LtLOS

Use boiling water, food coloring and a small amount of vinegar, should be reference to this type dying on line for quantities.

It's difficult to do by just time, you should use a thermometer and check internal temp to determine when its done. No need to brine the commercial variety you have purchased. Your already paying for about 15-20% salt water by buying that variety. I do not recommend an internal stuffing, instead salt the cavity well, and place wedged apple and onions, discard when the bird is done. Cook your stuffing separate. Start your oven at a roaring hot 500, when you place the bird reduce to about 325. Tuck the wings under, and tie the legs to the cavity opening. Take a new or clean cotton cloth and dip in oil, place this over the breast area. This will keep the breasts from drying out. Roast in a pan with some root veggies, and some water, and baste once in a while. Check internal temp thru the leg thickest part. Watch for clear juices running, and a slight looseness to the leg.

Had my first opportunity to try your place at lunch today. The food was up to my expectations, service was good, food served quickly and hot. Only negative was the air con seemed to be either not working or less than required for the room. We ate at the location next to Times Square across from the DHL shop. Seemed staff was getting food from the other side of the soi, so perhaps there was a problem that day with the electrics, anyway that's just a nit pick detail, will definitely be back again. This place is a good example of what can be done using quality ingredients, staying with a basic menu selection and focusing on quality. Can't believe its taken this many years to find a place (outside my own kitchen) to get a decent taco, or burro. I would highly suggest you take this idea to the next level, a full mexican resto with complete dinner menu. This city needs one.

Sorry not to be sarcastic, but go over to the fresh food section and get a fresh coconut and shred it. Want it toasted, just spread the shredded out on a cookie sheet and pop in an oven till golden, then you can freeze it for later use. We do about 5 at a time toast, then toss in a sealed container,freeze and measure out for recipes.

From the photos your steak looks almost like what we called a Steak Tampico, except it is missing the roasted chilis and cheese on top. You can actually cook a poor grade (tougher) cut and still make a nice steak. Secrets:

Dry aged beef and cut it very very thin and touch it on a roaring hot grill for a very short time.

One of my favorite lunch places in Juarez Mexico was a small mom and pop that made it this way at a very reasonable price, it was still their most expensive item on the menu, but as a local joint not hard to take. Trick is finding someone who can slice a T-bone this thin and can do dry aged beef.

Thought this was an interesting article, from a credible source:

New York style pizza can be traced back to the 17th century when Spanish soldiers were occupying the area around Naples, Italy. One of their favorite snacks was a soft, crispy dough with toppings that the Neapolitans called sfiziosa. Like local New Yorkers who fold their slices in half and eat while walking, these Spanish soldiers folded the flat bread into a libretto (little book) and ate it with their hands. One of the main characteristics of New York style pizza is its thin, chewy crust, but that isn't everything that defines New York style pizza. Many might say that it's not New York style unless it leaves those yellow trails of oil running down your elbow when you eat it. This comes from the high butter fat cheese they use. Big Dave Ostrander says most New York pizzerias use Grande mozzarella cheese to get this trait. For New York style, fresh mozzarella isn't an option... it's a rule! Many are hearth or deck oven baked and the sauce is usually thinner than most sauces with fewer ingredients added. The dough is made with high protein, high gluten flour (usually 13.5 to 14.5% protein) and is slightly chewy. There is an old urban legend that you can only produce New York pizza in New York due to the hard water they have. While it's true that New York has hard water, it's debatable as to whether this is the secret ingredient. Source: PMQ.

If your referring to what in North America is called Wild Rice, it is actually not a variety of rice, but a different species of plant, I think a water grass. From what I know it requires cold climates to grow. I have no idea if it can grow in the North of Thailand. Seen it (imported) a long time ago at Villa.

BonCafe is the local dist for Torani:

http://www.boncafe.co.th/prods/torani/torani.php3

As I grew up around curing and smoking or own meats, and sausage making on our farm, it's something I learned a long time ago. When asked about it by friends I recommend they get started using a pre made product call Morton Tender quick. Its a pre-mixed cure that you can use very easily to make simple cured meats. There are a lot of recipes on the web using this. It is also easy to do small portions with it. Use 1 TBS per pound of meat. For instance take a large piece of pork loin, weigh and place in a plastic bag with the tenderquick, close the bag and rub the outside of the bag till the meat is coated. Leave in the fridge in an area that is about 36-40 degrees for about 4-6 days. Roll it around once in a while, the lower the temp the less cure action you will get, so its best to get a good thermometer and find that place in your fridge that is close to 38-40 degrees. Take out and slice, fry it up and you have a nice breakfast bacon. (Traditional canadian bacon has pea meal but we like it like this just fryed.) You can also then smoke it, etc.

http://www.mortonsalt.com/products/meatcur...enderquick.html

There's a lot of good info on the web about home curing and smoking, google and read, you can learn a lot. With the price of these products going up all the time, I find we are doing it more than ever now.

