U235

Still one of my favorite appetizers: cheese croquettes (edam, mozarella & parmazan cheese)

 

 

 

 

22 hours ago, RabC said:

I just want to say I made some yesterday and was very happy with the result, thanks.

 

Nice to hear it worked well for you. Bon appétit!

5 hours ago, Naam said:

if the fish is properly smoked i don't see a problem to store it in the fridge for a couple of weeks or even longer

 

Oops, looks that we are talking about different products, the 'Dutch style'

herrings are not smoked at all...

 

 

Maatje (Matje)

 

 

Rollmops

 

 

7 hours ago, tutsiwarrior said:

plenty of good hummous and feta cheese in the arab countries but none of the above...

 

 

Yeah, the secret ingredient of my pâté is pork, you know... Might be some kind of a problem for these guys 

25 minutes ago, Naam said:

that's something i miss. Matjes and Rollmops are sold in Foodland and Best but of a deplorable quality. overcooked to near mash and sour as if vinegar essence was used for the marinade. another shortcoming is the lack of properly cured and smoked fish not coated with some sweet sh1tty paste. i even got tricked buying smoked eel imported from Japan in Tops which turned out to be the same yuckish style.

 

recently i found smoked red snapper filet of acceptable quality in Villa Market. but that's no substitute for a delicious fat smoked mackerel (not too big that the skin is still tender and edible).

 

+1

I know where they sell them but you need to buy a pail of 4 kg. Too risky and too many herring for one falang anyway 

 

1 hour ago, Naam said:

made based on my specifications (reduced fat content) and delivered from Germany in tins every three months by my brother. what i am doing here is heating it up slightly, spice it up a lot (rough ground black pepper, mashed marinated green pepper, paprika and red chili powder), also add a wee bit of artificial smoke and it becomes dé-<deleted>-licieux!

 

Looks like you have more work with it as I do 

2 hours ago, CLW said:

You ever had issues with the raw egg?

Several people warned me to consume raw Thai eggs...

 

Never had a problem with it. But if you feel safer with it, you can always pasteurize the eggs before using them. Never tried, but if done well, it should not have an impact on the mayonnaise. Or you add a tbs whey to the mayo and wait an hour or so before putting it in the fridge.

 

1 hour ago, RabC said:

One quick question, I assume your "spoon" is a teaspoon and not tablespoon?

 

Tablespoons for the water and the lime. The mustard is optional, but I always use a tablespoon as well.

Not really gourmet but more the Dutch/Belgian version of Mac Donalds. 

 

In my country fried snacks are very popular; we even have some kind of snackbars which sell nothing else (frituur)

 

A typical meal consist of some kind of meat (frikandel, berepoot,....) which is fried and served with fries and a sauce based on mayonaise. Very healthy indeed!

 

Personally, I have never been a big fan of it but after so many years in Thailand, I guess I became a bit homesick and decided to give it a try.

 

This is the most famous snack of all, the Frikandel. It is a fried skinless sausage made from chicken, beef and pork (ok, in my Thai version; the beef is a substitute for horse meat because I was unable to find a horse willing to cooperate...)

 

Served with fries and an overdose of mayonaise. Yummy! Will make it again.

 

 

 

2 hours ago, tutsiwarrior said:

 

thanks fer that...but I'm not gonna tell the granddaughter where I got the recipe so that she shall later revere her grandpa tutsi and the pizza from heaven...

 

Did I mention that for that specific Napolitan taste, you should also add 3 big spoons of Dijon mustard and a dash of Tabasco? 

11 hours ago, tutsiwarrior said:

 

looks good...what's a good recipe for the crust? the kids like pizza...the 4 y.o. granddaughter hasn't yet decided whether she likes me or not (tutsi was away at work for a long time) but with a good pizza I shall become endeared forever...

 

 

Normally, it would cost you a couple of beers for my pizza recipe, but for your granddaughter I will make an exemption 

 

For years, I made my pizza using a biga (Italian starter dough) a couple of days in advance. One  day I cleaned up my fridge and found a forgotten package.

 

Instead of throwing it away, I gave it a try and it turned out that it made an excellent pizza. So this is how I do it now.

 

Make a normal pizza dough from flour, water, yeast, salt and olive oil BUT just use a symbolic pinch of yeast (lets's say 1/10 of a tsp)

 

Put the dough in a plastic bag, take out the air, close well but make sure there is plenty of room for expansion. Put the bag in the fridge.

