Yes, I am Asian. I only cook Asian food 1/2 the time though.

I like the edge to edge cheese of that Pizza. Reminiscent of a round Detroit style.

Had to google Do-Si-Dos, never had it and I don’t think I’d like them. Thin Mints however are very good.

btc,

Samoas #1, Thin Mints #2, everything else mostly irrelevant.

Do it

Looks good miajag! I tried that once too, easy as advertised.

Amoeba, others said it already I found myself in a blind wine-tasting yesterday, ended up being strong Bordeaux-wines. Anyway I brought a Shaoxing wine (one weirder drink before the main stuff), had been ordered a bottle when visited China. Producer was Zhejiang Gu Yue Long Shan Shaoxing Wine, was 14% alc, huadiaojiu, age was not specified. Tasters did not guess what it was and were not overly impressed haha. Was like 60$ at airport, there was one pricier bottle, kinda bummed I did not get it but was last minute and yuans already spent. I did not think it was bad, but yeah guess your bottle might be a bit better

Btc, did you post a recipe on the baguettes? Would love to get a result close to that one, just beautiful.

I dont know how good my bottle is. Its only $20 for 500ml. If its not terribly enjoyable, I will probably cook with it.

I think Chinese liquor has some of the highest fake markups around. Thousand dollar bottles of Moutai thats basically clear grain alchohol. The fake market on French wines in China is also pretty ridiculous.

The high end Chinese food market is also filled with things that just dont taste that great ( shark fin, bird's nest, sea cucumber, various penii.....)

On the other hand, there are some upper mid level products that are really good and largely unused in the west ( cured hams, dried abalone, dried scallop, fish milt, crab milt, crab roe).

Too bad did not get to try a lot of those things out. Ate mostly arrenged stuff that was made for westerners doh. Did have a couple of interesting and very good meals. One place middle of nowhere, did not share a language but just pointed at things and fishes straight from tank.

Looking forward to pics of Shaoxing dish!

Wild pizza's from southern Italy

forssell, i'll post the baguette recipe later.

audibly chortled when i saw this....i hope they lived up to at least half of your expectations.

yeah, this ...and it's not even very close.

Since we're talking about ready made products, the pao de quiejo from Costco were these

https://brazibites.com

They aren't as good as those from a Brazillian restaurant but they're pretty good.

Definitely, given I’m a Pop Chips fan. I like kettle chips but I’m not a fan of greasy chips and pop chips reduce that. The ruffled pop adds a mix texture. Than cheddar/sour cream is a nice flavor combo. Favorite is something that combines vinegar and hot like peperoncini or that spicy dill pickle but this is a great change from that.

Also picked this up at the local grocery store.

Finished off the rest of the baguette dough


Here's the straight dough version of my 2 loaf recipe. If you know what a starter is, then you know how to substitute it in. Same for adding other grains. If you don't, then not to worry you'll still get plenty of flavor and stability.:

Ingredients
.25 cup bread flour
1.5 cups ap flour
.75 heaping tsp salt
.5 tsp instant yeast
.8 cups warm water
honey or sugar, optional
Extra flour and cornmeal for dusting

Equipment
Big mixing bowl
Baking sheet
Oven safe pan with water
Kitchen towel
Plastic wrap
Foil

Preparation
Grab the big mixing bowl and make sure it fits comfortably in your fridge. If it does, proceed. If not, find one that does.

Add all dry ingredients to the bowl

Add warm water with optional honey or sugar dissolved in and stir the mixture for a few mins until there is a wet, sticky blob that just barely pulls away from the sides and bottom of the bowl with each move.

Cover with clear wrap and rest on the counter for 45 mins.

Uncover, stretch and fold the dough with moist hands, grabbing an edge, pulling it up towards your face, then putting it down to the middle of the mass. Rotate the bowl and repeat this 4-8 times until you have something that resembles a dough ball. Sticky is good.

Cover with clear wrap and rest on the counter for 45 mins.

Uncover, stretch and fold the dough with moist hands, grabbing an edge, pulling it up towards your face, then putting it down to the middle of the mass. Rotate the bowl and repeat this 4-8 times until you have something that resembles a dough ball. Sticky is good.

Cover with clear wrap and rest on the counter for 45 mins.

Uncover, stretch and fold the dough with moist hands, grabbing an edge, pulling it up towards your face, then putting it down to the middle of the mass. Rotate the bowl and repeat this 4-8 times until you have something that resembles a dough ball. Sticky is good.

Cover with clear wrap and refrigerate for at least 18 hrs up to 60 hrs for more flavor and airy crumb.

A few hours before baking, remove from the fridge. Uncover, the dough should be about doubled in size. Carefully move the stickiness from bowl to lightly floured work surface.

