U235

Interesting concept, just wonder why they not use the cows to breed - would be financially more interesting I guess (and putting calves on a ship from AUS to TH is not exactly animal friendly...)

Will give it a try once I have the opportunity - driving to BKK for a steak is not an option for me; I will have to stick with my local butcher right now (who has excellent Thai beef if you compare it with the rubber they sell in the supermarkets)

This is Thailand 

My best guess it that a long time ago, 'Falang No 1' arrived here and set the standards for Western food for the whole country.

Just visit some restaurants operated by Thai in a tourist area and you will find out that:

- we eat only hamburgers, spaghetti Bolognaise, cordon blue (or schnitzel) and steak

Spaghetti sauce mostly comes out of a can, steak is very thin and very soft (someone has been beating it for hours with a hammer) and the cheese on the burger and cordon blue are these horrible pre-packed slices of cheddar. Salads are as you  describe.

My best guess it that 'Falang No 1' was British. How can you otherwise explain that some 'restaurants' still serve a hamburger with Lay Chips instead of French Fries? Oh yeah, stupid me - never heard about 'fish and chips'... Guess we are lucky the waiter doesn't ask "Intel or AMD chips, Sir?"

And that is a pity. These days, good ingredients are easily available and decent recipes you can find on the internet.

But it is hard to change old habits... 

You say it is Australian beef, but in the description on your website you say the company is owned by two Thai guy's who produce it locally, which would make it Thai beef. 

"In Thailand, high quality delicious flavoured meat was usually imported resulting in high prices. These two friends have developed their own way of producing excellent quaity meat locally."

Makes me confused, prices seems normal for Australian beef, but a bit overpriced for Thai beef 

This ain't IKEA

"Köttbullar" (Swedish meat balls in a cream sauce)

3 hours ago, Michaelaway said:

Sunday afternoon, time to try something new:

Chicken-Yogurt "Gyros" Recipe:

Pound down, and then marinate boneless, skinless thighs in yogurt-garlic-spices mixture for 3 hrs.- overnight before cooking- @ 200-250 degrees C. for an hour, rotating every 15 minutes, until golden and browned over. After cooking, saw off slices/bits of the outer layers and then broil or pan-fry them before serving. We had Greek salad with olives and feta, pita & hummus.

Yummy!

The onion(?)- potato-skewer construction is original I must admit  

I used to make it on a rotating chicken grill in the oven.

Tonight I'll make a dish with asparagus and used the hard parts to make the base of a tomato soup. Always nice with some Emmental cheese in it.

I'm afraid it is not possible, unless maybe if you buy an industrial machine.

I grind my meat by myself with a Porkert grinder (hand grinder) and I need to carefully remove all tendons etc otherwise it will block the holes in the grinding plates. So only pure meat and fat (semi frozen for the best results). Chicken skin should be ok I think, but forget about the bones. 

But why do you need to grind it for catfood?  I often give my dogs boiled chicken carcasses and I don't even chop them. I suppose for cats it is ok if you chop them in some smaller rat-size pieces; keeps them busy for a while...

A vegetarian one tonight: ravioli stuffed with an artichoke filling and topped with a lemon cream sauce and Parmesan cheese.

If you like pasta's, a pasta maker is really a 'must have' in Thailand 

15 hours ago, Michaelaway said:

Garlic & Dill Pickles

 

Cucumbers & Green tomatoes 

 

Onion, sliced

 

Fresh Dill Sprigs

 

6- 8 Garlic cloves, smashed

 

4 small red chilies

 

1 3/4 cup White Vinegar

 

2 1/4 Cup Water

 

4 Tbs Salt

 

2 Tbs Sugar

 

1/2 Tsp Dill Seed

 

1/2 Tsp Mustard Seed

 

1/2 Tsp Coriander Seed

 

1/2 Tsp Celery Seed

 

1 Tsp Peppercorns

 

 

 

Stir water, vinegar, salt and sugar together in a container until salt and sugar are dissolved; add spices and mix well.  Some people boil & cool this before using, but I think it doesn't make much difference in the finished product, so I don't.