 

The first couple of days, not much will happen, but after a while the yeast will become active and the bag will expand. Wait.

 

After minimum 10 days, the dough is ready to use. The older it becomes, the better the taste (more 'chewy' - how can I describe). I mostly use it after 14 days. Keep in mind that old dough becomes very soft and fragile to handle. 10 days old dough acts more as one you made the same day (elastic, the ones that you can trow in the air if you are an Italian pizza guy)

 

Remove it from the bag, cover it with some flour and form portions (around 250 gr) Cover it with a towel and let sit for a couple of hours to warm up and expand. Form the pizza's by hand (avoid a pin roll). Heat oven and prebake the pizza's for a minute or 5. You will see that big bubble's form. This way, your pizza will have the typical layered structure. Take out from the oven and put your toppings on it.

 

 

 

 

13 hours ago, CLW said:

Laugen rolls with camembert cheese spread
(Laugenstangen mit angemachtem Camembert / Obatzter)

 

Didn't know this one - had to google it...., but, bierfeste mit Phuket Lager????

 

Prefer the real thing 

 

7 hours ago, Naam said:

please have mercy mate! one time "blue" is acceptable. but in future it should be "bleu" (French word pronounced like the German "ö" which sounds like the vocal in the english words "word, fur, blur, occur, Sir, stir).

 

signed "beancounter" 

 

Vous avez raison. Entschuldigung.... 

 

Want some pizza?  

 

 

12 hours ago, CLW said:

Looks delicious, though for my personal taste your Cordon Bleu is a bit pale.

How you make the croquettes?
I was going to make mashed potatoes but I could not find the floury type ones.
Or does it work with any type?

 

Yeah, you are right.I put the cordon blue on the grill and it didn't brown well. Guess it needs some butter, so next time I will trow them in the pan again.

 

So far, I didn't encounter any problems with the potato's. 

 

Boil one kg, drain the water, and continue heating to so they become as dry as possible.

Mash them well

Add pepper, salt, nutmeg, 2 yolks and 40-50 grams butter, mix well

Form the croquettes, roll them into flour, then beaten egg and finally breadcrumbs. Make sure they are covered well.

Fry or freeze them

 

 

 

 

Cordon Blue with potato croquettes and green pepper sauce.

 

A couple of weeks ago I made my wife proud when I saw frozen croquettes at Tops:

 

Me: Darling, look: they have these potato things the kids love so much. Guess how much they cost?

Wife: ????? 200 Baht?

Me: No, closer to 400 Baht/kg. I make them for around 45/kg...

Wife: Falang food... Can you not sell them?

Me: Over my dead body.

 

 

 

 

1 minute ago, CLW said:

I will try soon, and if successful, post the recipe here

 

I'm curious. Just worried that the agar will bind with the water of the bread, and your nice bun will have the feeling of a perfect silicone tit. Don't want you to have issues with the missus....

45 minutes ago, Khunchai Tong said:

If you get fresh casings from the market you will have to turn them inside out and scrape the interior mucus out with a table knife.Then what you are left with is the membrane . It is easier to buy the salted frozen ones that have already been scraped ,cleaned and salted.

They are cut into meter lengths which I find does about a kilo of plain pork snarler.I usally soak all in the pack and rinse them out thoroughly and then put them into little plastic bags and refreeze them. Then I can  take out a little pack of 2 lengths ,soak and rinse again and pak up a couple of kilos of sausage. It costs about 240 to 270 baht a pack and there is about 30 meters in a pack. Easy-peasy.

 

 

Still hoping that the OP comes back and reveals his source for collagen casings in Thailand 

 

In the mean time I keep ordering them over the internet (need just a few)

1 hour ago, CLW said:

Anyone tried Agar to improve texture of soft bread?

Actually I looked for a recipe to copy Subway bread that requires wheat gluten.
Knowing that it might be not available here I searched for substitutes and came to the Agar.

 

You mean that stuff from Japanese algue? I sometimes use it in desserts instead of gelatine, but in bread? 

 

But in Makro they sell a bread improver (Imperial brand I believe), maybe that helps. If I make soft breads, I mix approx 10% butter of in the dough, that improves a lot, but honestly I haven't been in a subway in years, so I'm not sure this is what you mean.