Spread the dough into a rectangle, divide in two squares. If necessary, lightly dust the dough with flour to keep it from sticking to you or the work surface.

Roll up each square into a jellyroll log and move both to a floured surface.

Cover with clear wrap and rest for ~1.5 hrs

Press each log down into a flat rectangle and form the baguettes with your preferred shaping technique.

Move them seam side down to a foiled-lined baking sheet that’s been dusted with cornmeal. Make sure there’s enough room in between to allow for some rise.

Cover loosely with a lightly floured kitchen towel to final proof and use the foil box to keep the loaves separated down the middle of the pan. This will keep the shape as well.

Put the oven safe pan full of water on the bottom rack in the oven and position another rack in the middle. Preheat 475f-500f depending on how hot your oven gets.

Finger test the proofed baguettes by poking lightly and observing how much spring remains. If it recovers back slowly after poking, it’s ready to go.

Score with a sharp blade 3-4 times, about 1” deep. If you want to get the ears, slice on an angle otherwise just cut straight down.

Tent the loaves with foil.

Carefully open the oven with your face away from the door so you don’t get blasted with steam and bake on the middle rack for 25-35 minutes depending on how hot your oven is. Remove the tent after the initial few minutes, and also rotate the sheet pan half way through. If you want to measure the internal temp it should be 205-210 when done with 3 colors on the top crust at the score.

Let cool for a few minutes...

Whole Foods had decent, not great, wild coho on sale for $9.99/lb. Sous vide it at 115 for 30 mins then seared the skin. With horseradish mashed potatoes and veggies made on the grill. Great spring dinner.

Thanks for the recipe, btc. It seems slightly intimidating for a non baker like me but I would like to give it a try sometimes.

Nice salmon,KJS, i like the sear on the veggies.

Kjs: looks and sounds excellent. Especially horseradish mashed potatoes!

Fellow non-amoeba cooks: don’t despair, we can make tasty stuff too!

This doesn’t look like anything special, but damn was it good.

Pork loin roast ($5.99 lb @ wf) rubbed in brown sugar, salt, spices and sous vide @ 132 for 90 min:


Put a quick sear on it - butter, garlic, thyme:


Went with my standby sweet potato side, topped with some sour cream/garlic/green onion:


This is so easy and so cheap, anyone can do it!

My first souffle in years.

Used a handheld blender with a whisk attachment. There was no low power setting so the meringue wasn't properly uniform and there were visible large gaps but I wasn't gonna whisk by hand. (staying in a temporary home in DC with KitchenAid in NYC). I microwaved some bittersweet chocolate with a little water and folded the syrup, after about 2 minutes in the freezer, into the meringue.

Looks like I didn't butter the cup properly. The sides were stuck and didn't rise properly. Still, pretty pleased with texture and taste inside.

El D & Griz,

Great looking stuff! I could eat a dozen of those souffles right now.

Gotta keep amoeba on his toes.

El D, how long do you sear it for? Last time I tried it, i had a lot more greyband.

Also, I have realized that using a spice rub can give you a nice char/crust with less risk of greybanding because spices give illusion of crust without actual protein crusting (coffee rubbed steaks, steak au poive, blacked fish, etc...) I think I should have spice rubbed the last time I did your sv pork loin recipe.

Grizy, that looks great. Souffle is one of those things that I have yet to try as it involves baking, whisking, and folding.

Its interesting that BGP brought up Eat Drink, Man Woman.

That opening scene has some fantastically accurate cooking footage.



Total kill count : 1 duck, at least 1 fish, multiple frogs, 1 possibly 2 chickens (young chicken for the meat, likely an old hen for the soup only).

Technique wise its super accurate too, from the cross scoring of the squid to the inflation of the duck followed by scalding with boiling water.

Btc, thanks! Yeah never did the stretching more than once, did see on some vid recently, maybe that helps along with all the other pointers. Pretty sure will fail first, but gotta keep trying.

@grizy, nice souffle. Corn souffle is probably my favorite side dish, especially served with some really good bbq. Have you ever tried that?

@forssell, @amoeba, @everyone, would love to see your results. I didn't describe how to form the final baguette, assuming you would watch a video. But if you want an easy method to follow, let me know.

Bought these for the first time based on thread rec.

I like the texture and non-greasiness a lot, but kettle pepperocini flavor is far superior!

What other Ridge flavors are must trys?

No. What do you eat it with? Got a recommended recipe?

Grizy: I bet he eats it with bbq. Or a spoon. I really like corn soufflé too. And corn flan. And corn soup. And cornbread. I guess I really like corn.

Amoeba: seared maybe a minute each top/bottom and thirty seconds around each side. Not doing a real sear like a steak, just getting a little color and crust. My main priority is to keep that sous vide juicy tenderness intact.