Breaking out the big guns today (the Feng He and Habhal’s are two types of dark soy sauce I can’t get here. They have a different flavor and texture to the Chinese, Thai and Indonesian dark soy sauces I can sometimes find).
My kitchen runs on Feng He and Habhal’s for when we want to make Malaysian Chinese or Malaysian Malay or Malaysian Indian dishes. I cart them back in my luggage!
The LKK supreme soy sauce is my light soy sauce of choice for Chinese food. It’s available here #Food#Cooking
Here is the smoked coho salmon ready to leave the smoker. 😋
The new controlled worked great! The old one ran about 25F under the settings using the internal thermometer. The new one runs about 5F under the setting using the same internal thermometer.
Old was was built on a Monday or Friday? And poorly calibrated?
I asked my Vietnamese Teochew friend if they also had ‘ou png’ (芋头饭, taro rice) and she said yes. I wasn’t sure if it was a Singapore / Malaysia thing. Anyway, that’s what I was needing to make today to have a taste of home.
I made this pasta bake- spinach, butternut squash, dried pasta broken into pieces, lots of cheese, herbs. it smells good and looks nice ... haven't cut into it yet; still letting it set.
Dried goods are essential in southern Chinese cooking. They impart a touch of luxury and umami to the dishes. Here’s how you use them:
Buy them from a Chinatown shop specializing in dried goods (you’ll know when you see a shop that only has dried mushrooms, scallops, beancurd etc): it’ll be better quality than stuff even at Asian grocers
Soak them in warm water for 30 min
Slice them up and put them in whatever
Add the mushroom water to any soups or stews or congee
For @mitch_deadberg - we wanted to show you how we make South Indian Filter Coffee! This coffee (a 80:20 mixture of coffee / chicory) is made with a metal filter. This filter makes enough for about 2 times but can be found in bigger sizes. You put about 2-4 tbsp of coffee depending on how strong you want it. You place the metal plunger on top, pour the water and then let the decoction brew. It usually takes about a half hour.
People in the Netherlands! I'm looking for concord grapes, which are a bit too niche for Jumbo or AH. Where should I go to find them in and around Amsterdam? #netherlands#cooking
Used my new cookbook yesterday, by @Kon & his mum. My dishes didn’t look as amazing as the photos in his lovely book, but tasted great. Zucchini salad surprisingly tasty. #Cooking#Vegetarian
Weird question of the night:
Anyone know if there is a good way to make green tea ice cream without matcha? I can't have caffeine (and yes tea counts in this regard) so I don't keep things like matcha around and don't want to buy a whole thing of decaf match (if that even exists). Is there a way to use loose leaf (decaf) green (or tea bags)?
One of the really interesting things about moving to Germany is the difference in my career. I'm not talking about how often 30 year olds have to retire from industry in the US because their bodies have deteriorated just that much. I now have worked with cooks in their 50s WITH GOUT. It's really not much slower here either. Just Mandated workers rights mean the industry is kinder. Kinda. I DIGRESS.
What's really really different is expectation. In the US I was given a recipe. I was expected to follow that and still a lot if cooks made mistakes. I built my career. I studied at home. Practiced at home. This made me an expert American cook but only a passable European one.
The expectation in Europe is that I can make a Bechamel, I can make dough, I can make Bolognese etc etc. There is no recipe. Just the expectation that I know it or have the resources to do so. Also Germans tend to prefer quality over quantity and Americans are reversed from this but not like completely opposite. So like these are my recipes now. No job is allowed to ask them. They could pay me for them but I'd not be willing to. I've improved dramatically.
Now I watch American professionals on YouTube or something and just want to scream. "Your roux is too oily" or they add black pepper in a cream sauce or add their tomato paste at the wrong time. I'd get reamed by German directness and European style kitchen management, if I made these mistakes.
I've improved dramatically because being a good cook, a very important part of my identity, is a much much higher expectation. It's creation instead of the expectation of high turnover and inadequacy in training. I see now why great cooks come to Europe to train. America Culinary doesn't present competition with Deutsche Gastronomie.
You can find the answer to the age-old question "What's for dinner?" in the Mealtime Magic Magazine, which has over 1000 recipes from @xoxoBella and 50+ food bloggers. Dig in!
I made this salad for dinner and Matt loved it so much that he ate enough to give himself heartburn. Parker likes it too. No photo because Matt started eating so quickly that I couldn't get one and my bowl looked really gross LOL #cooking https://foodetal.link/2023/09/01/taco-like-salad-like-thing/