theseahorse

You could buy my smoker - it comes with 3lbs. of tenderquick and 6lbs. of Mortons brown sugar cure.

Where do you buy one of them in thailand

TruValue in Bangkok has a Weber Smokey Mountain (google it, google can ne your friend ) but it's sadly 31,000 baht . So I'm sure it's cheaper to get one made or just buy Redneck's.

Also, they're not hard to make out of an old fridge. I keep thinking about making one myself, but I can hot smoke on my bbq as well as I require and this style of smoker is no good for cold smoking. I really want to be able to cold smoke but that's not so easy to do at home, especially in this heat!

WOW 31,000... That makes mine sound like a steal especially with all the extras.

When I make bacon I keep the temp at about 125 - 130 and never had any complaints.

Back home we always considered it cold smoked if it was below 140 but I know some people think it shouldn't be over 100. I guess it's just personal preference.

It does sound like a good deal. I'm tempted myself.

Cold smoking for me has always been under 100F/ 37C, preferablly lower though 80/90F is best, it depends on what your smoking to low it must be. But it's impressive that your smoker goes down to 125F, I've used a few smokers in the past similar to yours, both homemade and brand named and could never keep a temperature that low.

Have you smoked English style bacon in it? Although a properly cured piece of meat will be fine in it, at 125-130F/ 55C the bacon would be slow cooking not just smoking. Slow cooking at this temperature would produce some gorgeous meat, but would be no good for uncooked smoked English bacon or Smoked Salmon.

Building an attachment to a smoker like yours to get the temperature lower is easy enough, but when the outside temperature is hotter than I want to smoke at it becomes an issue.

Still, from the photos you get some great results hot smoking with it!

You could buy my smoker - it comes with 3lbs. of tenderquick and 6lbs. of Mortons brown sugar cure.

Where do you buy one of them in thailand

TruValue in Bangkok has a Weber Smokey Mountain (google it, google can ne your friend ) but it's sadly 31,000 baht . So I'm sure it's cheaper to get one made or just buy Redneck's.

Also, they're not hard to make out of an old fridge. I keep thinking about making one myself, but I can hot smoke on my bbq as well as I require and this style of smoker is no good for cold smoking. I really want to be able to cold smoke but that's not so easy to do at home, especially in this heat!

Google can ne your friend

http://www.mortonsal...enderquick.html

http://www.mortonsal...curing_faq.html

Thanks, but I've looked at these beforehand. From the website it looks to me like it is just nitrate salt with sugar already mixed in.

But what I'm wondering is why people use it over nitrate salt and a little sugar. I understand a lot of people are warry of using salt petre (even though with a pair of scales and a little common sense it's simple), but since discovering on this thread the cost of it over unbranded nitrate salt, I'm wondering what the advantages are. Or is it just a brand that everyone in the States knows and trusts?

If anyone has used Mortons, I am generally interested in knowing whether there are advantages in using Morton's. Does it cure faster than a traditional mix? It is called Tenderquick after all!

To me one of the joys of curing your own meats is to play around with the ingrediants and I find that the type of sugar used makes a huge difference, so wouldn't really want to use a cure thats already got sugar mixed in - I've been getting some great results with making Pancetta using the very dark unrefind Thai sugar recently.

But if there are advantages to using Morton's I'd like to know and maybe try it out myself at somepoint.

Can someone explain exactly what Mortons Tenderquick Salt is?

I've done a lot of Charcuterie throughout my culinary career, but have always used salt petre (pink salt) mixed with rock salt or ready mixed nitrate salts. Mortons is obviously an American thing as I never came across it in Europe. After first hearing about it on forums like this I presumed it was just a named nitrate salt mix, but at 950 baht/kg it's a lot more expensive than the un-branded nitrate salt I use here, so I'm guessing there's something else to it.

Whats in it? What's the difference between using a ready mixed nitrate salt versus Mortons Tenderquick?

@theseahorse

I went to Foodland first and noticed that the price was 10 baht per can higher - strange, I thought. I didn't purchase any because it was 4:05 P.M and I remembered that silly law.

Then when I returned I noticed the store downstairs in my building (which sells at all hours) had raised the price as well.

May you be right...theseahorse.

As an Asahi drinker myself, I hope so.

I bought some Asahi today. Same price as always.

Are you sure it's not just one shop trying it on?

