Hello hello people ! Hope you are all doing well today :) This week, I have prepared possibly the most complex dish I have in this whole curry thing I started at the beginning of the year ! (side note, it really has been 5 months I've been making a curry dish every friday huh? that's insane hahahah) A Katsu Curry completely by scratch ! The process started on Wednesday, where I had to make a broth with a few spices, beef stock and mushrooms ! It took me a while to find some shiitake mushrooms... they always come in huuuge portions and I only needed a little bit lol. Now I have a bunch of shiitake mushrooms lyin around and I dunno what to do with them ! I guess I'll see :P After making the broth I chilled it for 2 days until friday where I started the curry prep. Curry was quite a simple dish to make, but the fun part was making katsu to go with it. Definitely a combination of flavours that go real well together ! As for the curry, it's a weird tasting thing. It definitely tastes like curry, but almost tastes like it in a branded way, you know? It's like the taste of a generic "Curry" dish. From my understanding that was kind of the point, but still, find it rather odd.. not that it's any bad though ! You can't really go wrong with curry powder :P I found that curry with calrose rice is actually quite phenomenal... calrose has such a distinct texture that it's barely even replaceable with any type of rice. Delish ! Overall, I think everything melded in together quite well and made for a real good sensory experience. I do think I could've salted the curry a little more, but my parents said it was fine so I left it as is hahahah. Definitely recommend this one if you have the patience to make a broth a few days early !

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/EwrKmqR
Recipe: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/katsu-curry
Question of the day: What do you think is the best accompanying dish (i.e. crunchy bread, naan, rice...) ever? What do you usually have alongside your dishes?

Have a great day and STAY SAFE ! <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

I've been working on the mobile version of password for a while now, mostly lending to the fact that much of the infrastructure of the game required expansion to accomodate for that. Plus, this sort of gameplay on mobile is a new territory for me, which makes it both worrisome and exciting.

Long story short, you can preview the mobile gameplay of password with the same link:

Play the game.

The gameplay is different from the desktop version. Here, you have to tap the keys in the order of their number: 1, then 2, then 3, and so on until the last key. Tapping keys out of order (4, then 6) results in a foul, which takes away a bit of time. Tapping all keys in the correct order means you win the round and get awarded the score. Other instructions are on screen.

It is NOT the final version. It's playable but contains some visual bugs. I'm gonna work on fixing those in the coming weeks. Right now, I'm looking for feedback:

• How does the mobile gameplay feel?
• How does the sizing of the score looks?
• Are there any problems with swiping or tapping?
• How does the timer bar look on smaller screens? (Think smaller than iPhone X.)
• How does the timer look on devices that have a notch?
• Does it load the correct version at all? (If you're on a mobile device – smartphones and tablets – you should not see keyboard references. If you do, it didn't load the correct version of gameplay.)

Desktop gameplay has only received visual updates. You can still play it with the same link.

Let me know if you encounter issues. You can post here, or you can open an issue in the GitHub repo. If you do, make sure to provide what information you can on the issue, like what sort of a device you're using (maker, model, OS version, browser etc.): this helps figure out the problem easier and quicker.

I know of these issues so far, and am working on resolving them:

• after pressing the last key of the order (8 right now), the red border flashes, as if you've received a foul (you don't)
• score has to fully animate towards the final value before it resizes to fit the screen
• swiping distance may or may not be too short, so it may feel as though it doesn't register

this week's curry was a simple chicken korma recipe I made that I found on tesco foods' website, last place I'd expect to get a recipe for a curry hah. I'm quite happy with this experience because it's the first time in a while I've had significant leftovers after eating one of these, which means I totally ate less than I usually do. In fact, we had leftovers for over 2 more breakfasts left ! It makes me happy because I'm trying to lose a bit of weight out here... means I'm doing the good first step :P Anyhow, as it comes for the recipe, it was a quite simple recipe with not a lot of complexity to the spice mix. I do believe the added 'extra spices' it tells you to add at the bottom are real crucial for it to be extra delicious comparatively to what it would've been with just the main spices. One thing I did have to change tho was the usage of Chicken drumsticks instead of breasts as the recipe calls for, which ended up being alright as well. Honestly chicken dishes can pretty easily interchange the cut of chicken without it affecting the quality of the dish much, which is pretty great ! Another touch I found quite appealing was the use of toasted flaked almonds as a garnish, the crunchiness of the almonds made for a real nice textural contrast. Overall a simple dish and pretty by the books I think, but that doesn't mean it's any bad ! Def recommend if you're in the mood for something simple.

