Dinner 2018

[scamhi]

after a few weeks of vacation and eating out...we came home and started cooking

[scubadoo97]

@Dejah  I like the sound of shrimp stock over beer in the dish and even though I'm a chick pea lover,  potatoes sound more traditional.   Looks like a lovely dish.   Good crusty bread  to sop up the broth kinda dish 

 

@scamhi those meals look really good.   I'm always glad to be home eating my food after a vacation 

Edited July 22, 2018 by scubadoo97 (log)

[ElsieD]

@scamhi  what is the 6th dish, corn, tomatoes?

[scamhi]

Just now, ElsieD said:

@scamhi  what is the 6th dish, corn, tomatoes?

steamed local corn, shallot, sun gold ,super100 local tomatoes, mint. moscatel sherry vinegar and olive oil

[liuzhou]

I was just about to reluctantly enter the hothouse that is my kitchen, when my phone rang.

 

"Hey, we're in town. Let's meet up for dinner."

Four lovely young ladies I worked with briefly a year ago in a neighbouring city had decided to visit Liuzhou. They suggested I suggest a suitable venue for dinner. Knowing they don't know the city well, I opted for a building they couldn't miss. It is the tallest in the entire province. That it is just next to my home did not enter the equation, oh no!

 

Beside it is an overpriced deserted shopping mall, but the fifth and sixth floors are entirely restaurants. Some great; none bad. And very busy at weekends (Impossible at holidays.)

I chose UBUD, a SE Asian place named after the city on Bali, Indonesia. Despite the name most dishes are Thai-inspired.

 

The girls chose (with me subtly pushing them to my favourites!) Only one had eaten Thai before.

 

 

As you can see, it is a picture menu. These are everywhere in China. Unlike in Europe and I suspect the North Americas, there is no class distinction. Even top quality restaurants often have picture menus.

You tick your choices and the serving staff enter your requirements into their computer station and presumably the kitchen pick up on it. Food arrives.

They chose:

Beef with Mango

 

Garlic Shrimp with Vermicelli

This was the one failure of the evening. The girl who had eaten Thai previously strongly suggested the others try Tom Yum soup, which was on the menu, but which they announced had sold out. Unlikely. It was only 7:30 pm. Instead they chose what was listed as Thai style coconut chicken soup.  What arrived was the above regular chicken soup into which someone had, at the last minute, thrown some lumps of hard raw coconut. The soup was fine but stunningly unexceptional and had no taste of coconut at all.

Yellow curry (chicken and potato) bizarrely served with a couple of bits of garlic bread.

Thai spring rolls

 

Clay Pot Cauliflower and Bacon

 

We happily got stuck in.

That was good!

 

The bill. ¥249 = $37 USD. And, no. This is a non-tipping culture.

 

Edited July 23, 2018 by liuzhou (log)

[ElsieD]

39 minutes ago, scamhi said:

steamed local corn, shallot, sun gold ,super100 local tomatoes, mint. moscatel sherry vinegar and olive oil

 

Looks delicious.

[KennethT]

@liuzhou That "coconut soup" is hilarious!

[liuzhou]

29 minutes ago, KennethT said:

@liuzhou That "coconut soup" is hilarious!

 

Hilariously sad. It was actually a tasty chicken soup, but not quite what we were expecting!

[shain]

Egg curry, with adzuki beans, onion, chili, warm spices, soft cooked shakshuka style in a pan.

Yogurt, tamarind and ginger chutney.

Pan idli.

[Tri2Cook]

5 hours ago, liuzhou said:

 



Beef with Mango

 

That looks tasty. I made a mango habanero sauce to go with the jerk pork and chicken that's currently residing in my smoker and have plenty of mango left that I thought might find a good home in something like what's in that picture. Went straight to google and found absolutely nothing no matter how I typed it in. 

[chileheadmike]

Rainy Sunday here. Seemed to call for a nice roast. Beef chuck braised in San Marzano tomatoes with onion, green bell peppers garlic and herbs from the garden.  Finished with parmesan. 

[Norm Matthews]

Looks like shrimp is on several menus today. I had to make an an attempt to redeem myself by making Shrimp Scampi.  I made the huge mistake last week of getting an all-in-one bag shrimp scampi and it was not good. I hope I learned my lesson well enough to never try that again.  I used egg noodles for the pasta. 

