mrbigjas

uh oh, is that a bad thing? whenever i've made meat sauce i've always added a little liquid if it looks dry and it hasn't cooked long enough... OH GOD I'VE RUINED EVERYTHING. ok while i'm asking questions: pontormo, you say chicken wings are an ecologically sensible substitute for frog's legs--are frogs threatened in some way? should i be avoiding dishes containing them or something?

i don't know if 'the doo' is a good nickname for a restaurant. just sayin.

also they offer the online tiffin delivery service! that's a revolution right there.

sounds great, TT. that first thing you had (the pancake) is called haemul pajun. the second thing is indeed bibimbap, specifically dolsot bibimbap (the dolsot is the stone bowl; you can order without) the third thing was the soondooboo tofu. the next things sound like kalbi and bulgogi, although your description makes me wonder a little bit. i bet that's what they were, though. kalbi was the short ribs, bulgogi was the steak. the only reason i mention all that is that these are kind of the standard bunch of dishes that you get in most korean places (except for the soondooboo, which is what jong ka jib is known for), so if you know the names you'll be able to order them again sometime or somewhere else.

ok then, let's continue where herb left off here, with thanksgiving week. what i can figure from the inquirer and daily news archives, which isn't all that much, really, since some columns are archived sensibly and some aren't laban two-stars sola in bryn mawr table talk, complete with a fuji rumor since i believe that beer falls into the category of food, or at least 'things as necessary as,' i'm gonna include joe sixpack as well. city paper rachel frankford spends a little time killing turkeys for thanksgiving ralph berarducci, owner of portofino serves thanksgiving to the homeless feeding frenzy talks about restaurant openings and closings we already know about by this point. here's a nice article about scoats and grey lodge philadelphia weekly kirsten henri likes the ambience but not so much the food at copper bistro in nolibs. here's a way to cook a turkey pittsburgh post-gazette you can make your own panini pittsburgh tribune-review lunch at make your mark artspace & coffeehouse 14 kindsa steaks at hyde park prime steakhouse allentown morning call ok is it just me, or is there nothing in there for this time period? (we're talking week of 11/16 or so) i'm kind of picking and choosing here, since a lot of archives aren't really arranged in a way that makes sense, and i don't know how much you guys wanna know, or really if anyone besides me even reads this nice little compendium of who's publishing what and where. i'll try to do more catchup shortly, and with any luck i'll be able to do this week's tomorrow anyway. heck maybe i'll just skip the catching up--it's all about thanksgiving anyway, and that's over...

and so brilliantly green! i love them. that would be awesome. i suspect i can figure it out for the most part (i made something similar but with a different fillign last year), but yeah. that sounds fun.

ok this topic hasn't been posted to in a year and a half. weird. anyway, a friend of mine just pointed me to tria's fermentation school: http://www.triacafe.com/fermentation_school/ and i'm wondering if anyone else has been to anything. it looks like they have some interesting topics coming up--wine & cheese of portugal, the wines of austria, a course on 'navigating the PLCB' to get the best deals, etc. and the classes are generally like $40 which seems totally reasonable. so, anyone been to any? worth it?

i might have done that all throughout yesterday afternoon, so that by the time dinner came along i wasn't even really hungry anymore. might have. not sayin i DID, necessarily. just that it could have happened.

well we served it over some elicoidal rigatoni. the results were mixed. by that, of course, i mean that i want to mix the two recipes together, because there were things i liked more and less about each. i thought the splendid table version was a bit too salty and a bit... well, even a little mushy by the time i got to the the addition of the cream and all. but it was indeed extraordinarily rich and very tasty. i like the fact that it had a much higher proportion of mirepoix in it (2/3-1 c of each, as compared to 1/4 cup of each in the hazan version). the hazan version was a little closer to how i have always made it (or rather how i've always made a meat sauce that i never really officially called bolognese but basically is), with a much stronger tomato presence, but i felt like it would have been really well served in depth of flavor by the addition of pancetta or salt pork or some kind of cured pork product. in conclusion: in the future i'll make something more like hazan's, but with more mirepoix, including some ground pancetta and/or sausage meat (i bought a little sweet italian sausage yesterday to add, but decided against it). and i'll run the tomatoes through the coarse setting on the food mill to avoid chunks--yesterday i crushed them by hand. i have about a quart of each of them left, so i'll be making a couple other dishes from them (any recommendations besides the lasagna?) and then testing the freezing capabilities of each. incidentally i used a mix of ground chuck and pork for both--and between the pancetta and the chuck i ended up actually taking a gravy ladle and ladling off some of the fat off the splendid table version, since it was pooling up as it simmered. i know that may be a sacrilege, but i did it anyway. sorry.

or, two. why not--if you're cutting up the vegetables and simmering for hours, why not do two versions? i have a pot of the splendid table variety on one burner, and a pot of the hazan variety on the other (from recipes i found on line since i have neither book). initial comparison (they've been on for 2.5 hours or so now) is interesting. the splendid table version is rather... brown. i mean, was the 2 T of tomato paste not enough to keep it red? but it tastes great. the hazan variety is redder from the tomatoes, but doesn't have the depth of flavor from the pancetta. OK i know the recipe called for salt pork, but pancetta was what i had. more later.

note that goya does make a masarepa blanca, too. i haven't seen it around here but it's on their website. i don't know if that's available in new zealand, but it does exist and may be more widely distributed than PAN.