1 hour ago, CLW said:

Mandarin Cheesecake





No bashing, but Thai's have no sense of good taste 555
The base of the cake is a yeast dough which is of course maybe only a bit dense and compact but still soft.
My Girlfriend said, don't like, it's to hard

 

Looks nice, which cheese did you use? If the Mrs doesn't like it most likely means it is excellent   (and more cake for you!)

1 hour ago, tutsiwarrior said:

 

I've found that any beef that I find locally in the supermarket is inedible but when ground is suitable for the usual stuff like bolognaise, chilli, etc...someone said that Makro has ground beef in the frozen food section...

 

 

 

That's why I buy my beef directly from the farm. I can see the cows, what they eat, etc, no surprises. 

 

Beef is always very soft (tenderloin). Only problem is that the beef guy has no idea about the Western cuts. Try not to order a T-Bone steak. In reality, he keeps the best pieces for the restaurants and 'the falang', the lesser cuts he sells on the market to the locals. Can be a problem is I need a fat cut for hamburgers - he simply doesn't have it when he visits me, I need to place a special order for that (he does home deliveries too!)

 

1 hour ago, tutsiwarrior said:

 

the best you can do with thai 'beef' is grind it up for which you need a meat grinder...which I have but is now inoperable as someone in my house was messing about in my kitchen while I was a way at work and lost the little cutting blade and for which I became highly annoyed...

 

 

 

 

I know the feeling, happened to me too. Fortunately the shop at home send me some replacements. I have a Porkert but they not longer make it. But the blades are interchangeable with Westmark knifes, so no problem. 

50 minutes ago, anotheruser said:

There is no doubt the food and ingredients are of a substandard nature with in Thailand. 

 

Not entirely agree. If you buy the local products (vegetables, meat,....) they are mostly OK for me (except often the  lack of hygiene). Only thing you have to do is search for a decent supplier. For instance, we all agree that Thai beef s*cks. After I moved from Samui to the jungle in Kanchanaburi, we buy our beef directly from the farm. Excellent quality and deadly cheap! Not Kobe of course but still a decent steak. 

 

Imported products are another thing. From my experience in hotel business, I know that everything is for sale for the happy few (read: the 5 star hotels) at normal prices. But the average falang has to live with a very limited supply of overpriced low quality products, and that is really a shame. Can you imagine that I had a bigger cultural shock moving from Samui to Kanchanaburi as from moving from home to Samui? If I wanted to eat Parma ham in Samui I just took a bit from the stock of our restaurant. Was cheaper as TGM ham. If I want it now, I need to pay 'Siam Paragon' rates, or contact someone to send me a ham by EMS. But what can I do with a ham of 7 kg or a 80 Kg Blue Fin Tuna? Anyway, I solved the problem: will soon open a restaurant business over here, miss the French oysters and Russian caviar a bit too much 

 

But in the mean time, I'm forced to go back to the basics of cooking, which is in fact a good thing. I can cook what I want using the local products. It just takes more time and I need to see what is available. Looks that some people over here are growing asparagus. During season, every time my wife went to the market she came back with a kg asparagus. Asparagus soup, asparagus pasta, asparagus a la flamande, steak asparagus, toast asparagus, name it and I made it LOL.

 

My previous post with the ground meat is a good example what I mean: ground meat is such a stupid product that you can find everywhere at home. Here I have to make it by myself. Inconvenient, but at the other hand, it is most likely of a better quality as what most butchers sell at home (nobody really knows what they put in it, but if a supermarket at home can sell it for less as 5 euro/kg, I become a bit suspicious). But I was wondering what other people do as this meat is so common in recipes and nobody questions the lack of availability of it....

 

1 hour ago, anotheruser said:

 

I only started this thread to see what people are making over here or what is possible to do.

 

 

Which was a good idea and as I'm curious too the reason I started posting in this topic

 

1 hour ago, Oxx said:

 

So, you think you know better than one of the most famous and respected chefs in America, Emeril Lagasse?

 

If Mr Lagasse substitutes a dairy product which is formed by bacteria - a procedure which takes days to complete - with some 'in 5 minutes ready' mixture  of milk and vinegar, yes, in that case I know it better.

 

If the OP is a bit adventurous, he can try the following: obtain a pack of buttermilk from Villa or another place, mix a bit of it with normal milk and wait (a long time - days). The Villa milk should act like a starter: if the bacteria multiply they will (hopefully) convert the normal milk into buttermilk. I wouldn't put it from the beginning in the fridge to speed up the proces. Never tried it or will try (really don't like buttermilk), but it works with yoghurt, which is produced by a similar proces.