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/L7Ix8T9
Recipe: https://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/chicken-korma-curry.html

Question of the day: Any recent culinary discoveries you'd think people should know more about?

Have a great day and STAY SAFE ! <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

So this week I made another serious eats curry (which I actually think comes from another cook book but whatever I found it on serious eats hahahah) and it was a pretty simple chicken curry with a tomato and cream based sauce. It tastes a lot like a pseudo butter chicken made at home that I found to be quite great! Also, I might've accidentally made it a little more spicy than I imagined it would've been.. which to me is such a lovely accident! I've been liking spiciness in my food a lot more lately and I always feel underwhelmed by low hotness levels in my food.... So whenever I get to eat something super spicy it feels really great ! So, if you follow this recipe properly and make it a teeny bit spicier, I think you'll have a nice night :P overall quite the stellar recipe. I do believe it would go quite amazing with some naan which I didn't make ... So I'd recommend that too !!

Picture of the dish: http://imgur.com/gallery/3rZxujG
Recipe: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/08/raghavan-iyer-ultimate-chicken-curry-from-indian-cooking-unfolded.html

Question of the day: do you prefer your food spicy or not spicy?

Have a great day and STAY SAFE ! <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

good day Tildees ! sorry for not posting according to schedule recently... been having a hard time doing most things in my life so it's a bit easier to leave this to a side for a bit. But alas, here I am with another weekly post! I like this community a lot, so I'll try and keep posting to at least keep in touch with the people here, it's great fun :)

Anyways, today I will present two dishes I made last week: Rogan Josh and Shakshuka !

The Rogan Josh recipe had so so many spices in it! I know that's basically the whole curry gimmick lol, but it's still quite shocking. Lotsa powders n whole spices I had to put here... Which ended up making for a quite nice flavour profile ! Not sure if it's quite authentic enough or whatever, but I found it nice !

Then the shakshuka came along which honestly blew my mind. I've been eyeing shakshuka for a while, kept seeing it on a really funny advertisement I used to get often and it looked quite tasty. Obviously, seeing as there was a Kenji recipe available for it, I had to try that one out ! Very delicious end product... nice contrast between the pepper and tomato flavours ! though I like my food a little spicier usually :P I've been discovering that red chili flakes are probably my new favourite condiment hahahah.... red chili flakes and black pepper go on basically everything for me nowadays !! they're such a great flavour boost, I love em to bits.

Anyways, good recipes! I recommend them; quite simple and delicious for any meal of the week :)

Picture of Rogan Josh: https://imgur.com/a/YZ3DeX8
Rogan Josh Recipe: https://imgur.com/a/zA87PnR
Picture of Shakshuka: https://imgur.com/a/nxPa2ad
Shakshuka Recipe: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2016/09/shakshuka-north-african-shirred-eggs-tomato-pepper-recipe.html

Question of the day: Who is your favourite chef and why?

Have a great day and STAY SAFE ! <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

Hello, sorry for no posting Friday, got distracted with animal crossing hahahahah. I've had quite the rough week honestly, haven't felt this tired in a really long time. But I'm always happy to have a Curry dish waiting for me on Friday to make!

This week, I decided to tackle chana masala again, but with a more complex and intricate recipe! Chickpeas have always been one of my favourite ingredients, so I'm always glad to eat a dish based on them. It was quite a delicious dish, but what I was most proud of was the naan bread! It was the second time I tried making this (and this time I managed to do it all by myself). The recipe calls for grilling but I used a pan + blowtorch instead, which works quite well to be honest. It ended up being super delicious and very very similar to the taste of actual restaurant naan, which, again, makes me super happy. I think I was eating with too much happiness yesterday, my dad said I was eating a bit gross hahahah. A cool thing I found with this and last week's dish was how serious eats asks to put baking soda in the onions for them to completely disolve. Really strange technique but it's actually white genius, I should experiment with that in other dishes !

Chana masala remains one of my favourite and most comforting dishes, so I'd definitely recommend you give it a shot!

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/5dsBSl1
Chana masala recipe: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2016/04/channa-masala-recipe.html
Naan recipe: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/08/grilled-naan-recipe.html

Question of the day: what is your comfort food?

