Shopping, shopping, shopping to turn up an ex-pat kitchen

[ChiFlyer]

Soups.

I am beginning to make some stocks and soups. The new 8 Qt. Instant Pot is great for this.

I first made Chicken Stock using this recipe from Alton Brown.

https://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/alton-brown/chicken-soup-la-pressure-reloaded-8750044

I used 3 cups of stock to make the soup that follows on the recipe. I had to adapt a little.

• I had no parsnips
• My recently ordered Togarashi Powder had not arrived, so I substituted a combination of Cayenne, Black Pepper, and Sesame seeds. This worked well.

The soup was absolutely delicious and much healthier than anything I could buy at the grocery store. Sorry I forgot to take pics on this one. The GF loved it as well.

I used 2 cups of the stock to make Cuban Black Bean Soup.

https://www.honeyandbirch.com/cuban-style-black-bean-soup/

I made some changes as the recipe read to be a little bland from my perspective.

• I had 1/2 leek and 2 carrots in the fridge, so I added them in with the aromatics.
• I added 1/2 tsp each of Cayenne and freshly ground Black Pepper to the spices.
• I sprinkled the soup with a little Togarashi (it's here now) at the end.

The soup was very tasty. Both the GF and her sister liked it. This is also much healthier than anything one could find at the grocery store. I do prefer Goya Beans, but I did not find them anywhere. I went with Bush Beans at the VM. They were decent.

In the pot nearing completion

 

 

[ChiFlyer]

Latin Fried Chicken

I like fried chicken and have at least 6 different recipes for it. I try not to eat it more than once a month, as it it definitely not in the healthy category. Last night I made Latin Fried Chicken.

Latin Fried Chicken.pdf

This turned out well. It requires close to a 6 hour time block, but most of that is marinade, coat and wait time. One is not on their feet all that much for this one. Some thoughts:

• I prefer using bone in chicken thighs as they stand up to the heat better. White meat tends to dry out at these temps.
• Having an oil/candy thermometer in the fry pot is essential to keep the heat at the correct level.
• I fry over the induction hob rather than the stove top as the heat control is much better.
• If you do not have granulated garlic for the coating use garlic powder.

Some pics.

Ready to go into the pot

In the pot

On the table

Side of Fried Bananas - these work great, but are much better fresh than reheated, if one can swing that.

[ChiFlyer]

Sometimes the simplest of things can turn out really well.

The GF's 3 year old nephew is in town for a couple of months due to getting him out of the way while the rice harvest is being done up North. He doesn't stay with us, but we have him over several times a week. His cousin told him that I make great spaghetti, so he asked for some. Flatter me and I will do most anything I guess.

I took 1/2 kg of pork and put it through the Italian Sausage seasoning process.

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/216319/homemade-sweet-italian-sausage-mild-or-hot/

 

This is further described in the recent Sausage Meatballs post. It takes about 15 minutes to prep the pork. Put it in a small bowl, cover with saran wrap, and put it in the fridge for 24 hours.

The meal takes less than 1 hour to prepare. Brown the pork, drain and put on a paper towel lined plate. Prep the sauce as described in the Sausage Meatballs recipe. After 10 minutes add the pork to the sauce and make the spaghetti.

Finish with some freshly ground Parm and some fresh Basil leaves. The basil takes it to another level.

   

[ChiFlyer]

Mercifully so, this will be the last kitchen post until American Thanksgiving. The GF and I are doing a road trip by car to Phuket to visit some friends. We will overnight in Hua Hin and Ranong, both ways. I will do a separate trip report about that.

I am closing out prior to the trip with a Jerk Chicken recipe.

This recipe more than for certain has it flaws in the way that it was written. At the same time, the end product is pretty good and the flaws can be circumvented.

