Things That Go in Your Mouth

[Silversong]

I actually did try making pistachio paste! I tweaked a recipe I found on Serious Eats, because I was unwilling to put in more sugar than pistachios. <_< I did 8 oz pistachios, 6.5 oz organic powdered sugar, 2 oz olive oil, 2 oz water, 1/2 tsp orange blossom water, 1/4 tsp salt.
Texture is a bit sticky, but spreadable and at least what I ate off the spatula was pretty good. Not quite the delight the jar I had was, but now it's gone it was a good use for some free pistachios I already had! I also saw I could whip some into whipped cream and that sounds amazing.

[Mongrel]

I also saw I could whip some into whipped cream and that sounds amazing.

omg

In other news I got some Korean sweet corn ice cream (yes corn), and it's basically like popcorn meets french vanilla except really, really mild.

[Silversong]

One of the things that came out of a low-cholesterol diet has been cottage cheese. I never used to eat the stuff, but now that I'm avoiding other creams and cheeses, it seems pretty useful. I take small curd, lowfat cottage cheese and stick an immersion blender in until it's smoother, and then use it instead of whipped cream in crepes, instead of cream cheese or ricotta on crumpets and buns, etc. It works surprisingly well, and has lower saturated fat _and_ active cultures.

[Mongrel]

Question for R^2 and/or any of our weeb cooks.

It's almost impossible to get proper senbei crackers here. They used to be the more common type in Asian stores, but as I mentioned the other day on Discord, the big Asian snack companies still doing rice crackers have distressingly moved more towards american-style rice cakes - less flavour, more air. Boo hiss, etc. and are increasingly disappearing from larger Asian grocery stores in general.

As an intermediate step from baking my own or paying premium prices at smaller dedicated weeb stores, I want to try improving some common bulk store-bought rice crackers by simply giving them another coating and rebaking them (which also carries the benefit of crisping them up a bit if they've drawn small amounts of damp over time).

The normal recipes for senbei typically say 2:1 mirin to soy sauce, but the question is, what would be the best way to get a somewhat even coating on what are relatively small crackers (the nickel/dime size ones) and getting even coverage on both sides without the sauce only sticking to the side facing up, or the stuff on the bottom dripping down to or otherwise coating any baking tray rather than the crackers? I want these buggers to be lacquered. Is there a specific type of baking tray I should use? Or liner sheet? Will I have to get something that keeps everything moving? Will the regular mixture of just mirin & soy be sticky enough to make a heavy coat or do I need to add something to it?

If I can make this work, I've got some furikakke shakers I wanna try on them to add nori & stuff too.

[Büge]

Kylie suggests corn syrup or gelatin in the mix to hold the sauce onto the crackers. Mirin and soy are both too liquid.

[Mongrel]

I was thinking that but was wondering because mirin is already heavily corn syrup (at least the variety we got, bog standard Kikkoman). Must experiment to see.

[nosimpleway]

A mixture of mirin and soy sauce should be pretty damn sticky, and a basting brush should let you paint it onto the crackers pretty evenly. As to how to re-bake them I'm not sure, it's something I'd have to experiment with. Even if brushing liquid onto the outside of a cracker doesn't disintegrate the cracker itself, I'm not sure how to bake them without them just sitting in a puddle of the lacquer on a sheet, or having it drip off if they're raised on a rack. Maybe paint them, see how well it dries, and then re-bake?

[Mongrel]

A mixture of mirin and soy sauce should be pretty damn sticky, and a basting brush should let you paint it onto the crackers pretty evenly. As to how to re-bake them I'm not sure, it's something I'd have to experiment with. Even if brushing liquid onto the outside of a cracker doesn't disintegrate the cracker itself, I'm not sure how to bake them without them just sitting in a puddle of the lacquer on a sheet, or having it drip off if they're raised on a rack. Maybe paint them, see how well it dries, and then re-bake?

I'll give that a spin.

I'm not worried about disintegration as the smaller type crackers are pretty hard lil nubbins.

[Mongrel]

Well that didn't work at all, lol.

Let the things dry somewhat (1.5 hour) but decided to finish in the oven on low temps. Checked every 10 min and at 20 they were still gummy enough that I let them keep toasting. Between 20 and 30 minutes SOMETHING happened where some key threshold was crossed which I do not understand.

The crackers, formerly glossy and mostly firm with an okay-but-not-great taste when testing at the 20-minute mark tasted like burnt ink at the 30 mark and had started to disintegrate, having suddenly gained an oddly porous surface texture. I can only assume I triggered off some sort of reaction.

A complicating factor might be that the soy sauce we had on hand was an old bottle and may not have been up to this specific use even though we've used it recently in normal cooking without any ill effect or taste.

Oh well.

[nosimpleway]

I am out of practice like god damn but I can still sear a steak. Sirloin with fig chutney on a bed of buttery mashed sweet potatoes.

The verdict: I am incapable of feeling joy. It was perfect in an academic sense, but I might as well go back to steamed vegetables on 90-second rice for all it did for me.

[Mongrel]

At least you had professional pride in a job well done? :(

[nosimpleway]

It was like looking at a perfectly acceptable car that I just sold to a stranger

[Yoji]

I turn my back for a minute, and the kids bring home some sugar cane from the community garden at church. Guess I better figure out what to do with the stuff.

Probably NOT make our own granulated sugar unless someone else wants to spend 6,000 hours stirring a boiling pot. I thought I read it could be used to make rum, but I don't have any fermenting equipment.

[Mongrel]

Got some wings today from a place I hadn't tried (had decent reviews).

Hardly the worst meal I ever had or anything, but I find it interesting when an eatery goes with the business model of "We're gonna serve only one thing! But also we're gonna be crap at that one thing."

[Thad]

Beer is still my go-to alcoholic beverage but I've been picking up the occasional bottle of liquor. So maybe I'll write about that sometimes. If nothing else, so I've got something to come back to and go "Oh yeah, that was what that thing was called."

Pueblo Amigo Reposado Tequila Suave
I like the occasional margarita at a Mexican restaurant (or used to back when I went to restaurants) but I've never been much of a tequila drinker. The occasional shot in college, that kind of thing.

I really like the flavor of this one. Neat or on the rocks, no chaser; just a nice slow sipping drink. It's pure agave, no additives.

I don't know much about tequila and at $20 a liter I don't know if this is what's considered good tequila, but I know what I like and I like this.

[Thad]

Gin is another one of those spirits that didn't do much for me back in college but that I decided to take another crack at (largely based on Parish's recommendations), reasonably figuring that maybe the people I was drinking with back then were just buying the cheap shit.

It turns out I do in fact like a nice gin and tonic on the rocks with a twist of lemon. I usually buy Nolet's Silver (another Parish recommendation) but I recently picked up some Castle & Key Rise Seasonal and have rather enjoyed it.