Have a great day <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

Well, it was gonna happen eventually. I was gonna take another go on butter chicken! This time, I made the "better stovetop butter chicken" recipe from serious Eats! A world renowned food blog, I definitely expected something good to come out of it. And boy, I gotta tell ya, this recipe delivered in every way possible and THEN some !! This is what I love about cooking, being able to make something so delicious out of time and love. I wouldn't change much about it, other than I did salt it a little too much, and I think some jalapeños would give such a nice and beautiful contrast to the flavours ! The last butter chicken I did had them, and I feel like they're kind of missing here as a result. Honestly a flavour combo this good shouldn't even exist, it's insane. I am still shocked at it a few hours after hahahahah. Amazing recipe, definitely worth trying out !!!!

By the way, that flatbread there isn't naan, it's a sourdough pizza dough thing my dad made that we decided to make into flatbread with garlic butter. Very non traditional, but hey, it tastes great !

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/cG6wMfq
Recipe: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2020/03/stovetop-butter-chicken.html

Question of the day: Have any of you tried dabbling in fermented foods lately? My dad and I have been trying to get a sourdough starter up and running and it’s been pretty tough, but a very fun process nonetheless hahahahah.

Have a great day <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

Sorry for the delay, had some personal complications recently and couldn't find the time to post this here this morning hahahahh.

I was gonna make butter chicken today, but since it's good Friday we just haaad go eat a fish dish hahah. The fish we bought ended up being very expensive, but gosh it was worth it. Probably the nicest tasting fish I've ever personally had ! Very buttery and flaky, superb taste...

The curry was pretty good too, but it was similar to a lot of the other mustard seed based curries I've eaten. My dad, however, made this thing after we finished the dish with the leftover sauce. He put a bit more tamarind water in it and let it reduce for a while, which ended up making a richer and more complex sauce that I think beats the one I ate with the fish. If you're going to make this recipe, id suggest giving that a go, maybe you'll end up liking it more !

Overall a fun dish to make, simple, and great tasting. Would've been better if a) I didn't take a nap beforehand which made me completely and utterly tired and b) the fish wasn't so expensive ahahahah.

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/0j7utl6
Recipe: https://imgur.com/a/ffHqbpP

Question of the day: are there any food traditions that you follow?

Have a great day <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

Play it now.

Alternatively, visit the repo.

password has been updated to v1.1:

• the game now starts after you press [Space]
• you gain points for victories (score is not saved between reloads)
• UI is a little nicer

v1.2 planned features:

• adjustable difficulty, via either or both of password length and time per round
• zen mode: longer rounds, no score tracking, calmer UI
• persistent personal high score you can compete against

I almost feel like this is not worth an update, but people have been curious and supportive of the game.

You can see all planned features in the issues section. Suggestions on gameplay and visuals are welcome.

EDIT: updated hosted version to not reset score on loss (only resets when you start over).

sorry for being a little late this late week, we started online school and I've been trying to get organized hahahahah. If you know me well you'd know I have no idea how to organize myself, so I'm trying to take the opportunity to learn a little !

Anyhow, this week's curry was Massaman curry! This marks the first time that I've decided to remake a curry, using a different recipe this time ! I got recommended the website thaifoodmaster.com by fellow reader of my curry escapades, @arghdos, and decided to give it a shot. Massaman curry was something that really shook me the first time I made it, and this was no different! It's funny how different the techniques we used in this one ended up being from the last one, but they still managed to taste very similar. Which isn't a bad thing, mind you! Still a very decadent, rich, and delicious dish that I think everyone should try. (Though a bit spicy, be careful with that. My mom was not too pleased !)

Little story time: the recipe called for charring the dried red chillies a bit before adding them to a paste, so we did that. I kid you not, for about 20 minutes after doing this, we were coughing at how spicy everything was in the room. I almost puked because of it hahahah. Fun times. (Funny how both times I made massaman I got really really spiced....). This time my dad and I decided to finally buy a decent food processor to make the paste, so it actually came out pretty smooth! I can't wait to use this processor for different recipes in the future, it's such a good feeling to finally have something that's good enough for pureeing hahah.

Overall, a great Recipe once again, that I found easier than the original one because of the techniques used being a lot less complicated. Great dish !

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/QW5k0Th
Recipe: https://thaifoodmaster.com/preparation/curry_preparation/6679#.XojiDIhKguV

Question of the day: What Culture do you think has the best food?