 

Arrange Dill sprigs, onion slices, cucumbers & green tomatoes in a canning jar, and then drop in garlic cloves; do this in layers.

 

Add the water, vinegar & spices mixture until jar is filled to rim. Put the lid on the jar and give it all a good shake. Refrigerate for 1 week; shake daily.   

 

For Naam: there are millions of recipes and basically, you can trow in any spice/herb you like.

However, if you are trying to come close to the typical German "Gurkentopf taste", use only dill seeds, mustard seeds and some peppercorns in a mixture of 60/40 water/white vinegar. Add sugar to taste.

17 hours ago, wayned said:

 

In addition there are 5 additional menu settings available that are not explained anywhere: bake, white rice, sticky rice, stir fry and ferment.  My next attempt will be a cinnamon and raisin sweet bread to test the raisin dispenser box.

 

I can not help you with this brand (I have a Kenwood) but from my experience, it is not a good idea to use these machines with raisins.

The dough hook has simply too much force for something fragile as a raisin: if it hit the raisin it will damage it. If it hits it again, you will end up with raisin pulp. To avoid this, the manufacturers install these dispensers which will release the raisins at the end of the kneading process, but it is far from perfect.

I always add the raisins manually when the dough is ready and knead it softly for a minute by hand.  

Oops, small misunderstanding I'm afraid: they don't sell pate in Makro but you can buy the ingredients over there  If you don't need wild boar, you can find them in the smallest village too. But at the end, you will have to make it by yourself. As I said, it is very easy and it freezes well.

But thanks for pointing out that my home made pate looks like a professional made one LOL

1 hour ago, Naam said:

may the high price is the reason that a special breed of pigs which produce beef drippings are used?

Thai style genetic engineering? Nothing surprises me anymore...

1 hour ago, Rc2702 said:

Anyone purchased Pate here in thailand and if so which shop?

 

You can easily make it by yourself in half an hour (+baking time). There are hundreds of recipes, but basically you just trow all the meats in the blender, mix it well with spices, some alcohol, etc and put in in the oven (au bain marie) at low temperature.

The one below contains wild boar (sold in Makro), chicken livers, smoked bacon, brandy, port wine and spices

4 hours ago, p_brownstone said:

You can now but refined Beef Dripping (which I assume is what you need) online for home delivery:

 

https://www.passiondelivery.com/products/sloanes-beef-dripping

 

Patrick

Yes, that seems to be the same product.

Always find it funny that falang entrepreneurs manage to sell local made products at exorbitant high prices, in this case thb 540/kg (so approx thb 1000 to fill my frying pan)

Checked the price at home, and thb 100/kg seems to be normal. But of course the salary costs over there are much, much lower 

For your information, my supplier normally sells the raw product (fat) at thb 10/kg. Yield is approx 50-60%. Only other cost is gas/electricity to melt it.

Beef tallow.

I'm Belgian and French (????) fries were invented in Belgium. It's a kind of national dish for us I love to make in Thailand.

Only one problem: they should be cooked in beef tallow - not oil (but these days most Belgians use oil too because of health concerns).

Normally, you buy it in the shop (is packed like butter), but tja, Thailand.....

So I decided to give it a try and make it by myself. Called the 'beef shop' if they could deliver me 2 kg of kidney fat. They told me that they would drop it at my place the next time they passed.

A couple of days ago my wife came to me with a mysterious smile. If I could have a look at the cooling box the beef guy's dropped on the terrace, and oh - no way she would help me with it...

OMG! 10 kg of fat was sitting there  This must be the only body part the Thai don't eat as it was completely free 

So I installed myself with my largest knife, a cutting board and the biggest cooking pot we have on the terrace after I confiscated all camera's in the house - really don't want my friends and family to discover this part of life in Thailand.

Fortunately, it was not as disgusting as you might think. Kidney fat is pretty hard and  you can cut it as if it was a piece of cheese (is nothing like the fat you find on a steak). So easy to cut. Only problem was the smell, you really don't want to do this in the house...

