food =[ GM's Far East, Indian, and Moroccan Heat ]=

grantmichaels

grantmichaels

I am on a mission to crawl cuisine from the Far East and I'd love to see what other people fix ...

I set my OCD loose on loose leaf tea, then microbrews, then single lot coffee, and then curry dishes, and now it's going to be food from the other side of the Pacific ...

For one, I love thai chili peppers and other peppers typical to that region ... I bought a number of types of chili pepper plants that I'm growing this summer to improve my experience w/ all of this ...

Also, I love wontons and dumplings ... it's a thing for me, I guess, so I thought I'd get some reference material and get started this weekend ...



There are a lot of salad dishes that I like from over yonder as well, and part of my motivation is to widen my skill set on making dressings from scratch and to have a lot of salad generally speaking ...

The other night I got started ...



There was some sesame ginger dressing on this one, not homemade, and not as good as sesame oil and sriracha either ...

I was also missing scallions ...



It was still good.

Tonight I wanted to improve upon my last effort.

It began w/ a test ...



Concept. Approved.

Ready the bits ...



I laid the ingredients out in nice lines, but you can't tell because i got all jiggy with the scallion shreds and sriracha =)









I'm really happy to begin my crawl of this type of cuisine ... please feel free to hijack the thread for a while if you want to rock out with your santoku out ...

Who knows ... maybe I'll learn to appreciate sashimi before it's done ...
 
Your salad looks delicious!

I'd recommend the Hunan and Sichuan cookbooks by Fuchsia Dunlop; they're full of mostly spicy Chinese recipes. If you have any Chinese language skill, it's also easy to find spicy recipes on Chinese cooking sites and blogs.

Hot Sour Salty Sweet is a good SE Asian cookbook to start with, as it gives a good overview.

Good Thai blogs I follow are Shesimmers and Taste of Siam. Don't skip the fish sauce!
 
Thanks for the great info!

The dumpling filling was made w/ fish sauce and fresh chopped ginger and lemongrass, and it seems like I'm going to need to pick up a bottle of oyster sauce to have on hand ...

I was divided on wok's and ordered an enameled cast-iron one (was like 50% discounted at Amazon for accepting it in bright orange finish) ...

Maybe I'll pick up a steel one later, too ...

It's going to be fun!

PS - Next mission is to visit a handful of Asian stores in town - because it would appear I'm going to need some various rice flour and rice vinegars etc ...

Thanks for your input, I'm about to add those blogs to my feed reader ...
 
My wife throws thai peppers in pretty much everything even though it seems like Indian food is our mainstay these days. We're growing Thai Hot, Thai Dragon, and Thai Demon peppers this year. I don't have recipes handy but I'm a big fan of Pad Thai, Som Tom (Green Papaya Salad), Kao Pad Ga Prow, Pineapple Fried Rice, Mussaman Curry, and any coconut curry. Kung Pao Chicken is good too but it's mostly Thai food I'm familiar with, and probably because the Chinese and Japanese don't use enough chili.

grantmichaels said:
Thanks for the great info!

The dumpling filling was made w/ fish sauce and fresh chopped ginger and lemongrass, and it seems like I'm going to need to pick up a bottle of oyster sauce to have on hand ...

I was divided on wok's and ordered an enameled cast-iron one (was like 50% discounted at Amazon for accepting it in bright orange finish) ...

Maybe I'll pick up a steel one later, too ...

It's going to be fun!

PS - Next mission is to visit a handful of Asian stores in town - because it would appear I'm going to need some various rice flour and rice vinegars etc ...

Thanks for your input, I'm about to add those blogs to my feed reader ...
Click to expand...

You might try Indian stores too if you have any nearby. They would normally have rice flour and vinegar, oyster sauce, etc. although obviously an Asian market is probably where you want to go if you're diving into Asian food. :P

P.S. - Samosas are delicious!
 
grantmichaels said:
I was divided on wok's and ordered an enameled cast-iron one (was like 50% discounted at Amazon for accepting it in bright orange finish) ...

