thaidatingtravel’s Neighborhood

Well, what can you say? That is as tasty, and as good a feed as any creature could dream of.

I'm not that familiar with these things, but I've got a feeling that these lattice-style pastries might belong in the domain of desserts... Still, I decided to have a go at it, with this savory pie. It is essentially a quiche: eggs. With a few other things of course — some grated cheddar cheese, chopped scallions, even some finely diced lettuce (yeah, lettuce — quiches regularly feature spinach, so why not?), and various other things I came across.

Well this is an extremely artistic and clever picture — I am a very creative and artistic kind of a a guy. And clever. But not clever enough to actually operate this camera. Gah. Heh, it does look kinda good, though...

Salmon fillets, skinned and diced, dipped in seasoned flour, egg and finally seasoned panko bread crumbs. I used an Indian style curry seasoning. 'Twas pretty damn tasty, I must say.

Sautéed, grated onions were mixed into the meat along with salt and pepper. The patties were grilled over high heat on a charcoal grill, and the white potato bread was toasted. Lettuce, pickles, tomatoes and Thousand Island dressing. I've started to appreciate the simplicity a bit more, with bison meat — I want to actually taste the meat, not just the accouterments.

These suckers were stuffed with cilantro and basted with an oil and lime juice mixture, but it had absolutely no flavor impact at all. Grilling things can severely reduce the potency of the flavoring agents you add to your protein, but this really did catch me by surprise. I love grilling whole trouts, and I'll definetely do it again — but I've got to find a better way to infuse flavor into the thing.

The other bit is an improvised idea: Dutch Stamppot (mashed potatoes with root veggies such as carrots, turnips, and swedes) and Irish Colcannon (mashed potatoes with cabbage or kale, and ham). Mashed potatoes and carrots, with spinach, scallions and garlic.

It would have been excellent — except I over salted it. I hate doing that. It's such a damn trivial mistake. You can always add salt at the table. Adding too much salt during the cooking process is a damn stupid thing to do, and I really get upset when I do it. I'm seriously considering putting a label on the stove that just saying "SALT," to help me keep this simple notion in mind when I'm cooking.

Was going to use commercial puff pastry, but ended up with puff pastry cups, rather than sheets... So I had to make my own faux puff pastry. It has been a while since I've done this, and I ended up mixing it too much, grinding the butter down too much. So it wasn't nearly as puffy as it should have been. But it was still fairly decent.

The recipe calls for sliced red onions and garlic to be cooked in a separate pan, and then mixed in with fresh herbs. The suggested herbs were, specifically: basil, thyme and parsley. I can't grow parsley, but basil and thyme, yeah — we've got that. So that's it.

At least I sorta figured out why the camera's flash wasn't going off. Heh.

This was actually supposed to be a red curry (ie., with a stew-like consistency) but I had to improvise quite a bit since I ran out of certain ingredients. It was supposed to use only red curry paste, but I had to supplement it with some green paste, which is much, much hotter. Then I had to adjust with additional coconut milk and also water, and a prolonged cooking period to reduce the hotness. Very improvised, and a bit embarrassing. But it did taste great.

I think I've seen recipes that combines the red and green pastes, and that I might have cooked a dish like that. Whether I have or not, those two pastes actually creates a really interesting taste.

Sorpotel comes from the same spot as the Vindaloo: the former Portugese colony and current-day hippie hangout of Goa (hey, the Beatles went there, even). It is traditionally made with pork innards, which I avoided. There's a broccoli dish that I can't remember. And of course, raita. Ugh, this doesn't look too good.

Dagnabbit, that doesn't look good at all. It tasted great though. I've been making Szechuan chicken and Kung Pao chicken (there's a certain overlap) for a long time, and decided to try it with shrimp. It worked a treat, even if it doesn't look too impressive.