huiray

@btbyrd, thanks for the response. I'm glad that I wasn't hallucinating about uncured pork belly (insofar as your experiences gel with my impressions) being not that common in US-Southern cooking. Well, as for "bacon" with stuff, now I have a serious hankering for collards-with-ham hocks/bacon...maybe I'll go for lunch at a Southern Cuisine place in my area... :-)

An old war-horse dish: Beef & Bittergourd stir-fry. I've posted renditions of this dish several times before, but I think tried-and-true dishes ought to be talked about just as well as new-fangled dishes. :-) This one was the simple, bare-bones version: hot oil, chopped smashed garlic (lots!), sliced beef, salt, sliced deseeded/cored bittergourd, a bit of water. That's it. Clear, clean tastes. Eaten w/ white rice. Plus a bowl of leftover pork belly and lotus root soup (from here).

Nice looking dish! I must confess, though, that for myself, personally, I don't really hanker for "pork and beans", at least not the US Southern style. It's mainly the beans part. (Never really cared for English-style or New England-style baked beans that much, either) Now if your dish was served on a bed of couscous, say, my ears would prick up, so to speak! Such are the vagaries of personal taste. :-) I also confess I can't really conjure up in my mind many examples of US-Southern dishes using pork belly, other than as bacon or its close cousins.¶ A 5-second google search turns up a bunch of stuff including Asian-inflected dishes - like roast pork belly... but from your vantage point (and any other Southerners please add on to this) what sort of things would pork belly be regularly used for other than bacon & related in US Southern cuisine? Skin-on or skin-off? Skin crispy or meltingly-soft? ¶A quick flip through the old Time-Life Foods of the World "American Cooking: Southern Style" also turns up nothing much other than bacon/slab bacon.

I don't see why not, though. Please do try it out with that smoked pork belly, I'd love to read about it. FWIW there are any number of recipes pairing pork with za'atar out there on the web. :-)

• Minced fish meat mixed w/ crumbled soft tofu, plus finely chopped ginger, garlic, scallions, salt, rice wine, soy sauce, other stuff. Steamed in an enameled metal dish, topped w/ coriander leaves. This is a dish commonly known as 老少平安 . • "Kai Choy" (芥菜; Yale Cantonese: gaai3 choi3) stir-fried w/ garlic. • White rice (not pictured). ---------------------------------- • Soba-and-yam noodles, with white asparagus, halved tofu puffs, chopped scallions (cooked sauce w/ various seasonings).

Pork belly & lotus root soup. More details here. ------------------------------ • Young spring carrots in chicken stock (stewing hen) w/ some shredded meat & bits of the "normal carrots" & ce;ery used in the stock. • American wild-harvested shrimp (Atlantic) stir-fried w/ scallions, ginger, Shaohsing wine, jozo mirin, juice of fresh ripe calamansi limes, freshly ground Voatsiperifery pepper. Bowl replenished from the pan as the eating progressed. • White rice.

Pork belly & lotus root soup. Lotus root segments, scrubbed; sliced pork belly; smashed garlic. Pork belly slices beimng sautéed w/ the garlic in peanut oil. Some other stuff that went into the developing soup. Starting from 11 o'clok and going clockwise: Large Chinese jujubes, honey jujubes (Chinese red jujubes preserved by drying and soaking in honey), dried (& lightly salted) cuttlefish (three of them), dried Goji berries, raw peanuts. Soup being cooked. Salting/seasoning adjusted. Bowl of the finished soup.

You asked me what my point was. I explained. My explanation went beyond what you posted. I specified that I was extrapolating from the initial point into related areas. My comment about there being no requirement that one be wedded to a specific brand etc was under the rubric of that extrapolation, as it followed after I stated it. You might want to get less huffy and read more carefully.

