Ok, @Garball, I have a chef question for you: I notice that when I remember to buy sweet potato for my Thai curries (red, panang, etc.) I never experience the dreaded sauce separation that sometimes happens when I'm not careful with the heat and I don't have the sweet potatoes. Also, with sweet potato, the next day the sauce is thicker and remains unified even after refrigerating. What's the science going on here?
Starch from the sweet potato acts as a stabilizer in your sauce. This prevents your emulsions from breaking. Also, as your sauce sits over night the starch continues to absorb water and form a thicker matrix
For those that like steamed veggies but don't have a steamer, here is a good alternative that I did tonight. Take your largest pot and put about 3 inches of water in the bottom with some salt, then cut and clean your veggies and put them in a colander. Put the colander in the pot were it sits on the rim but isn't in the water. Turn the stove to high and put aluminum foil over the colander to keep steam in. Works great! I'm eating steamed broccoli tonight.
Lewdog, judging from your avatar, you're a bit of shape shifter. I love good Indian or Thai cuisine and cook a lot of it. I also make a pretty mean pie: apple, cherry, blueberry, combos with rhubarb, and my favorite, but only once a year -- wild blueberry and huckleberry.
What is the most exotic food any of you have ever had? Moroccan for me. I like Ethiopian best though.
I'm not going to be eating lunch today because, for breakfast, I went to a local diner that had a Sunday breakfast buffet. So my stomach is full as a result.
It's ground beef or lamb cooked up with onion, shallot, peas or corn, spices, etc. in a thickish gravy, topped with a layer of mashed potatoes and baked. Done right, it's very delicious! Serve it with a salad and maybe some nice crusty bread and good beer. Yum!
Some call it cottage pie when done with beef, but I think it's not a written rule. Why cottage pie and not cowboy's pie if the shepherd's pie is a shepherd's pie? Debate room material right here.
That's some pretty deep stuff there. Over on this side of the pond, we don't differentiate to that level. Good information, though!
Hmm... In my school they take the leftovers from the previous day's mincemeat sauce and puts mashed potato on top of it. Actually, they take anything with ground meat in it and puts mashed potato on it...
Eggs Florentine sounds delish! Has anyone tried Triscuit's new Brown Rice crackers? I can't get enough of the tomato and basil ones. The store isn't helping me either; they keep putting them on sale.
