The food and drink forum blog thread.

[mortlock]

i got into a jar of these. good af!!

[Muffin Man]

I was looking in the cupboard tonight for pickled jalapeno! Really missed 'em. Needed a single whole one, for the hot dog/sauasge platter. I'll grab a can, or those, if I see 'em. Usually I get the canned ones, dark and soggy with the carrots chips.

[RAGER]

I still have pickled serranos I made so those work good but yeah the Embasa brand jalapeños y zanahorias en escabeche are the shit.


Finally burned through all the leftovers from T day. Last batch f carcass stock on the stove right now. One leg stashed in the freeze. Time to get back to some light and spicy Thai fare.  Although I am gonna braise some short ribs in coconut milk today.

[RAGER]

Last night was coconut braised short ribs, garlic sticky rice with nam jim jaew and nam prik pao.

[Lumpy]

Are the short ribs in that photo? Under the green onions?

Are those smashed cucumbers?

Back in like 2000, I was looking for new recipes, and I saw a recipe for braised pork shoulder in coconut milk and fish sauce. It was like a 9 pound pork shoulder, 4 cans of coconut milk, and a quarter cup of fish sauce (something like that), cook it in a pot on the stove for like 6 hours (there were probably some other ingredients but those were the main ones). It was good, but super strong and funky. The fish sauce made the pork taste 'gamey' and the coconut milk added a sweetness and richness that was kind of... odd in that combination. Tasty but intense, and I had 9 pounds of meat (well, like 6-7 pounds minus the bones) and I was just one person who was supposed to eat it all. It wasn't something I wanted to eat an entire plate of, or eat every day, but I made a valiant effort because I hate to waste food. By the end of the week or so, I had to throw part of it away, and I never made anything with fish sauce again. And I didn't buy another pork shoulder for like 5 years, the idea of pork shoulder had become revolting  (kind of a drag because they are cheap and popular here - in every market - because of the large Dominican and Puerto Rican populations here). I had bought like a fifth of fish sauce (big bottle - great new ingredient I'm going to use all the time!) and a few years later I poured the rest of it down the drain (it does have a limited shelf life) which I was scared to do, thinking it would stink up the whole house (it didn't).

I think the lesson here is don't make a giant batch of food you're not prepared to eat a lot of, every day. Looking back, I should have frozen most of it and eaten it in small batches, but it was still a fuck-ton of funky, gamey pork. That would have taken up half my little Brooklyn freezer.

[RAGER]

Beef short ribs are deboned and under the scallions. Still have a little left. Probably for dinner tonight. Super rich.

I use fish sauce a lot of course. Have 4 kinds on hand I think. I have to get some fermented fish sauce. It's a bit different and used in northern Thai and Laotian cooking. Super funky and a little chunky. I might have to send away for the right stuff.

I need to hit up the Asian stores this week as I'm running low on some stuff. I have to go by myself because I treat it like a library visit. I'll look at ingredients and reference on my phone and check recipes and articles then decipher if it's the right stuff with google translate.  I'll be in the an hour. It drives my wife crazy.

But she's that way with plant nurseries. She'll wander around just looking and touching and smelling. Might not even buy anything!?!?  Luckily there's a bottle shop and taproom a few blocks from one of the nurseries so I just hang out there while she does her thing.

/stories

[RAGER]

Just some fish sauce tasting n my Friday night cuz I'm exciting like that.

[Lumpy]

How they make fish sauce

Smaller more traditional production (recipe starts around 3:00, entire video is 6:00)

Longer (24 minutes) but interesting video which starts with catching the fish:

[RAGER]

The small operation is probably good stuff. The bigger one maybe just puts whoever's label on it and has additives I'm thinking. Never mentioned a brand that I heard.

[Muffin Man]

Interesting video's.

Grocery store had some Thai brand sauce I almost bought (anchovy, salt, sugar) but the sugar turned me off for now. It had a nice dark color, though. I'm passing on the 3 Crabs for the same reason RAGER mentioned, additives, I try to avoid 'em.

My old go-to family Pho place had pretty rank smelling sauce, they claimed it was house made. They made the best broth so I tried the fish sauce - a bit much floating on top but stirred into into the broth, boom, did amazing things. Not so much Umami but the depth of flavor and blending with the broth. /newbie

ps. the grocery person said fish sauce a must for stir-fried shrimp rice. So that'll be one dish, Pho another, that I'll try. But first up, a Wok kit.

[RAGER]

Check out that link I left somewhere back there. Import Thai.com. They actually have a Pok Pok section.

Currently making a master batch of red curry paste.

[RAGER]

Now making batch of Szechuan chili oil.

Light Russian lunch today at Kachka.
30g Imperia vodka


A Baltika lager


Chicories


Red Bear salami board. I was good and didn't get any caviar.

[Muffin Man]

Thanks for that link, wok set looks great. Funny that Pok Pok came up today - I just returned the book to the library. And, that link told me, for the first time, what pok pok means! (it might have been in the book too)

Import food has some cool vids up.

https://www.youtube.com/user/ImportFood/videos

[RAGER]

Red gold.



Made goong ob woonsen for work lunch today.

It's got some flavor combinations I really like lately. Fresh ground white peppercorns, garlic and cilantro stems. Big chunks of ginger too. A little pork belly for good measure.

[mortlock]

amazing as usual. i love sea bugs of all kinds.

[RAGER]

My lunch prep this morning made me late for work.

Made sai ua sausage patties. The ground pork was lean so I had to add some pork belly which I had on hand.





Half of the pork I made ruan. It'll be for laap mu later


For a dip I made jaew mak len from Laos ??. It's pretty much salsa molcajete but with sugar and fish sauce.

Ground up in a mortar instead of a molcajete.


As a crunchy side I made a yum of cabbage and soy bean sprout base with some other stuff and dressed basically with nuoc cham. Paper plated at my desk. Stunk up the whole office ?. Fukn cracker asses.

[RAGER]

Last nights dinner was a quick and easy one. Szechuan spicy noods with ground pork and long beans.



If you need sound. https://i.imgur.com/LITWeJS.mp4

[Muffin Man]

Hahaha, sounds juicy. Now I know what I'm having for dinner snack! back later with my rendition (jpg only).

[Muffin Man]

attempt at Sichuanese green bean, over Tainan noodle. Needed more hot, plus Sichuan Peppercorn. Otherwise did the trick. Amazing what diced garlic and chili oil-red flakes in a hot pan does. Cashew in there.

(sorry terrible plating)

[RAGER]

Right on but I'll tell ya. Them prickly ash makes the dish. And go to the Asian store for long beans. Different texture. There's some different ways ingredients in the chili oil so you might to just buy the chili oil.

[Muffin Man]

I forgot to thank you for the inspiration - thanks! I'll get on that shopping list. The red oil flakes I have has prickly ash and black bean but its a mild one. I should be making my own like you do, so I'll see why I can do about that in 2020. Or maybe I'll buy some various jars, see what I like best and then back-engineer it.

[RAGER]

The stuff with the black soy beans is killer. I add those fermented beans to my chili oil sometimes for a little extra salt.

[Lumpy]

If something is described as Black Bean sauce, they are soy beans? Makes sense but it never dawned on me.

[Muffin Man]

Found a link on that, saying what RAGER already said. Another item for the grocery list, these whole ones:

https://thewoksoflife.com/fermented-black-beans/

[RAGER]

If something is described as Black Bean sauce, they are soy beans? Makes sense but it never dawned on me.

Yeah pretty sure.