Ooh, morels. I didn't go to the Farmers' Market today, but I'll be looking out for them. Some stuff from the last couple days or so: The Fresh Market: Gorgonzola dolce, raw shelled walnuts, heavy cream, spaghetti & capellini, wild American shrimp, free-range brown eggs. Asia Mart: Fresh vegetables: kai choy, enoki mushrooms, bunapi shimeji mushrooms, scallions (6 bunches), Thai basil, Japanese cucumbers, Napa cabbage, Taiwan A-choy, lotus root, mou kwa (hairy gourd), bittergourd, winter bamboo shoots. Other stuff: A stewing hen (frozen), Yakisoba, packaged "fresh" slender bamboo shoots, fried tofu puffs, soft tofu, firm tofu, chả giò tôm cua, 'Little Cook' TVP pork w/ mustard stem flavor instant noodles-in-a-bowl, 'Little Cook' Mushroom Vegetarian instant noodles-in-a-bowl. The local "corner store": "Fresh" limeade, chicken quarters, carrots, cleaning supplies. I'm probably missing a few things.

That I do not feel compelled to use the sauce assigned by name to a particular SE Asian/E Asian cuisine and no other. That a similar sauce may well serve in its stead. That there is nothing magical about using a specific Thai sauce for a Thai dish when the equivalent Vietnamese sauce would do as well. And so o n and so forth. Extrapolating this further, I don't feel that there is a single sauce for making Szechuanese MaPo Tofu, as, one example. One may have preferences, but that is not to say that ONLY ONE type of sauce is usable for making the dish. So ditto for soy sauces. There is no REQUIREMENT that one be wedded to a SPECIFIC brand or type of soy sauce for a specific dish. Perhaps the TRADITIONAL rendition of a dish may call for a particular brand of soy sauce or whatever, but that does not mean that it is incomprehensible that another soy sauce may be used in its stead.

I, on the other hand, mix-and-match to my heart's content, so long as it does not actually conflict with what is being cooked. :-)

Aw shucks, scubadoo97. Congrats on your son's graduation. Drop me a line if you swing by Indy.

Indiana Pork Tenderloin Sandwich, at the Pawn Shop Pub in Indy. :-) With a half-order of onion rings and a pint of Flat12 Walkabout Pale Ale on draft, and French's Classic Yellow Mustard (plus "Special Grade" ketchup later) on the tenderloin. ;-) (p.s. This was on the patio outside under a blue-green translucent canopy - messed up the color balance of the pics.) The two resident outdoor cats got fed a few small pieces of the tenderloin.

Let's see... I took a quick inventory of the soy sauces and soy sauce -based sauces I have on hand.** 1) Kikkoman Marudaizu Soy Sauce (Japan) - the one referred to in the posts above. 2) Standard Kikkoman Soy Sauce (USA). 3) Yamasa (Red Label) (Japan). 4) Kimlan Aged Soy Sauce (Taiwan). 5) Kimlan Sang Chau Grade A (Taiwan). 6) Pearl River Bridge Superior Light Soy Sauce (China/Guangzhou). 7) Yuet Heung Yuen (YHY) Superior Dark Soy Sauce (China/Guangzhou). 8) Wei Chuan Naturally Brewed Soy Sauce with Hokkaido Kelp Flavor (Taiwan). 9) Higeta Honzen Soy Sauce (Japan). 10) San-J Tamari (USA). And the soy-sauce based ones: 11) Kikkoman Hon Tsuyu (Japan). 12) Assi Soba Shoyu (Japan). 13) Kikkoman Ponzu Sauce (with lemon/orange) (Japan) 14) Kikkoman Ponzu Sauce (with lime) (Japan). 15) Otafuku Ponzu Sauce (with lemon, sudachi, yukou, yuzu, daidai orange) (Japan). The ones I have large cans of are (2) and (6) even though I don't use (6) *that* often. The ones I use on a regular basis are probably (2), (4), (5), (6), (13), (14). The most expensive one I have is probably (9) and I actually do like it quite a bit - definitely for dipping, though, and not for cooking as its subtlety (to my taste) is wasted/lost when banged around with other stuff in cooking. I am also fond of (8) but use it sparingly in cooking, otherwise for dipping, of course, or blending with a few other selected sauces. ** NOTE that I excluded the various soy bean pastes and thick sauces, some of which are used for dipping as well as for cooking also, like fermented black bean/soy bean sauce, fermented (Teochew) yellow salted soy beans, Szechuanese chili/soy bean/broad bean pastes, Cantonese soy bean pastes/sauces, etc etc. I suspect you are asking about the free-pouring water-like soy sauces, yes?