Maybe I'll pick up a steel one later, too ...
Click to expand...
Do you have a really high BTU stove (like 50,000+ per burner, preferably open burners)? If not, I'd seriously suggest using a nonstick skillet instead. Woks need a lot of open flame to work properly for stir-fry. For steaming, though, they're great.

grantmichaels said:
PS - Next mission is to visit a handful of Asian stores in town - because it would appear I'm going to need some various rice flour and rice vinegars etc ...
Click to expand...

Oh, the stocking up you'll have to do! Especially if you're going to cook multinational east and southeast Asian food. My advice: look for ingredients not from mainland China wherever possible. Taiwan health and safety standards are much higher. Also, spend the extra money on a more expensive Shaoxing wine. And if you can find it, Wan Jia Shan — based in NY, of all places! — makes the best soy sauce, particularly their aged soy.
 
There will be much steaming, and less frying - not a huge fan of frying inside at home =)

All of the info is greatly appreciated ...
 
I've run into photobucket hell, I'm afraid.

I hadn't used subfolders to date there, and I've hit their capabilities limit for the general "library" in terms of total pics (2.7k and the API refuses uploads saying you have more than 1k) ...

So, I'm posting my Asian sammie from the other day here because I sorted the photos into a subfolder specifically for this thread ... I deleted it from my other thread ...

So, here's my April 20th Asian sammie ...













Looking forward to moving from ciabatta to authentic rolls and dumplings etc =)
 
I think I hinted at it when the month turned, but my concept of Sloppy Joe's is super eccentric ... it's almost obscene by most peoples standards I realize, I guess ...

So ... my family is from the northeast, and Sloppy Joe's to a microcosm of folks in those parts are not beef sandwiches on a bun (that's what we would call Manwich) ... but rather ...

They are more like club sammies I suppose ... turkey and roast beef and swiss and tomato and coleslaw on rye w/ at least three pieces of bread and cut into sections held by tooth picks ...

I was going to make some, but I never got around to it ...

Feel free to Google Millburn Deli Sloppy Joe's for an example, but yeah, for folks from Short Hills, Orange, Maplewood etc - Sloppy Joe's are a different beast altogether =)
 
Planted 19x Pan-Asian Chili seedlings today to support this mission this summer ...





I pinched hardcore ... these are going to be fun planters right up front in my space ...
 
Alright ... I've been iterating on this one ... here's where things are at so far ... there's still room for improvement, but we're in the ballpark ...





















getting there ...
 
Is that ginger or galangal? Also how's that rada cleaver treating you? I have a santoku that's still pretty useful for the $.
 
Dorkasaurus said:
Is that ginger or galangal? Also how's that rada cleaver treating you? I have a santoku that's still pretty useful for the $.
Click to expand...

Picked up that cleaver for under $6, figure it's like a disposable right? ... Am curious to see how long it lasts until it needs sharpening, and then, if it sharpens or not (or if you just replace) ... I use that model for gas grills because of the salty air. Buying a new $135 grill every 18 months seems to work out better than buying nicer grills every 5 in these parts ...

Cheers!
 
Looking good there,  If you use a wok much get a good hand made one with a lid and get a couple good steamer baskets you can use a hibachi for a heat source, If you use the cleaver much for chopping through chicken or smaller beef bones, I would get a good heavy forged steel one, it will last forever and will sharpen easily. oh and when you get several recipes that you like take a road trip and come visit me, I haven't had a descent Asian meal like forever, where I live in Missouri you talk about Asian food,  people look at you like your crazy, really people there are other foods than sweet and sour chicken. God how I miss the West Coast.
 
Well, it took a couple of years to get the time for this, but it's here ...

I'm about to try to find out a lot about Asian cuisine, mostly to infuse more options that are lighter fare ...

I've got a bunch of powder, a well-stocked pantry, some new equipment, and am about to start the garden back up ...

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1423440589.647203.jpg


Something w/ duck will go down soon, because I need to use it up before it expires.
 
Thai-style shrimp and noodles (spaghetti):
 
Red curry paste
Shrimp
Spaghetti noodles
Coconut milk
Snow Peas
Fish sauce
Garlic/ginger paste
 
This was a Retta-inspired dish. It brought the heat.....but was mild enough for her......
 

 

 

 

 
She appreciated it so much.......that there are no pictures of it on a plate..... :party:
 
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