• Toast the spices listed in the first group. No more than 4 minutes or they will burn.
• Add the toasted spices to the items listed in the second group - minus the chicken - and puree in a blender.
• Marinade the chicken as described, bake as described, and finish on a grill pan. Just for a few minutes on The Grill pan. As you can see in the pic, I left one on for too long.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/jerk-chicken-recipe0-1908640#communityReviews

Ready to eat

Plated

Edited November 13, 2020 by ChiFlyer

[ChiFlyer]

Happy American Thanksgiving to all.

I prepared an American Thanksgiving Dinner for some Thai friends last night. I did not have the time, inclination, or resources to do the full turkey thing and I also suspected that my guests would not care for turkey. I went non-traditional and made Rack of Lamb with roasted vegetables, primarily because I like Rack of Lamb and I thought they would as well. The Rack of Lamb was well received. The roasted vegetables less so. I guess I will be making some vegetable hash later today.

The recipes

https://www.thespruceeats.com/lamb-with-red-wine-sauce-3057947

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/roasted-butternut-squash-recipe-1921606#sni-reviews

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/robin-miller/roasted-red-potatoes-with-rosemary-recipe-1916877

I bought the Rack of Lamb and the vegetables at Makro. They had fresh rack of lamb a few weeks back, but only frozen the day before Thanksgiving. I ran it under cold water for 20 minutes and defrosted it the rest of the way in the fridge. If you ever buy Rack of Lamb at Makro take a good look at what you are buying. Some of the packages are frenched and some are not. Also, as usual, even the frenched ones had considerably more fat than what I would see in the US. The GF thought this was great and saved all the fat pieces that I was ready to toss.

All in all things turned out well. Some pics.

 

[Soda11111]

Wondering where I can purchase whole frozen butterball turkey in Pattaya?

[davidge]

10 minutes ago, Cheetos said:

Wondering where I can purchase whole frozen butterball turkey in Pattaya?

Not Butterball but:

https://britishop.com/product/whole-free-range-turkeys/?fbclid=IwAR1Hh5xdfQwOVQ6HcguLtsRpcdn11TcjU0Kn11g7NK6HpG-W2nqBlKfjkI4
 

https://primepattayasmokehouse.com/product/fresh-turkey/
 

[ChiFlyer]

7 hours ago, Cheetos said:

Wondering where I can purchase whole frozen butterball turkey in Pattaya?

The Makro on Sukhumvit has an amazing number of things in their frozen meats section. I do not think that they would have a Butterball, but they are worth a look see IMO.

I myself would like to find a fresh Prime Rib Roast for Xmas. Just starting to look around.

Looks like I may have found one.

https://passiondelivery.com/food/chilled-meat/kxszmvqxlq?utm_campaign=SmartShoppingSep2020&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9eW-pL-j7QIV0zArCh2V2giqEAQYAyABEgKUIvD_BwE

 

Edited November 27, 2020 by ChiFlyer

[ChiFlyer]

Chicken Parm

One of my go to recipes for small family meals in the US was Chicken Parm. I had been holding off here on making it, hoping to find some Fontina Cheese which takes the dish to another level IMO. After speaking with the owner of Gian's the other night, I gave up on the Fontina search as he can't get it at this time. Suppliers have cut many of the lesser demand items for obvious reasons.

I did a search on the net and several persons suggested using Gruyere, so I went that route. Guyere does have an interesting taste. I would caution that it is a little saltier than Fontina, so scale back the salt in other areas of the recipe (when the chicken is first salted and the sauce come to mind). Do not eliminate the salt at those points, but be a little judicious with it.

The recipe turned out very well and the GF loved the cheese on the chicken taste. Chicken Parm is easy to screw up for a variety of reasons, so I suggest reading the recipe to find out more about that.

Chicken Parm.pdf

I usually prepare some bread toasted and broiled with garlic butter, the cheese, some sauce, and finished with fresh basil.

The Chicken Parm

The Bread

Plated

 

[ChiFlyer]

On 27/11/2020 at 18:57, Cheetos said:

Wondering where I can purchase whole frozen butterball turkey in Pattaya?

