[The Hot Sauce Topic]

My favorite, hands down, is El Yucateco.

I have their 3 different sauces, the green one, the red one and the brown one. The brown one is the hottest.

Unlike some other hot sauces which compete solely on the heat level, this one has flavor.

And, at my local Mexican grocery store here in the San Francisco Bay Area, they are about a dollar only for a 4 oz bottle.

[Bitter Melon/Winter Melon?]

Not chinese, but here are some ways Bengalis (people living in Bengal -- Bangladesh and eastern part of India ) eat bitter melon (the small ones are called "uchhey", the bigger ones are called "korolla" ):

1) Deep Fried.

Slice them up, remove the bigger seeds, deep fry them in oil until they are brown and crisp. Serve with rice and dal (indian lentil soup like thing), usually at the begining of your meal.

2) Stir fried.

Slice them up, and stir fry with potatoes and spices... Serve with rice.

3) Boiled. Needs acquired tatse. I don't like it.

Boil whole in water, along with potatoes. Once soft, peel potatoe, add salt and mustard oil and mash the whole thing up and form a ball. Serve warm with rice.

[mustard seed oil]

But may I ask: how do you determine if mustard oil is good?

Good mustard oil is pungent. Strong pungent. One decent brand is the "Engine" brand. No idea if its available in the UK. In the USA, it is extremely hard to find good quality mustard oil. If smelling an opened bottle of mustard oil does not bring tears (from the pungency) to your eyes, it is probably not good. Another rule of thumb you can perhaps use -- good mustard oil is usually sold in metal containers (like a tin can), not in bottles.

The one I have on hand is KTC ("For massage only") produce of the UK. Cannot imagine it's exceptional, but did you ever hear of it? I bought it after reading someone (Madhur?) suggest mustard oil to finish dishes: a drop added at the end to bring all the flavors together. I always sorta wondered about the 'for massage only' bit but not too terribly much and was glad to read here that fears are unfounded. Or at least mostly unfounded

All mustard oil in the USA says "for massage use only". Has to do with some FDA regulation -- FDA has deemed mustard oil to be unfit for human consumption, and hence all mustard oil sold in this country has to say "for massage use only". I suspect it's the same in the UK.

Yes you can of course use few drops of mustard oil to finish dishes, especially stews (aka curries) Mustard oil has many uses. Bengalis use mustard oil in many ways:

- as a cooking oil

- as a condiment to use with other food.

- as baby oil.

- as a skin moisturizer

Quite similar to the way southern Italians would use olive oil.

[Indian Restaurants]

San Francisco Bay area has several Indian restaurants. Sadly, vast majority of them are mediocre. They all have identical menus. There are a few exceptions, here are some of my favorites:

* Shalimar, San Francisco: For tandoori chicken

* Vik's Chaat, Berkeley: For, what else? North Indian chaats (snacks)

* Chaat Paradise, Mountain View: For chaat.

* Dasaprakash, Santa Clara: For South Indian specialities, especially their Dosas

* Empress of India: North indian cuisine. Please note that this restaurant is a one-woman operation and stays closed a lot!

* Turmerik, Sunnyvale: Upscale north indian food. I have heard rumors that it's gone downhill recently, although when I was there, most recently about six months back, food was still great. Innovative chef.

[what's your favorite rum]

Myer's Rum

[mustard seed oil]

As others have mentioned, Bengalis (which I am one) probably have the unique distinction of using Mustard oil as a cooking oil as well as a condiment.

In bengali,

Shorshe = Mustard

Shorsher Tel = Mustard oil

Shorshe Baata = Mustard paste

A lot of Bengali dishes traditionally are cooked with mustard oil. Although, in recent years, for some reason this tradition is somehow dying. Rising prices of mustard oil combined with negative publicity/perception about health effects of mustard oil may have something to do with this trend. Unfortunate, in my opinion..

I remember when I used to live in Kolkata, we would go to the Ghaani, where you could buy freshly pressed (literally freshly pressed right in front of your eyes) mustard oil.

Mustard oil is an acquired taste. So is mustard paste (Shorshe baata ) which bengalis also use as an ingredient in cooking.

I always use mustard oil when I am cooking fish stews (Maachher Jhol), bengali style. You deep fry this fish and then prepare the stew with this fried fish. I will sometimes also use mustard oil when doing goat-meat (called "Mutton" by bengalis. Not the same thing as what Brits call "Mutton") stews.

Other traditional dishes with mustard paste are "Sorsche Illish" (Hilsa fish with mustard paste), "sorshe potol" (Potol is a kind of veggie, I think its called "parwal" in Hindi).

It is very common to eat Jhaal Muri from roadside vendors. Jhaal Muri literrally means hot (as in spicy hot) puffed rice, as is made with puffed rice, mustard oil, onions, green chilli peppers, cucumbers and other condiments...

When you deep fry fish (especially "Illish" aka Hilsa), in mustard oil, you can also eat simple freshly prepared rice with just the left over oil and some salt. Yum.

Here is simple recipe with pomfret (usually called "pompano" overe here in the US of A), banana leaves and mustard paste and mustard oil. I am writing this from memory as I usually don't measure my ingredients, so please do feel free to experiment with the amounts.

Ingredients:

1) Two medium sized pomfret fish, cut into half each.

2) 1/2 cup mustard seeds. You can experiment with the dark brown or the yellow seeds or use a combination.

3) 1.5 cups of water

4) 1/2 tsp sugar

5) 2 tsp salt. Please adjust this

6) 8-16 green chiles, slit lengthwise in half. (please adjust according to your heat tolerance!)

7) 2 tablespoons of good quality mustard oil (sadly, good quality mustard oil is difficult to find in the USA)

8) Banana leaves. If you can't find banana leaves, substitute aluminium foil. Or perhaps you can use some other leaves (squash leaves would be a good substitute).

Prepping the banana leaves:

The plan is to use the banana leaves as a wrapper, so cut them into about 12inch x 12inch squares. If you warm the leaves up by holding them on top of your stove set to medium heat, they become more pliable and are easier to work with.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Add the mustard seeds, half of the water, salt, sugar, mustard oil, into a electric blender/mixer/grinder. Let steep for 5-10 minutes. Then start grinder on highest setting and run for about 5 minutes. If the mixture gets too thick for the grinder, add some water. Continue this process until the mustard seeds are all finely ground and the whole thing appears as a uniform paste, with flakes of mustard seeds. The total time taken may be upto 10-15 minutes. The paste should be little bit more runny than say Dijon mustard.

Place the banana leaf squares on the counter. Make a few deep long slashes on the fish so this marinade can go in. Place each piece of fish on this banana leaf square, then pour in some of the mustard paste. Place a few of the green chilli peppers on top. Wrap the banana leaf up in a small square, and you can make a small tight package. Either close the ends with tooth picks or use strips of the same banana leaves to tie them up.

Place in middle of oven. Check after 20-30 minutes, depending on size of your fish.

Serve with rice. Take the leaf wrappers off before eating!

This dish is traditionally made with Illish fish, which is not that readily available in the USA. Also, traditionally, bengalis don't use ovens, so this is often made by placing the banana leaf wrappers on top of a hot skillet. When prepared this way, the leaves will blacken a bit, thereby imparting even more flavor in the fish.