1. Attachments are working again! Check out this thread for more details and to report any other bugs.

... I'm not going out to eat, anymore ~

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by asjoseph, Jan 26, 2023.

  1. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2004
    8,972
    3,501
    0
    Location:
    Kunming Yunnan China
    Vehicle:
    2001 Prius
    "people sitting within about 10 rows of me suffered"

    Vampires, the lot of them.

    ==
    Peking duck always cooked over wood fire, so what more could you have done?

    Some Yunnan duck I had was fired but also smoked with ropes (essentially) of pine needles. Very tasty, but pine needles are very good collectors of atmospheric pollution. So it should not be part of daily diet. Like mercurial tuna...
     
    #61 tochatihu, Jan 31, 2023
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2023
  2. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

    Joined:
    May 12, 2018
    6,687
    6,375
    1
    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Vehicle:
    2018 Prius c
    Model:
    Two
    Once I tried it that way I knew it was the real deal. Yet every Chinese restaurant in America makes it meat-free and uses it to headline the vegetarian section. I don't get it.

    My very favorite dish from China is Xinjian style lamb with cumin. I haven't really attempted copying it at home yet, still working up my courage.

    When I was in Singapore last fall I enjoyed everything I ate. Tight work schedule put real limits on the exploration; only got one shot at hawker stalls but I made it count full chop.
     
  3. hkmb

    hkmb Senior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2010
    279
    1,855
    0
    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    Vehicle:
    Other Non-Hybrid
    Model:
    N/A
    Almost certainly.

    Actually, most of them were the Chinese team for the Asian Games. There was this shot-putter behind me who I really didn't want to make angry.

    Yes, it was all about authenticity.

    That sounds delicious, but, as you say, perhaps best reserved for the occasional treat. Did it give it like a eucalyptusy taste?
     
  4. hkmb

    hkmb Senior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2010
    279
    1,855
    0
    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    Vehicle:
    Other Non-Hybrid
    Model:
    N/A
    That is weird. But I suppose most non-Asian people still think of tofu as being for the vegetarians. Perhaps there is no point in trying to sell the meaty version.

    You mentioned the old-school "family-style tofu". There are still Chinese restaurants in small country towns in Australia that do that sort of thing - along with sesame prawn toast and other such delights. In Sydney and Melbourne, because of the very high numbers of Chinese students, you get proper Chinese food.

    Do you mean the one that also comes with strips of fried flatbread in it? I love that one. Or the one that's just lamb and peppers and onions and stuff? I love that one too. Or the kebabs? Predictably, I also love them.

    I'm glad you did. To go to Singapore and not take full advantage of the food would have been a disaster.

    I go for work quite a lot, but the two stopovers going to and from Britain over the last few weeks were my first visits since the Covid pause. I think it may be my favourite place to eat in the world. It was my daughter's birthday while we were there, and she asked to do a crawl around the best hawker centres. I was very proud of her.

    I chose my hotel because it was close to the People's Park hawker centre, which is my favourite. It's a remarkably ugly place even by hawker-centre standards, at the bottom of a public-housing estate. Most dishes cost S$3-6 (US$2-4). But as we were crossing the car-park entrance, the cars in the queue to get in were a Rolls-Royce Phantom, a Ferrari LaFerrari, and (the pauper) a Bentley Continental.
     
  5. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2004
    8,972
    3,501
    0
    Location:
    Kunming Yunnan China
    Vehicle:
    2001 Prius
    Yes, but terpenes is the preferred term
     
  6. hkmb

    hkmb Senior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2010
    279
    1,855
    0
    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    Vehicle:
    Other Non-Hybrid
    Model:
    N/A
    I am shocked that the term in academic circles is not "like, eucalyptusy".
     
  7. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

    Joined:
    May 12, 2018
    6,687
    6,375
    1
    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Vehicle:
    2018 Prius c
    Model:
    Two
    The middle one, the lamb/pepper/onion dry stir-fry.

    Those others sound equally lovely though...

    Tonight I'm oven-roasting a wild sockeye that spent some time frozen. Traditional Alaskan seasonings for me: salt smoked with alder wood, a smidge each of ginger and cumin, and some dill weed.
     
    hkmb likes this.
  8. hkmb

    hkmb Senior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2010
    279
    1,855
    0
    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    Vehicle:
    Other Non-Hybrid
    Model:
    N/A
    Remind me to pop round to your house at a mealtime one day.
     