I noticed this.

https://shoponline.villamarket.com/villaselectitems/selected/product/?form_key=uTjjPoWpHPiqK30f&k=butterball+turkey

[ChiFlyer]

Well we have made it to December. Time for some holiday traditions. This first one is not particularly an Xmas theme, but I have made it early in the holiday season for a number of years. I decided to do so again here in Thailand.

Italian Roast Pork, Italian style Mashed Potatoes, and Sauteed Carrots. It was me and 4 Thai ladies and everyone seemed to enjoy the meal.

Here are the recipes.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/roasted-pork-loin-with-roasted-garlic-vinaigrette-recipe-2012587

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/giadas-mashed-potatoes-recipe-2109913

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/sauteed-carrots-recipe-1916159

I bought the Pork Loin at Makro on Sukhumvit. They have an excellent selection of fresh pork meats and the loin was nicely trimmed. I bought the potatoes and carrots at Villa Market as I like the varieties they carry of both better than what I see at Makro. I dislike the huge carrots that many Thai grocery stores carry. They have a poor taste IMO. VM also carries a smaller variety.

If you are going to make this pork recipe, you should probably pick up a probe thermometer. Otherwise the internal temp is difficult to gauge. I bought my probe thermometer from Lazada.

I got quite a few compliments about the mashed potatoes. They are pimped up. A key ingredient is the mascarapone. This is available at VM. A few of the girls want to come back and learn how to make them.

The balsamic garlic vinaigrette ended up being a little too thick. I added a note to increase the water at the end for next year.

Some Pics

 

 

 

Edited December 5, 2020 by ChiFlyer

[ChiFlyer]

5 hours ago, ChiFlyer said:

......

Italian Roast Pork, Italian style Mashed Potatoes, and Sauteed Carrots. It was me and 4 Thai ladies and everyone seemed to enjoy the meal.

 

A quick addendum to the Roast Pork recipe.

I have found it to be a pain in the ass the way the roast garlic preparation is described in the recipe. I find it a little cumbersome to slice the garlic bulbs and also to push out the half cloves after they are roasted. Instead, I split up the cloves, quickly blanch them, remove the skins and bottoms, and then wrap the cloves up in aluminum foil with the EVOO and salt. I find this much easier to work with.

[ChiFlyer]

Stuffed Peppers.

I really liked Stuffed Peppers as a kid. I decided to give it a try.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/mr-johns-meat-stuffed-bell-peppers-3644409

I used colored peppers instead of all green ones like the recipe said. IMO the presentation is much better this way. The GF and I both thought the peppers turned out well, but agreed that a couple of changes might make them better. Specifically:

• A little cheese (I am thinking Cheddar) in the mix and also sprinkled on top of the peppers.
• Increase the tomato sauce a little.
• Pick up the heat. I am thinking a sprinkle of Togarashi Powder where it says adjust the seasonings to taste just before they go into the oven.

A pic

 

[jimboh]

Just made stuffed peppers a few days ago, had some left over chilli con carne.

Chargrilled a few peppers first, then mixed the CCC with cooked brown rice, 50/50, filled the peppers, topped with cheddar, chopped up crispy bacon and in oven for about 10min, turned our good. Proper comfort food.

[ChiFlyer]

I made homemade Tater Tots today for the first time. This was a make ahead dish to be frozen and reheated when some friends visit in about 10 days. I already had a bag of the Ore Ida product in the freezer, but decided to try the homemade version. They turned out amazingly well. I hope they retain that taste when they are reheated.

https://damndelicious.net/2015/04/10/homemade-tater-tots/

 

Oh - I found a single strangler bag of the Ore Ida product at VM and grabbed it as I had been on the prowl for these for quite some time. The homemade version is a lot better and I have liked the Ore Ida product for quite some time. Always thought that the Ore Ida version was a bit too bland.