Foodland have just done a simliar thing with the coffee I buy. They put it up 70% and told me thats the new price. I just go elsewhere now and pay the usual amount.

I'm very interested in making my own hams, but I need to get hold of Dinprasew ดินประสิว which is known as Potassium Nitrate, commonly referred to as Saltpeter, Chemical code Kn03

Dinprasew is a food preservative substance and colour fixation, it's also used to stop botulism bacteria when brining / making ham. It is white in colour and looks like salt.

Anyone any ideas where I can buy this product.

using Potassium Nitrate for any food stuff is strictly forbidden in Europe since the early 70s!

Banned since the 70's???

When first being taught basic Charcuterie in Europe about 15 years ago I was using Potassium Nitrate. It is closely monitored in mass produced food but it's not banned.

There has been a lot of discussion in the EU recently about whether it should be allowed in Organic foods or not and whether the use of it makes the food not strictly Organic, but the EU has just said that using Potassuim Nitrate will not stop foods being classed as Organic as the herbal cures avaliable don't work very well, so it's definitely not banned.

Potassium Nitrate is a dangerous chemical, hey it's in gunpowder, but as long as you're sensible and use it correctly then there really is no problem. If you really are worried about using it but want to make hams or bacon get some nitrate salt instead. Making your own hams and bacon is really easy and don't be put off by people scaremongering about using nitrate, a home cured ham is SO much better than water filled crap you get in the shops here.

Pla Lin Ma is the local Sole or 'Tongue Fish', not a Flounder.

But as Flounders aren't from this side of the world you might be right and that was the fish the OP was cooking.

The only other flat fish I can think of in the local markets would be Pla Seek Diaw (Indian Halibut).

Sounds delicious, which ever fish it was!

Depending on where you're based there's also a very good shop opposite Makro on Sirinakarin, but don't make the journey out if you don't live that way as they 'have exactly the same stock as UFM on Suk 33/1. May even be the same owners????

I think you're all getting confused with different types of ageing methods. All meat has to be aged to a certain degree to get rid of the rigamortis in the animal, without any aging it would be inedable. Most aging is done either in cyrovac bags now or the whole beast has been aged before being butchered. Beef generally needs about a week, but most people agree that after 28 days it's at it's best.

What i think the OP is getting confused about is dry aging. This is generally only done for ribs and it's when the rib is left in a special aging fridge uncovered, again usually for upto 28 days. This does produce a very strong flavoured meat, personally I think it ends up tasting more gamey, a bit like aged Venison. But it is an aquired taste as many people feel it just tastes mouldy. When a peice of beef has been dry aged well, it can be really nice, but sadly some of the dry aged beef you get really isn't very nice at all.

Sadly the local sausage skins here don't come graded at all. The bags you get at Macro are just mixed and are generally very bad quality and haven't been cleaned very well, but they do work alright for larger sausages, although are a nightmare to untangle and a lot are full of holes. I wouldn't recommend using them for chipolatas though as you really need the correct size skin, but as a butcher of 32 years I'm not going to insult you and start telling you how to make sausages.

You can get good quality imported skins (Aus and US) from Royal Exquisite Food. They have the full range from 18/20's upto 32/34. As Thaigerd said they come in hanks (a hank is 100 yards) and they're tubed too.

Europe has very high import duty and VAT (VAT there is normally nearly 3 times what it is here). Also incredibly high wages and social security charges. Prices there are still often much lower than prices in Thailand.

A simple example:

PC speakers ordered online and delivered within 48 hours in the UK: GBP9 (450B) incl delivery. 12 months warranty.

The same speakers on the shelf in a large electrical store here: 550B. No delivery and no real warranty for that matter.

No, many prices are just plain high here and the cash must be going somewhere. I wonder where?

It isnt reasonable to compare the prices of used goods though as obviously the market is very different.

The thing you're forgetting here is how much the GBP and the USD has dropped over the past few years. Before the economic crash we were getting about 70 baht to the GBP, making your speakers only about 7 GBP. You can't expect a Thai shop keeper to drop the price of his speakers because another countries currancy isn't doing to well.

Obviously, for tourists and anyone living here who earns their money abroad, it does make a big difference, but for anyone living and earning money in Thailand it makes no difference.