The 36 to 40 is not hard to regulate in a regular fridge. I have a large fridge I use for this, I've found a plastic tub that both holds a full ham and can fit into the bottom of that fridge. I then use a digital probe thermometer to set the brine temp at around 39. This works well. Be carefull curing at higher temps using brining, with Potassium Nitrate, read up on food safety and you will find you are outside the safe zone above 40. Was it done, can it be done, yes, but there are some risks, that's one reason cure 1 and 2 methods are preferred today.

For other foods such as sour kraut which likes a temp around 70 degress for fermentation, I have an old fridge I modified to allow it to run at higher temps for processes like this.

Some good ones here:

http://ag.arizona.edu/azaqua/ista/recipes.htm

saltpeter is the old method of curing, there are many new...well last 100 years...methods that enable you to both cure and insure you are not exposing yourself to potentially dangerous food safety issues. For reference here's one article that explains in all pretty well:

http://www.wedlinydomowe.com/nitrates-intro.htm

Pay attention to the curing temperatures required for the saltpeter verus the modern cures...#1, #2. I import all my cures and associated products. There are many sites that provide good products. Some of my sources:

http://www.alliedkenco.com/catalog/index.php

http://www.butcher-packer.com/

I do a brine cured (about 14 days at 36-40°F) whole ham, then smoke it to 135°f internal temp. Requires some practice and experimenting, but the ability to cure at a safe temp is important in this region.

Using only a microwave...well that's a challenge. First off cheese curds are next to impossible to find, but you may want to try a fresh mozzarella, comes in a tub with water in it, a local brand is Carolina. Cut these mozz balls into smaller pieces. Go down to either a foodland or villa and find a bottled premaid gravy, I don't use them but seen them, I think Heinz is one brand name. Now go find a shop that makes good chips and get a large order. Take the gravy and heat in the Mwave then add the cheese and heat a bit more. Take another bowl and pop some chips in it and add the hot gravy/cheese toss it around perhaps nuke it one more time. Sorry best I can come up with only using a microwave. Good luck!

Yup, that's about, it and makes a great salsa fresca. Here's a couple things I do with mine, try adding a pinch or two of ground cumin, carefull not too much can be overpowering, and I like to use the Thai giant shallots instead of yellow onion. Also you can use the large green mild chilis (anaheims) if you want a less intense heat. Can't beat a good salsa!

If you have a deep fat fryer, try buying the Danitas corn tortillas, cut them in wedges and toss them in the fryer at about 190°C, as the tortillas are thicker, they make what we think is a better chip, and we can add whatever and how much seasoning we want.

Only thing I'll add is make sure you are getting real certified Parm Regg for the price. Over the years I know it's been mis marked, perhaps accidently or otherwise.

Check here or other places to see some of the seals that are used on the rinds. If I don't see a rind that has a portion of a seal or some sort of original marking and the sellers label says Parm Regg, I don't buy it.

http://www.parmaitaly.com/parmigianok.html

Very hard cheese like parm last a long time in the fridge, found one small piece in the back of ours that was probably 6 months old, still good.

Hint...don't throw out the rinds, use them when you make stock, chicken, beef, whatever.

Top Floor Emporium, Central Chidlom, Galleria basement....like buying gold, and make sure its parm regg, look at the seals on the pack or stamps on the outside. I like to use a micro plane and shave it on salads, use the local variety of parm from foodland for use in sauces or on bolognese. etc, a waste of good parm regg unless you like burning money.

I get my buttermilk at foodland, its usually found with the cream in the dairy section. I find the whipping cream at foodland overpriced, as its the uht, I use the foremost in the larger milk carton style container, that I get from Lotus.

A bit off topic:

As your only using a little buttermilk, we use the rest for buttermilk pancakes on the weekend, and also for a marinade for southern fried chicken. If you've never had real southern fried chicken, that's a real treat and excuse to use up all that buttermilk.

Regarding soft cheese and flavors, these flavors come from the cultures used in the cheese, here a site that is a good example of the types involved. Making good flavorfull cheese is more art and black magic than regular cooking, and the key is time, for these flavors to develop during aging. The more flavor the longer the cheese needs to age and what types of cultures are used is a big factor. Having said that there are commercial additives used to add that bite to an aged cheese, but if you compare it against the true long aged cheese's, its a much different taste.

Here's one site that has a lot of cultures in small quantities:

http://thecheesemaker.com/cultures.htm

Specific to the question, most soft non cultured cheeses that you can make like mozz will not have a strong flavor. You may want to do a bit more searching, but I've never found any way to make a cheddar substitute using the method I described above.

Perhaps an alternative is a spread. Here's something I make that goes so quick. I use a cheddar cheese powder. I know of knowone who has these locally and I get a couple pounds via the net or when someone visits.