[Raamo]

1st Green Beans of the season from our garden, along with Red Pepper and potatoes with a spicy Indian curry sauce, over basmati  rice.  Wine is a dry Riesling from Hagafen. 

[ElsieD]

Chicken and mango curry with broccoli.  I love the cilantro microgreens on top of the curry.  The seeds are attached and they are soft and when you bite into them they have that citrusy flavour.

[ChocoMom]

Sunday dinner was supposed to be a little more relaxed.  In haste, I made a beef brisket with a dry rub, then baked in the cast iron dutch oven at 350F for a couple hours(?).  We were trying to get our cows back to our farm, and after some epic failures with that task, I returned home in frustration to finish cooking.  I had trimmed off some fat prior to cooking the beef, and threw it in a pan to make some crackling. (I ate the cracking), then used that pan cook the potatoes in.   delicious.   Made a nice sauce out of the beef drippings, which is in the little glass on the corner of the board.  Served with salad, and beets. 

[scubadoo97]

Oven roasted chicken thighs with  kohlrabi and chopped roasted chk skin and crystallized ginger which really went well together 

 

 

[Dante]

last night's dinner: Caprese chicken over orzo with steamed rapini

[Dante]

Tonight's dinner: mac and cheese with smoked sausage, bacon, and broccoli

 

[Jacksoup]

@Norm Matthews@Norm Matthewsbeautiful plates and dinner!

[liuzhou]

4 hours ago, Tri2Cook said:

That looks tasty. I made a mango habanero sauce to go with the jerk pork and chicken that's currently residing in my smoker and have plenty of mango left that I thought might find a good home in something like what's in that picture. Went straight to google and found absolutely nothing no matter how I typed it in. 

 

Yes, I know. I have tried to replicate the dish several times, and although I've come up with various approximations, I've never quite got there.

However, I did in my efforts fortuitously come up with a dish a like a lot. It's not at all like the one in that restaurant in taste. The restaurant dish is sweet from the mango. I came up with a sweet and sour version using Thai nam plah fish sauce for the 'sour' element. I have posted pictures in past dinner threads. Here is one version.

[Kim Shook]

Dinner tonight was my first try at cooking with my CSO (Cuisinart Steam Oven):

Incredibly moist, tender chicken thighs with the best, crispiest skin.  Served with yellow squash and onions, dressing and boiled potatoes.  And gravy:

 

Dessert was blackberries, strawberries and cherries - all from the farmer's market:

[HungryChris]

Try as I might, there seems to always be 1 or 2 zucchini that escapes detection until it is pretty big. Sure enough, I found one today and quickly  made it into stuffed zucchini to get rid of the evidence. I served it with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and herbed garden tomatoes.

HC

[Shelby]

Our air conditioner--which I've become convinced is possessed--decided to work yesterday.  No rhyme or reason, but I'll take it.  Anyway, it was cool enough to fry some chicken wings for dinner.

 

[Duvel]

Soooo ... as my wife and son are trying to escape the hot and sweltering Hong Kong summer (in currently equally hot and sweltering Catalunya) I am leading the life of a bachelor...

 

This allows me of course to give in to spontaneous cravings, induced by participating in the happy hour in a local watering hole and then having 30 min with my food-depraved brain alone with me on the ferry back from work. Thus, I stopped by the supermarket, got a pound of boneless chicken thighs and made ChiMek - Korean fried chicken and beer. Chicken marinated in ginger, garlic, mirin and salt, then coated with starch/flour sprinkled with little water droplets for that KFC effect. Fried and served with Gochujang honey sauce and mustard / sesame oil / honey sauce. 

 

Oh yeah, and SoMek - soju and beer - just because of Bachelorhood 😋

 

 

(I count the days they come back)

Edited July 23, 2018 by Duvel (log)

[liamsaunt]

still on vacation so keeping the cooking simple, made BELTs with Nesuke's bacon that I precooked and brought down frozen and the local delicious Bermuda tomatoes and onions.  I had to poach the eggs since I was making eight sandwiches at once--worked out well.