[striderman]

a new potential souce of falang food products opened yesterday. Nadia's Expat Essentials. there is a facebook page which i cannot access cos ii don't do FB.

it's between 3rd road and nirun condo the soi next to the one with full love inn. planning on taking a look a bit later. it is deffo in a more convenient location (at least for me) than a mission to siamsbury's

Edited December 9, 2020 by striderman

[forcebwithu]

4 hours ago, striderman said:

a new potential souce of falang food products opened yesterday. Nadia's Expat Essentials. there is a facebook page which i cannot access cos ii don't do FB.

it's between 3rd road and nirun condo the soi next to the one with full love inn. planning on taking a look a bit later. it is deffo in a more convenient location (at least for me) than a mission to siamsbury's

Thanks for the heads up on the new place.

https://www.facebook.com/Nadias-Expat-Essentials-118083723433071/?ref=page_internal

Edited to add: Location now added to Google Maps (link) via "add a missing place" submission.

Another edit: Went by the new place on this morning's ride and snapped a pic of the new store.

Edited December 9, 2020 by forcebwithu

[ChiFlyer]

A damn good Chili - if I do say so myself.

This is actually a combination of two recipes. The main recipe calls for using a kilo of ground Chuck (85%). I chose instead to buy 1/2 kilo each of Chuck and Sirloin, trim them, and grind them myself in a food processor. Obviously this gives me a much leaner Chili. Here is a pic of the ground meat.

This method is from Alton Brown's Meatloaf recipe. In the video for that he suggests using it for Chili as well but reducing the grind to 8 to 10 pulses in the food processor.

From this point on I followed the America's Test Kitchen Chili Recipe with the exception of adding 3/8 tsp of Cayenne Pepper to the spice blend. I was glad I did.

There are a couple of items in this recipe that will be very difficult to find around Pattaya. These are the Ancho and Chipotle peppers. I imported these from the US via desertcart. I would not do this on a regular basis due to the cost, but I am ok with a once a year splurge. Here is the recipe.

Ground Beef Chilli.pdf

Here are a few pics.

The Anchos Roasting

The spice blend and meat

A bowl of excellent red. The GF loved this one.

 

[ChiFlyer]

I decided to use some of the leftover Chili to make Nachos. They turned out pretty well. I used this recipe as a base, but used the chili for my first layer on top of the chips. Because of that I gave the nachos a couple of extra minutes in the oven. Both stores that I tried were out of jalapenos, so I went with the red ones that resemble Fresnos. They were at an appropriate heat level

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/ultimate-nachos-recipe2-1917520

I also made a little guacamole. That one could have been better. The avocados were a little past prime. The guac tasted decent, but did not have the bright green look.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/guacamole-recipe-1940609

Some pics

The Nachos. The GF liked them.

The Guacamole.

[ChiFlyer]

I am still working my way through the leftover Chili and loving it.

This Chili Dog took about 2 minutes and tasted great.

 

Edited December 18, 2020 by ChiFlyer

[ChiFlyer]

Some friends were in from Phuket for a few days, so we had a small dinner party the other night. The menu was roast duck breasts with blueberry chutney, roasted carrots, and homemade tater tots. Everything turned out really well.

I bought the frozen duck breasts at Villa Market and the quality was spot on. Here is a pic of them after they had been crosshatched prior to cooking.

Here is the recipe for the duck breasts and the blueberry chutney.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/pan-roasted-duck-breast-recipe0-2013578

Here is the recipe for the roasted carrots, which were also very good.

https://diethood.com/roasted-garlic-parmesan-carrots/

Here is the one for the homemade tater tots. I had previously posted about these.

https://damndelicious.net/2015/04/10/homemade-tater-tots/

I chose this lineup because many of the items (except the duck) could be prepared ahead of time and quickly reheated. The duck goes pretty quickly (about 30 minutes), so I was not running around going nuts with the cooking after the guests had arrived.

Here is a pic of the spread.

And finally, a pic of the view, which was good on this particular night.