  9. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2004
    8,972
    3,501
    0
    Location:
    Kunming Yunnan China
    Vehicle:
    2001 Prius
    Eucalyptus merely means 'well covered'. Terpene name was derived from a Greek tree name that probably smelled 'thata way'. Neither term is ... well ... elegant. There are many thousand terpenes including rubber tree sap which is not at all a cooking ingredient.
     
  10. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2004
    8,972
    3,501
    0
    Location:
    Kunming Yunnan China
    Vehicle:
    2001 Prius
    I'll bring a bag of cricket flour
     
  11. hkmb

    hkmb Senior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2010
    279
    1,855
    0
    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    Vehicle:
    Other Non-Hybrid
    Model:
    N/A
    When I googled terpenes, most of the first page was about drugs.
     
  12. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2004
    8,972
    3,501
    0
    Location:
    Kunming Yunnan China
    Vehicle:
    2001 Prius
    Cannabis seems do very well in search-engine algorithms.

    It was Kekule BTW that decided to terp that entire class of chemicals. He famously dreamt of a snake swallowing its tail, and so realized the structure of benzene.

    Drugs invoked there also? Bwa haha
     
    hkmb likes this.
  13. hkmb

    hkmb Senior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2010
    279
    1,855
    0
    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    Vehicle:
    Other Non-Hybrid
    Model:
    N/A
    Going back to the subject of the somewhat disingenuous original post, even though I was born in England and live in Australia, I would much rather eat cricket than watch cricket. It is the shark's fin of sport, weirdly prestigious but astonishingly boring.
     
  14. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

    Joined:
    May 12, 2018
    6,687
    6,375
    1
    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Vehicle:
    2018 Prius c
    Model:
    Two
    Thank you, my friend... I'd never heard of Uyghur flatbread before. Now absorbing some recipes....

    I recently bought a wood-burning mini pizza oven for the backyard. I have used it to make the obvious Italian staple but I've also done homemade naan and Georgian khachapuri with the thing. I think I just got a new goal on my bake list!

    Screen Shot 2023-01-31 at 6.48.42 PM.png
     
  15. hkmb

    hkmb Senior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2010
    279
    1,855
    0
    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    Vehicle:
    Other Non-Hybrid
    Model:
    N/A
    It's a bit like Afghan bread, but usually a bit thicker and heavier. But if I'm making the cumin lamb and flatbread stir-fry here, I usually just substitute Lebanese bread, as it makes the whole dish a bit lighter.

    There's a variation of it that you get in other, Han and Hui, parts of North-West China where they paint it with a paintbrush, with lamb fat and cumin, before barbecuing it.
     
  16. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2004
    8,972
    3,501
    0
    Location:
    Kunming Yunnan China
    Vehicle:
    2001 Prius
    Oh Man! an Ooni oven! Bringing two bags of crickets.
     
  17. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

    Joined:
    May 12, 2018
    6,687
    6,375
    1
    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Vehicle:
    2018 Prius c
    Model:
    Two
    Ha! I actually went for one of its no-name lookalikes. I picked it because it has an electric rotating platter. I'd seen too many people struggle with those ooni things, working to rotate the food before something burnt. I already have a rotisserie setup for the grill, so this seemed quite natural.

    Screen Shot 2023-01-31 at 7.00.26 PM.png

    Recent produce from that gadget
     
    hkmb likes this.
  18. hkmb

    hkmb Senior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2010
    279
    1,855
    0
    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    Vehicle:
    Other Non-Hybrid
    Model:
    N/A
    That looks very impressive
     
  19. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2004
    8,972
    3,501
    0
    Location:
    Kunming Yunnan China
    Vehicle:
    2001 Prius
  20. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

    Joined:
    May 12, 2018
    6,687
    6,375
    1
    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Vehicle:
    2018 Prius c
    Model:
    Two
    I could see blending cricket flour into a pizza crust or other flatbread. I'd have to experiment with it a bit. Such a high protein count means I'd have to cut it against some other flours to keep the same baking properties.

    But I see promise.