Early breakfast: Soup. Pork spare ribs (short cut) & thinly-sliced pork belly sautéed w/ garlic in vegetable oil; a slurry of aka miso added; sautéed and stirred around; water added, simmered for a while; skinned gobo (burdock root) sliced into squat sticks, and fresh shiitake mushrooms added; simmered a bit; skinned daikon, cut into sticks, added in. Simmered. Jozo mirin added in later. Simmered till done. Some of the stuff en route to the finished soup.

@ Amy D. - It's also possible that some folks (maybe a lot of folks) like the smell and flavor of even non-flowing-water-washed white pepper? Just speculating. :-D ;-) But yes, "clean-tasting/smelling" white pepper perhaps would be a more approachable ingredient.

More chả giò chay for lunch. (I like them) Eaten w/ yu choy sum blanched in oiled hot water then drizzled lightly w/ ponzu sauce. Dipping sauce was Lingham's Hot Sauce mixed w/ the fresh-squeezed juice of a couple of ripe calamansi limes. (I also snarfed up the pan-fried pressed firm tofu I had intended for a pork-miso-daikon soup. :-) )

A more basic question - why does one even use garlic powder? Just curious. What is wrong with using actual cloves of garlic?

• Miso soup. Wakame not visible in pic, it's at the bottom of the bowl. • Sliced beef stir-fried w/ plenty of thinly-sliced ginger & trimmed scallions, plus some chopped smashed garlic; w/ a sauce of Shaohsing wine, black sesame oil, oyster sauce and "aged soy sauce". • White rice. Stuff for the stir-fried beef:

Sunday lunch: • Pork belly simmered w/ ginger, garlic, slender bamboo shoots & soy puffs. See here for more details. • Napa cabbage stir-fried w/ garlic. • White rice.

Another pork belly and bamboo shoots dish variation. Pork belly chunks and cut-up ginger. Pork belly sliced up. Garlic cloves smashed and de-skinned. Ginger sautéed w/ peanut oil till just browning. Pork belly slices & smashed (unchopped) garlic added, everything stirred around on medium heat. Salted. Water added. Covered, simmered for a while. Slender fresh bamboo shoots [Yu Yee brand; 如意牌 小竹筍], rinsed and soaked in water for a while, added to pot. Simmering continued for a while. "Soy puffs" [Nature's Soy brand], halved, added in afterwards closer to the end of cooking. Simmered till done and pork belly slices are succulent and skin is meltingly soft. Seasoning adjusted. Eaten w/ Napa cabbage stir-fried w/ garlic, and white rice.

No pics, but last night was a mixed bag... 1) Beef balls [Venus brand] in chicken stock [Maggi] with plentiful sliced green cabbage and a bundle of Taiwanese min6 sin3 (mee sua) stirred in and cooked in the same pot towards the end. 2) Troy Armstrong's "Supercell", Mozart "Jupiter" symphony, Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto#1 (Sean Chen, pianist) w/ the ISO at Hilbert Circle Theatre. 3) Filet-O-Fish (2 for $4! Still!!; extra tartar sauce :-) ) for afterwards. (Darn, I just missed getting some Chicago beef sandwiches at Fat John's on account of their just closing) I polished off the F-O-Fs at home while finishing off reading Robert van Gulik's 'Red Pavilion', with some Ti Kuan Yin Oolong tea to wash it down. :-D

Lunch several days ago: • Leftover choy kon tong. • Soft tofu cubes "stir-fried"/sautéed w/ peanut oil, julienned ginger, chopped smashed garlic, ground pork, chiuchow fermented soybeans (潮州豆瓣), lots of chopped scallions. Seasoning adjusted. • White rice.

I was worried this past cruel winter would do in my tarragon patch. I'm quite pleased that it made it. :-) Pic is of part of the patch this morning after clearing debris, cutting down the previous growths (left on for additional winter "protection") and removing the decayed remnants of the wooden barrel that was helping to shield it somewhat. I'll have to take positive action to replace the wooden "shield" this coming winter, probably just a simple decent mulch would do.

Ah, I see. Thanks for the extra background. Butter/Boston lettuce - see here and here and here. :-)