Our final Sichuan jour fixe with 14 eager chile heads. Most dishes coulda used more heat for my taste, but everything was very good nonetheless.
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What are all those delectable looking gems? I’m impressed!
Bravo! Love your pan and it will love you back!
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What did you think of the bourbon? We did a taste test between several bourbons that I don’t recall but likely Angel’s Envy, Buffalo Trace, Bulleit and the Costco one. I found it a bit rough for sipping but perfect for Pine Cones (bourbon and lemonade which sounds terrible but really quite good).
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Plan was to eat leftovers, but sis secretly circumvented that as it’s Wednesday and one of only two days a week that her favorite dish (Khichda) is made at one of our family stand-by restaurants (also my favorite biryani place).
She doesn’t like their bread, though, so I ordered from another spot and decided to do my own secret circumventing by ordering chicken biryani along with the rotis.
So, the Khichda. This is an Indian Muslim dish made of a mix of grains and pulses that are soaked, cooked overnight with mutton (goat) and its broth, and finished the next day and eaten for breakfast or lunch or as many meals as it will last. It’s nutritious and delicious, but a real labor of love.
One of my dad’s colleagues’ homes is where we learned to eat it — when his mother (and later wife) were going to make it, we would be invited over along with the extended family. I didn’t care for the dish much as a child, but the community and fun surrounding the event is still vivid in my memory.
It’s eaten either on it’s own like porridge, or with chapatis or thin flatbreads called Rumali roti — literal translation “handkerchief-like bread”. The most common ones are large (maybe 18”?) but I found smaller ones recently so we’ve been eating those.
The biryani was good. Not as good as my fave, but much better than I expected from a random place I found for the roti 
Mom was on the road to tomato cheese toast on her favorite garlic bread, but the mention of Rumali roti tempted her, so I ordered some fresh paneer and made her a light and gently spiced Kathi Roll — sautéed a bit of onion, tomato, and garlic, scant powdered spices for a bit more flavor, added the paneer just to warm through, and finally a few drops of chutney and a sprinkle of chaat masala for a bit of zing. I carefully rolled up the rumali roti around a thin line of filling so it wouldn’t tear, and served it in foil so it wouldn’t fall apart while eating .
(I can’t resist fresh paneer, so “some” of it may have disappeared while I was making mom’s dinner 
)
ETA: Traditional toppings for khichda are birista (deep fried onions that you know from biryani), onion, mint, and lemon.
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From bottom to top:
- garlic cukes - a personal fave, but it’s like choosing your favorite cat: impossible, and why bother?
, - eggplant w/soy sauce (a new dish we tried, kinda meh),
- dry fried green beans
- garlic eggplant
- mapo tofu
- chongqing chicken
- salt-baked shrimp
- Sichuan bok choy
- fish dry pot
- cold chengdu noodles
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Big arse banquet burger on the barbeque…
Bacon cheese burger for those of you south of the Canadian border. Lettuce/pickles/pickled onions/tomato/bacon/cheese/mustard/catsup(on the burger and for dipping the fries, frozen but tasty)
This was one messssyyy delicious burger and now I’m in a semi food coma
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I made ATK’s “Weeknight Pad Thai,” which I can confidently tell you is a misnomer. You make pickled chilies, pickled radish, and dried shrimp. And then all the components get stir fried individually.
Still, pretty good. I did both East Coast shrimp and chicken breast. The pink things are rainbow radish.
I took several tips from @chiel, including making the eggs separately (we did an omelette) and letting the sprouts and scallion greens sauté.
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What’s the whitish thing at 12:00?
If you’d like a truly fast pad thai, Marion Grasby has one that uses regular pantry ingredients. It turns out far better than how it looks like it should.
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On holiday so no food pictures, but tonight was pan fried picanha steaks, mushroom risotto and a mixed salad. I didn’t have any dried porcinis available (which I usually use to amp the mushroom flavour), so I used a couple of pinches of truffle salt, which, oddly, was available. It worked and the risotto had ample mushroom flavour.
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I’d seen the Thomas Keller zuke recipe somewhere (a Fb reel? who knows), and had planned to make it for a while – with a few changes that is. Went to the stupid market to get some fresh basil, came back to find the 3 Aldi zukes I’d bought for this very purpose (clearly too far ahead) had gone to shite, so off I went to another supermarket.
Found 3 dark green beauties, blinged them up with a nice diamond pattern, salted & drained, fried them in a mix of peanut & olive oil, stank up the entire fucking house, then put them in the oven.
This is where I strayed from the TK recipe bc we had a half a jar of Rao’s pizza sauce to use up, and I’d had it in my mind from the get-go to throw the two balls of TJ’s burrata on top.
It came out nicer than expected, but it’s def not a looker. I’d also prefer to grill these if I ever make them again bc of the stank.
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Chili con carne with red beans. Homemade tortilla chips. Roasted squash. I’m reminded of the Three Sisters trinity: beans, corn and squash.
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Thanks - makes sense! I’ve read that ketchup, vinegar, and sugar are often used instead of tamarind. I added a squirt.
Had friends over for dinner to discuss a planned trip to Seattle. Picked up a side of mahi from a local fish monger. Wanted local grouper, but at a little over $27/lb I’m done and that was the cheapest price I found
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I thought it was good on the rocks. At $21.99 for a L, the price point was excellent. Is it better than Jack or Maker’s Mark? No, but for the price if you’re not drinking it neat, worth every penny. I’d buy it again.
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My thoughts exactly - and I have bought it again, and again after that.
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I feel like I haven’t done much cooking lately. Callaloo soup, avocado with tuna and egg salad, leftover fries from Katz’s with mushroom gravy. I have overeaten! (And oversalted, guess I’m out of practice.)
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Pressed bean curd
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