[ChiFlyer]

I stumbled across this recipe and was interested enough to give it a try. This is called Sambel Noodles. There were a few things about it that I have/will change next time around. Here is the recipe.

https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/spicy-sweet-sambal-pork-noodles?mbid=synd_msn_rss

As written the recipe is a little too sweet and also needs more heat. The changes I made or will make are:

• Cut the sugar in half
• Add some heat. I hit it with 1/4 tsp of both red pepper flakes and cayenne pepper. That was not enough.
• I reduced the soy sauce by 1 TBSP and added 1 TBSP of fish sauce. I do this frequently for Asian recipes.
• I will give some thought to changing the meat from ground pork to pork loin slices.
• I used linguine for the noodles and that worked well. I like the way linguine holds the sauce.

All in all this turned out pretty well. The GF liked it as did I, but we both added some powdered red pepper to the finished product. The main problem though is the amount of sugar IMO. A pic and despite my bitchin it was very good.

 

Oh, one last note - make sure you get the pan good and hot before adding the pork. The oil should be shimmering and just about ready to smoke. I misread my oil a little and that worked against the browning effect.

Edited December 21, 2020 by ChiFlyer

[expatdude]

I recently did a base Indian curry sauce. I bought garlic already peeled and ginger already peeled at the market, blended it up and cooked it with a whole bunch of different Indian spices and spice blends and some tomatoes. I was thinking how to freeze it, and saw an idea for ice cube trays. Was on the lookout, and saw a silicone one at Mr Fixit or whatever they're called. Each cube is 100ml, or almost half a cup so quite a good size for the purpose. The tray was only 63 baht, works a treat so far.

The spices: cumin, fenugreek, asafoetida, cardomon, cinnamon, coriander, garam masala, kitchen king are the ones that come to mind, but probably forgot a few. There's a couple really interesting and useful Indian stores down near the Thai temple at the bottom of South Pattaya Road, here's the first and the second. Got some of their paneer cheese yesterday and cooked it up with some peas too in the base sauce, very nice. Paneer is 240 a kilo.

I'm intending to do the same with a base Mexican sauce similar to what you did with your chili, but minus the meat. Will make it easy to cook up a batch of chili when the itch occurs, and also other dishes like tacos, Mexican stews, etc.

[ChiFlyer]

And a Merry Xmas to all.

I went all out for the Xmas dinner. I had a Prime Rib delivered from a place in Bangkok. The quality of the meat was very good to excellent. The price was 5800. Good thing it was on sale. O well Xmas only comes once a year, although it looks like it's been lowered to 4800 for New Year's.

https://passiondelivery.com/food/chilled-meat/kxszmvqxlq?utm_campaign=SmartShoppingSep2020&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9eW-pL-j7QIV0zArCh2V2giqEAQYAyABEgKUIvD_BwE

Mine was delivered frozen because I am outside of the Bangkok area. The only complaint I have with it is that they trimmed the fat cap too far, so I did not get good drippings and the meat was a little too lean. Might be an American vs. Aussie preference.

Here is the recipe I used for the Prime Rib and the accompanying Chimichuri Sauce.

red chimichurri sauce _ onedadskitchen.pdf

Here is a pic of the Prime Rib after it has been salted to age in the fridge for 96 hours.

 

The Prime Rib ready to slice

 

The Chimcichuri Sauce - I also served Horseradish Sauce

The veggies

 

I also made Duck Fat Roasted Potatoes. I had made Roast Duck Breasts the week before, so I had saved the rendered duck fat from that.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/duck-fat-potatoes-2108475

 

Finally the meal plated

 

Our Thai guests seemed to enjoy everything.

[jimboh]

 

Made a lovely Prawn curry today. Was a simple dish to make. 

Only used 2 onions and added about 6 mushroom's, a few green and red chili peppers.

Will make again for sure.

Bazun hin (prawn curry) recipe (lovefood.com)