I use the Creme Fraiche recipe above and to make it a bit thicker add some Carolina creme cheese (cheapest here and just as good as the imported). In a food processor add the creme fraiche, perhaps some toasted onion and a small dash of liquid smoke, add a couple table spoons of the cheese powder and whip in the processor. The variations on this are endless, add roasted peppers, canned chipotle chilis and adobo, also one time made a Tom Yam version that wasnt bad. If you want in salty, add a combo of cream cheese and feta, but be carefull of salt level.

Bei Otto Deli and Bakery

Actually I have made the best buffalo mozz here that just can't be beat. If you have a source for water buffalo milk, its not hard to make and only takes one ingredient that you have to import, rennet.

This site has been on the web for years and the process I used:

http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/Chees...ZARELLA_jn0.HTM

Follow it to the letter and you'll get an idea of what cheese making is all about.

Hard cheeses IMHO are much more difficult due to the fact you must age them for a long time, at a fixed temp, and I've never found the time to make them. But soft cheeses are dead easy.

Here's another one you can try easily that will give you an idea of what you can do easily, not really a cheese but a quick to make dairy product with a very nice result that is hard to find or impossble to purchase here.

Creme Fraiche:

Take 1 cup whipping cream (35-36% butterfat)

Add 3 TBS buttermilk

Mix in a bowl and lightly cover with plastic wrap. Leave out at room temp for 24 hours, then refrigerate. I've never purchased the sour cream here and you'll be surprised how nice creme fraiche is and how much more flexible it is in cooking.

dam_n someone just open a decent bakery in bkk.

I have no idea what that comment has to do with this thread, a specific question was asked and one recommendation given.

I sincerely hope that the moderators on this site will start to take control and keep these topics on topic.

This is my formula for a nice sandwich type rye, and the favorite around here. This also freezes well, wrap about 3 times with plastic wrap and pop in freezer just after it reached room temp.

Jewish-Style Rye Bread

2 1/2 cups rye flour

2 1/2 cups unbleached flour

1 package (2 teaspoons) instant dry yeast

2 tablespoons caraway seeds

1 tablespoon sea salt

1 3/4 cups water

3 tablespoons unsulphured molasses (any dark molasses will do, I like the Aussie brand at foodland)

1/4 cup unsalted butter

1 egg white, lightly beaten

Combine flours, yeast, caraway seed and salt in a large mixing bowl. Set aside.

In a saucepan, combine water, molasses and butter. Heat until warm (butter does not have to melt), not too hot or you'll kill the yeast.

In a large bowl, combine 2 1/2 cups of flour mixture with the warm liquid. Beat at medium speed of an electric hand mixer for 2 minutes. Add 1/2 cup more flour mixture, or enough to make a thick batter. Beat at high speed for 2 minutes.

With spoon, stir in remaining flour, or enough to make a soft dough. (This is where you may have to add additional flour to get a good consistency.)

Turn out onto floured board and knead for about 15 minutes, or until dough is smooth and elastic. Place in an oiled bowl. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour, or until doubled in bulk.

Punch down. Knead lightly. Divide in two; shape each into a round (or oval) bread. Place on baking sheet you have sprinkled generously with corn meal. Cover and let rise 1 hour or until doubled in bulk.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Brush with egg white (or plain water). If desired, sprinkle with additional caraway seeds. Bake in preheated 400 degrees F. oven for 25 minutes, or until bread taps hollow.

I for one find this forum too wide in topic with regards to Western food. Frankly I could care less where the best cheeseburger or whateveris found in Bangkok, but being here for a very long time, would also have liked to have known that in my early years here. Then there is product advertising. Ok, I'm a business person and hat's off to all you folks that are bringing new ethnic foods to Thailand locally...keep it up, but maybe a forum for where to find food would be more appropriate. I also think there is a place for Wester restaurant reviews and comments, that's a big topic that can easily have it's own area.

My question, is there a need for a more specific forum that deals only with folks cooking Western cuisine in Thailand, either pro's or just home cooks? It can be challenging, finding substitutes, and places where hard to find ingredients are available. We locals have the unique perspective not only on the recipes, but where to get the ingredients for those recipes.

Is it time to break these out? Any Thoughts? After all it's only software....and the ability of the site owners to moderate it.

Tops, Villa, Foodland, more than likely others also, look for brown paper bag's, these are imported Australian flour's, whole wheat, rye and hard wheat are the most common.

From what I know about this term Royal Thai, it has always meant to me superior presentation and service versus a different type of Thai flavors. This is where Thai food carving and very precise presentation and preparation are emphasized. In the past before the underground construction started I would entertain guests at the Benjarong Dusit Thani for what I considered at that time a very good representation of Royal Thai. But I am by no means an expert, and would like to know where others consider this unique Thai art form presented well. I also heard the Sukhothai on Silom has a good Royal Thai Restaurant, but never been there.