After the cooking pot was full, I put it on a low fire (an induction cooker was great) and let it simmer for 4-5 hours.  After that,  most of the fat was melted, only the harder parts were still floating. Fished them out and gave them to the dog (many people advise to eat it, it is said to taste great with sauerkraut but I was not in an adventurous mood to try it). Then let it cool down a bit before filtering it. And voilà, ready!

After one night the yellow/brown liquid became hard as you can see on the picture. Exactly as what I bought years ago in Belgium.

Only one small problem: it still smells a bit when you heat it, so better put the hood on (a bit smell is normal but I suppose the commercial firms have found a way to reduce it)

And the Belgian Fries ? They were yummy!

25 minutes ago, Naam said:

a big portion of Gulf shrimps with a bottle of Tabasco,

I would advise to try a bottle of chilled white wine next time 

Can it be that you somehow burned your tongue? Best visit a doctor or try the health forum (but I would never take any medical advise from a TV member)

On 8/2/2017 at 7:18 PM, oldhippy said:

Monschau, Germany, todays non-vegan special.

 

After the German band Rammstein wrote a song about cats, Bratwurst und Sauerkraut will never taste the same again 

Nice little town, Monschau, used to come there often when I was a kid 

12 minutes ago, billd766 said:

 

I tried making them last week and though they were not a disaster they looked nothing like that.

 

Can you post your version of the recipe please and I will try again.

 

 

I used the same amounts of ingredients as in the video, but:

In the 'poolish' (the 'pre-dough') I only put a pinch of yeast and no sugar. Then I let it stand overnight so it can ferment slowly. I really don't understand why she put 1.5 tsp yeast+sugar in a poolish of 125 gr of flour - the purpose of a poolish is to develop taste, not structure.

Next day I add the other ingredients, so flour, yeast, sugar and salt and let it mix well for around 15 mins. If necessary, add some more flour if you think the dough becomes too wet (it should be a bit wet anyway)

Then I do 4 time a 'stretch and fold' with intervals of 20 mins (so total time is 60 mins)

After that I just follow Helen's video, except the carving (I'm really not good in it....)

Let the breads proof for another 45 - 60 minutes. I found out that with this overdose of yeast and sugar, they easily 'overproof' and will collapse. Also, don't use too much steam.

Good luck!

5 hours ago, Skeptic7 said:

This is a place to put pictures of what you have made lately at home.

The only brand of ketchup I actually like:  not too much sugar, a rich tomato taste,  a bit spicy and a subtle blend of spices.

If you ever make it by yourself, I can guarantee you will never buy it again in the supermarket.

This small jar contains 1.25 kg of tomatoes 

Hungarian stuffed bell pepper

'Slavink' with pommes dauphine

On 7/15/2017 at 1:22 PM, CLW said:

U235 and other amateur bakers, the challenge is on 555
Who can bake the best pistolet

You have no idea what you have asked, I accept the challenge. Anyone else?

Be prepared that soon your email will be hacked by the Russians, I really don't like to lose... 

But the ideal pistolet, it will be difficult.... Keep in mind that it should have a diameter of 10-11 cm and be approx 4 cms high, and you can only use 50 grams

of dough. If you take one and put pressure on it , it will crack and the table should be full of big crumbs. It is really very airy and crispy. 

So the ones below (left overs from my previous post) are a clear example how it should not be!

Asparagus cream pimped with home made smoked salmon trout. 

When I was a kid, my mum made fresh soup every day. Was not such a bad idea...

2 hours ago, tutsiwarrior said:

 

presently in Vietnam and have been looking at the local bread with a home baking interest...a nice crispy crust but a lot lighter unlike french baguettes, not as chewy...it's almost like the rolls are baked specially for the banh mi sandwiches...an asian twist on the french boulangerie...

 

Please kidnap on of their bakers and bring him to me, or at least figure out how they make these banh mi breads!  They are lovely for a Western style sandwich - never understood why they eat them with all that Asian stuff on it...