oil, hot rice bran oil. On the way there. Plus a stir-fried smaller-leaved cousin of wong nga pak. Heavy-gelatin chicken stock also went in. Lots of white rice.

Sigh. You had a hard time. But as for the Burmese food when you return to Fort Wayne – I hope if you pursue that avenue you would find it curious. I think that Burmese might be a difficult cuisine to sample if not going to Burma/Myanmar itself, so I thought it was of interest in Fort Wayne as it has (had?) a large Burmese diaspora. Does Toronto have a similar large Burmese population? if so then of course one might also sample something-like-Burmese-food in the GTA too!! As it is, there is also a well-regarded (whatever that means) Burmese restaurant in Indy too, but it is on the far outer ranges of metro Indy. Bloomington in Indiana (site of Indiana University) also has a "Burmese presence" and I have eaten at the main place for this cuisine there. Interesting. One will expect that the food will have been modified a bit - but, again, one is not in Myanmar itself.

Glebionis coronaria. Many names for this around the world. Even in Chinese it is commonly known as tong ho (茼蒿) in Cantonese-speaking areas but is often known as "King Vegetable" (皇帝菜) (more correctly, "Emperor Vegetable") in various other places. I myself prefer the large-leafed variety (大葉茼蒿) which is less commonly found but which has a finer flavor to it - the plants look like this, or this, or this, or this, or this, and so on. ETA: @zend, here are just a few examples (there are more) that I've posted on eG showing what I did with this vegetable: here, here, here (scroll down), here (scroll down), here, here (scroll way down), here, here (scroll down).

Another ramen bowl. With Weisswurst [Claus'], Tuscan kale [Silverthorn Farm], smashed garlic, poached eggs [Schacht Farm], sliced white onion, lots of extra ground white pepper. The base was Ibumie Penang Lad Mee Perisa Lada Pedas. Yes, I've been using this one frequently.

Top sirloin cap, pan-fried with fresh thyme & salt/pepper & other stuff. Sliced, slices seared on the cut sides in the pan. Yes, the insides were still nicely red & juicy. Part 1: With sautéed fresh asparagus & wild rice [Bineshii]. Part 2: With salad & more of the wild rice. Salad was spinach, red-tinged romaine, green romaine, 10-year balsamic, Maldon salt, Maussane-les-Alpilles olive oil, black pepper.

Here's one place - although from reading elsewhere it seems to serve both Thai and Burmese food, and one will need to ask specifically for "Burmese" to get it.

Sorry, can't really help there. Not sure where in FW the Merc dealership is, anyway... However, be advised that FW is home to what was at least once said to be the largest Burmese population outside of Burma (Myanmar). So- hint, hint... Maybe Yelp or one of the other food sites might be of help. (Chowhound has pretty old posts/threads on the place.)

Ouch. Dang, dang, dang - on your behalf. I guess you won't be getting back to the GTA till later than you were aiming for.