 

1 hour ago, Oxx said:

What's your personal expertise (apart from using Wikipedia)?

 

Nothing worthwhile to mention. Running restaurants and that kind of things....

 

1 hour ago, Oxx said:

 

Incidentally, Lagasse does have a recipe for home made ricotta.  It's different:  http://emerils.com/127806/homemade-ricotta-cheese

 

Indeed, it is different. He uses citric acid while I mostly use lime juice. I suppose you just buy your citric acid in your local 7/11 while I have serious trouble obtaining a lime?  He also ads the acid while the milk is still cold. No idea why he does it but I suppose it is ok. If you heat milk, you have to stir it to avoid burning. However, stirring will damage the curds. So I think it is better to wait a bit with the acid till the milk has the right temperature. Anyway, tried it many times and it works fine for me ;-)

There is one thing I don't understand about falang: we often complain about everything in Thailand, but nobody seems to complain about the lack of decent ground meat.

 

Oh, what do I miss my butcher! Imagine, a nice, clean shop where you can choose from a wide variety of cuts and prepared meats

 

 

None of these nice things are available over here, so every now and then I try to make some of them by myself.

 

Today I made 'slavinken', 'boomstammetjes' and 'Zwitserse schijven'. Sorry, no idea if these preparations have an English equivalent (I doubt it, this is Dutch btw)

 

They have all in common that the main ingredient is ground meat, partly pork, partly beef. This is not available over here, so the first thing to do is make it by myself. (and even if it was available, I wouldn't use it - if I see that even Tops expiration date is around 5 days after manufacturing date, hmmmm....)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On second thoughts I think I should have bought a larger grinder. This one (Porkert) says it can make half a kg/minute,  this amount of meat took me around 20 minutes.

 

Ok, we have the meat, let's start mixing it with spices and other ingredients:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slavinken: mix meat with egg, breadcrumbs, pepper, salt, nutmeg, a bit of onion. Put two slices of smoked bacon cross wise in a hamburger press, add meat mix, 'close' the bacon, form a burger.

 

 

Boomstammetjes: mix the meat with cheese, cooked ham,  breadcrumbs, egg, pepper, salt, curry- and paprika powder. Shape as on the picture. Put both ends in dried parsley. Make a mix of breadcrumbs, paprika- and curry powder. Roll the 'boomstammetjes' in it till completely covered (except the ends which are already covered with parsley)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zwitserse schijven: mix meat with breadcrumbs, egg , pepper, salt, onion

Fill hamburger press half with mixture. Put a slice of cheese in the middle. Cover with meat mixture.

Take out of the press and cover with a mixture of breadcrumbs and parsley.

31 minutes ago, GinBoy2 said:

Thanks for this.

 

Having all my life just being able to go to the store to pick up Buttermilk.....who knew it was so simple!

 

I'm afraid it isn't as simple as this. Please read the buttermilk Wikipedia article first.

 

As you can see, there are several kinds of buttermilk, what you are looking for is most likely the commercial cultured version;

 

Quote

Commercially available cultured buttermilk is milk that has been pasteurized and homogenized (with 1% or 2% fat), and then inoculated with a culture of Lactococcus lactis (formerly known as Streptococcus lactis) plus Leuconostoc citrovorum to simulate the naturally occurring bacteria in the old-fashioned product. Some dairies add colored flecks of butter to cultured buttermilk to simulate residual flecks of butter that can be left over from the churning process of traditional buttermilk

 

The recipe Oxx mentions (and which you can find on many websites)  makes a great ricotta cheese, but I wouldn't call it buttermilk. At least not where I come from, but as you can also  read in the wiki, there are many variations in different kinds of the world. Maybe there are countries where they call ricotta buttermilk, I don't know 

 

Heat (not boil) milk with a pinch of salt

Add some lime juice or vinegar (as long it is acid)

Wait a couple of minutes and you will see curds form. Avoid to stir as the curds are very fragile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filter it trough a cheesecloth or a paper kitchen towel.

 

I use this ricotta for pasta's and pizza's. As a rule of thumb: a 250 ml carton box of milk gives enough cheese for one dish. If you add some cream to the milk, the % of fat will increase, so also your cheese production. You can keep it for a couple of days in the fridge or you can freeze it.