Saying this, the cost of cars, new and secondhand here is so high and always has been compared to back west. What I really don't understand is how taxis are so cheap, when the initial outlay to get a car is so high!

Guys! Please stop with the squabbeling!

Myself and I'm sure most of the other TV members don't actually care who of the two of you knows the most about wine, how much you spent on a bottle of Chateau Margeaux or about Australian wine tax! We're here to find out where we can get better wine at a better price.

Lingnoi1977 - if you know of a good wine supplier that sells wine anywhere near what we all used to pay back west then please let us all know.

Wine IS more expensive here, I've aways been told it's because of taxes, whether thats true or not I don't know. What I do know is that a standard drinkable bottle of red or white is about 5 pounds in the UK (250 baht), the exact same bottle here is about 600 baht (12 pounds). Also, there's a wine producer I've worked with many times over the years from Alsace and his wines are popular here as they go very we'll with Thai food, here they cost about 1,500 baht (30 pounds); in the UK, 12 pounds (600 baht). Wine is more expensive here, no question. I can only compare to UK prices but my American, French, Italian and especially my Australian friends also complain about wine prices.

I'm personally get most of my wine from Wine Connection. Villa also have a good range of affordable wines, but I find Wine Connecion have a more interesting range. I was told the other day that Wine Connection now have a website and deliver. I haven't yet tried it, anyone used the delivery service yet?

I'm not sure about a grocers in the Soi Arab area, but I bought some Pomegrante Molasses from the Villa by Sukhumvit 33 the other day and have bought Zaátar in Dean & Deluca (under BTS Chong Nonsi), although it wasn't cheap from there, about 100 baht for a 1oz pot. Never seen Sumac here though, sorry.

I'd be interested to hear about a Middle Eastern food store too.

Sous Vide cooking can be wonderful when done correctly, sadly not many restaurant chefs do sous vide cooking well let alone amatuer cooks.

For a start, you MUST hve real equipment, sticking a ziplocked bag in a slow cooker doesn't work. The trick to cooking sous vide well is to have a constant exact low temperature for a set amount of time, if the temperature is going up and down constantly it just doesn't come out very well . Different types of food need different temperatures as well, a nice thick 200g portion of salmon for a mii cuit will take 1 hour 20 minutes set at 42oC whereas to slow cook a chicken breast you'd want to set it at 60oC ( for about 35 minutes), this is something that can't be done to the extent it needs to be without real equipment. Sadly too many chefs think that cooking sous vide is just boil in the bag, it's not (well it is, but it's a little more scientific than that).

Personally, I feel if something needs to be seared afterwards it shouldn't have been sous vide in the first place, it should have been seared then slow roasted. I once had a sirloin that had been sous vide whole, then seared and sliced and I agree it was tasteless and lacked any texture. If the meat had been slow roasted at say 59oC until it's 55oC inside (about 2 1/2 hours) it would have been far better, but like to many restaurants around the world the chef wants to do everthing in whatever style is in fashion rather than what produces the best dish.

If you do manage to find a waterbath Wintermute, have fun playing around, you can get some great results quite easily as long as you treat it more like a science experiment. Sous vide cooking is a great cooking meduim when used correcty.

I'm guessing you mean a water bath when you say Sous Vide Cooker.

Although I've never bought one in Thailand, when purchasing water bathes back in Europe for proffesional kitchens I'd buy them from a science lab equipment supplier. There was no such thing as a 'Supreme Series Sous Vide Cooker' then anyway.

Sorry, I don't know of any lab suppliers here though.

Nana is correct. The method that Ozzieovaseas is talking about is for modern mass produced hams. You don't need to inject the meat, it just speeds things up. A real Parma, Bayonne or Serrano would never have been injected it's just placed in a salt cure mix and weighted down, then wrapped in muslin and hung.

This is the same for any size cut of meat, even an 8kg whole bone-in leg of pork is done the same way, it just takes longer. Normally it's about 2 days per kilo, but the quality of the ham and the conditions do make a bit of a difference.

The Severin brand (Germany) yogurt maker I use (from Verasu) incubates the yogurt at 120 DG F which is a bit hotter than room temperature even in Thailand ... I replaced the individual jars with one plastic 900 ml dish which holds perfectly the 850 ml Pasteurized milk bottles ... I find it unnecessary to boil the milk unless using raw milk ... the blue and white brand of natural yogurt sold at TOPS is 'Yolida' from Khorat. I bring back with me from USA trips freeze-dried yogurt culture -- each packet can be 'mothered' for at least half a dozen liters and maybe more if third generation.