I use the Martha Stewart Ragu recipe- it seems pretty similar to the one you are linking but definately has some differences Ragu ← interesting--that recipe is essentially the same as what's in the ada boni book, except without the sausage meat or the optional chicken livers. i can see now how you guys ended up with such a long thread about ragus. i think the nice thing, though, is that it's really a pleasant argument--after all, none of them taste BAD; it's just varying degrees of deliciousness. ok i didn't get to it last night, but with a sick baby and a sick wife i'm going to be off work today, so putting a pot on the stove for the afternoon fits right in with the plans.

i still say that if there's anything more difficult to eat without ruining your shirt than duck on the bone in broth with hand-pulled noodles, i have yet to see it. if you are in south philadelphia to shop at the vietnamese markets or see the italian market or whatever, one place that is often overlooked is cafe de laos, which is a thai and laotian restaurant on 11th street just south of washington. it's got good food on the thai side of the menu, but the real interesting stuff that hasn't really been widely available before in this city is on the laotian side. the dishes are still hot, but veer towards the sour rather than the sweet and have less coconut milk. very good stuff. byob.

you got that right, doc--we were in a similar position relatively recently with family staying at the marriott and trying to figure out where we could walk to with a wheelchair. the screwed up curb cuts alone are depressing enough to make you want to stay inside if you're in a wheelchair. it's weird though, thinking of all the places i know right in that area, how many of them have even just a step or two up.

i haven't either, but i haven't looked real closely--they do have a ton of frozen stuff in those chest freezers over on the left side of the store. screwpine leaves, for instance, i saw there not that long ago. there were some other things that caught me off guard in that 'oh, i didn't know you could get that here!' kind of way, but i don't remember what they were off the top of my head.

ok that picture pretty much does it. i'm making ragu tonight for dinner tomorrow.

if you're going as far as 13th street, vintage is handicapped accessible and has good food, although the service leaves a lot to be desired. the middle eastern place katie is referring to is sahara grill; last time we went there things weren't so great. well, the side dishes and all were pretty good, but the main meat courses seemed like they'd been cooked before and reheated on the grill--really well done, tough, dried out. stick to the stew-type of things and side dishes, and avoid kebabs, and you'll be fine. it's also inexpensive and byob and accessible.

ok, a quick question for all of you: 1. are you generally making a ragu bolognese like this one, which is supposedly out of the splendid table? (i don't have the book yet) 2. the reason i'm asking is that it seems like that recipe doesn't make that much, for several hours work. so when you make it, do you usually double/triple the recipe?

thanks percy. shola knows what he's doing--i mean, i knew that, but still i was kind of surprised, with the pureed carrots, adding miso little by little, that suddenly i hit this 'sweet spot' where everything tasted like more than the sum of its parts. kind of part of the fun that was SK--i fully admit i don't bother doing this with every dish, but today i had the time for it.

once on this very forum we were talking about a meal at SK where in this post i said i didn't taste the miso in the carrot/miso puree. further discussion revealed that the idea was that the miso would amplify the sweetness of the carrot. so tonight, that discussion came to mind, and i decided to give it a shot. so i slowly cooked some shallots in olive oil, added a brunoise of carrot, a little salt, and water to cook. after pureeing it, i added miso (dissolved in hot water) tasting as i went along until... whaddya know, the guy was right--the miso DID accent the sweetness of the carrot and suddenly after a teaspoon or so, everything changed and it tasted fantastic. i seared some dry scallops, and this is what i ended up with: (in the background are the very un-studiokitchenesque sake-braised mushroom/scallion ragout, and braised endive with pernod, which is really a candidate for the unfortunate dinner thread, looks-wise, but tasted really good) good stuff, i recommend it.

i like it when places include herbs other than just the usual thai basil on the soup plate, like the hot mint you have over there on your plate, phil. i don't know what's traditional with which soup, but i dig that stuff. rau ram it's called in vietnamese i think. the only one i don't like--and i keep eating it in hopes that i will one of these days, but it hasn't happened yet--is fish mint (diep ca). nam phuong always includes that in the herb plate that you get with their grilled beef in grape leaves, and i always eat some of it, and it's ... ugh.

both hung vuong at 11th & washington and 1st oriental at 6th & washington carry galangal. for that matter, so does whole foods at 10th & south, usually. lime leaves i haven't seen in either place (but i don't look that closely that often), but sue's produce at 18th & sansom has had a sign in their window for the last several days saying they have them for a limited time only.

if only they had actual tiffin wallahs to bring me delicious homecooked lunches every day at a specified time, that would be perfect!

i always enjoy fork for lunch. i don't think i've ever had a bad (or even less than very good) meal there.

flour and hot liquids is bad? what about all those dumpling wrapper recipes that have you put hot water into your flour? or, dumplings that you drop on your pork & sauerkraut dishes? sugar and fresh veggies isn't necessarily bad either. the classic cucumber and tomato salad, uses apple cider vinegar and sugar as a dressing.