Although it's a little cooler at the moment my kitchen is normally over 100 oF at night and I was always taught that yogurt should be made at about 110 oF. Maybe at 120 it's a bit faster? Have you always used a machine? I'm wondering what the benifits are?

As for boiling the milk first, I would still recommend it as it not only kills any bad bacteria that may ruin your batch of yogurt but it also changes the proteins in the milk and helps thicken it.

Also, what benifits do you find from using freeze dried cultures rather than normal yogurt? I've thought about trying it out at sometime myself, but have never felt it was worth it when you can get great yogurt from just using the cultures in a 20 baht pot of Yolida. Do you just prefer the taste?

Everytime I make a batch I put a small pot to oneside that I use for the culture of the next batch. I don't think I've bought a pot of yogurt for six months now.

Why do you need a Yogurt machine??? All a yogurt machine does is keep it at a good temperature for the bacteria to work. If you live in a cold country then it might be useful (although I always just put it in the airing cupboard!) Here in Thailand it's the perfect temperature for making yogurt.

I make a gallon every week or two. All you need to do is buy a small tub of the natural yogurt that they sell in every supermarket (they do in Bangkok anyway!) I don't remeber the name, but it's in a white tub with blue writing. Boil some milk in the evening, leave it to cool down to blood temperature (about an hour), add the tub of yogurt, stick a teatowel over it and leave it in the kitchen until morning. When you wake up stick it in the fridge for an hour or so and you have lovely natural fresh unsweetened yogurt. If you like it thicker, then hang it in muslin for an hour or so, don't add agar agar to it, this will just give it a jelly like consistancy, unless you want yogurt jelly. Mass produced yougurt normal has a thickener like Lecithin in but if you're jut making it for home, then just hang it.

@Poorsucker

What type of Khao Soy is this? Sounds good, I'll try it out at somepoint, but it's very different from the Khao Soy's I've had in the Chiang Mai area. It's always been flat egg noodles, never rice noodles. Is this a Chiang Rai version?

Last time I was up in Chiang Mai the owner of the little place I was staying in got her mum to show me how they make Khao Soy Gai and it was very different to this. But as many other people have said there are numerous versions around.

I'll type out her recipe on here when I have more time.

I order from here:

Absinthe Liquor

Great link, Thanks.

Have you ever had problems getting it sent here?

I suppose I should have said a bread or pizza baking stone;

or it could even be made of cast-iron.

Don't know if there is a branch in Bangkok, but I saw them in the Truevalue store in Pattaya.

I think it might be a Truevalue? But whatever the Garden/ BBQ/ Cookware store is called in K Village, Sukhumvit 26 is they have a selection of them there. Also noticed them in the new Villa in Paradise Park, I think that might be part of Truevalue too?

They do look better than the Starbucks ones. Will have to give them ago.

@Godolphin

You rest them over a cup of hot coffee for a few minutes so they slowly warm up and the syrup softens, then eat them. mmmmmmmmmmmm!

If anywhere sells it, it will be Pacific Liquor. They have the best selection of spirits I've found in Bangkok. It's on Sukhumvit halfway between the park next to Emporium (Benjasiri)and The Dubliner pub. I've never looked for Absinthe but I've found many other spirits that nowhere else sells in there.

Most Absinthes that you can buy today are made from a different type of Wormwood that has a very low thujone content. Most modern brands are even legal in the US now. The taste and strength is very similar, but you won't see any green fairys.

Report back if you manage to find some. I've had some fun nights drinking Absinthe in the past, it could be fun to get a bottle in for New Year. Just need to find my old Absinthe spoon!

Just got back from a week in the Koh Mak area last night and we only had a couple of storms at night in the 8 days we were there. During the day it was really nice and sunny. No problems on the drive back to Bangkok either.

It's very quiet at the moment, even for Koh Mak and there's very few people about. Alot of places are doing building work and getting ready for the peak season and alot of places seem to have shut as it's so quiet. But you can get some great deals on accomodation as it's so slow.

The slow boat is 2 hours, but the speed boat from Leam Ngob is only 45 minutes (450 baht).