Have a great day <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

A simple web game I made to combat depression.

To play, go here. Warning: the game starts as soon as you enter the page.

To view source, visit the GitHub repo.

How to play:

• Press the keys you see before yourself. The key turns green if it's been "solved".

• Once all keys are "solved", you start a new round automatically.

• If the timer runs out before all keys are "solved", the game is over. Press [Space] to start over.

• There's no score. Play whenever and for as long as you like. Quit whenever you've had enough.

I went today to the store to buy some chicken and coconut for this recipe and, man, does it feel unreal to have to wait in line to even get into something like a Maxi! it makes perfect sense, but it just feels so unreal still hahahah. Today I have cooked up a little Chicken Pepper Fry, which is, among other things, another very simple dish that could be made in any weeknight, though it isn't as easy as something like last week's chana masala. Ended up tasting a lot like Curry leaves and less like coconut, which I am not complaining about! Curry leaves are awesome. I do think this was missing some sort of punch, though. Felt a bit same-y to a lot of the other recipes I had made previously. But still, very hearty and delish nonetheless :P

Also, I'm thinking of using other sources for Curry recipes in the future, so be on the look out for that!

Picture of the Dish: https://imgur.com/a/dlbOIwA
Recipe: https://imgur.com/a/ENWAnGE

Question of the day: How has the recent COVID-19 pandemic, if at all, modified the way you eat on a daily basis?

Have a great day <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

I hadn't realized that every single recipe I had made so far has included some sort of meat in it, which, coming from indian cuisine, I didn't really expect at all...

Anyhow, this week I decided on making a Chana Masala! A recipe I've been eyeing out for some time, it doesn't actually come from the curry cookbook I had been using so far ! It came from a Binging With Babish video, which he uploaded not long ago. Honestly, I've always been such a big fan of chickpeas, which makes me wonder why I didn't make this recipe any sooner :P. The recipe is real simple; crushed tomatoes, spices, onion, and chickpeas! A very simple dish to make, it resembles a lot of the other 'weeknight curries' I've made, which might be a big reason why I love it so much ahahhaha. It feels so rewarding to make a really nice dish out of practically entirely canned ingredients, it's incredible really ! In times where it seems like everyone is stockpiling food, it's nice to have something relatively shelf stable and reliable to have in one's pantry, and something like garbanzo beans really are something of a hearty meal that I'd love to enjoy more of :)

Side note, this is the first time I try making Basmati rice with the starches sifted, which ended up making for some real tasty rice :P definitely recommend, it makes for a better side dish !!!

Picture of the Dish: https://imgur.com/a/2ZrPQea
Recipe: https://youtu.be/LfzKfD_WuDM

Question of the day: What is your favourite Vegan meal?

Have a great day <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

hello Tildes! (again hahahahah). As I explained on my first post here, I had already started blogging my curry cookings elsewhere before finally deciding to post them here. I was asked by user @cfabbro to post the others on this website, so here I am, making a big post for the first 7 of 9 curries I have made so far ! hope you enjoy :P (sorry for the low quality on some of these pictures hahahah, I try my best !)

Curry #1: Rendang daging / Beef Rendang

The first dish I decided to cook up was this dish from Malasya, it was beef rendang. A dish consisting of weird unknown ingredients to me, like galangal, a nice cut of braised beef and a metric fuckton of coconut. Like, it mostly tasted like coconut with a bit of galangal and lemongrass. And I am definitely not complaining. Ive never really tasted anything like it, and it really felt like a great experience to make it. Hadn't had this much fun in a while ahahahah. This definitely left a good mark on me, starting this whole stupid ass idea pretty well.

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/4QfLDyS
Recipe: https://imgur.com/a/Fdbll1E

//

Curry #2: Kerala Lamb

This was a dish consisting of, yet again, a fuckton of coconut. This had also a lot of mustard seeds and whatnot. Ended up tasting interesting too, although it was very similar to the rendang I made the week before. Which is surprising because theyre from two completely different parts of the world (first one is from South East Asia, this one was from India.) A good, well rounded dish that I would've probably enjoyed more if I didn't make it a week after the rendang.

Also, something that ended up being a mistake was making this with bone in storebought lamb cut into cubes, it ended up being too boney and didn't have enough meat. Kind of a letdown, but that's my own incompetence shining through.

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/LnoRoEN
Recipe: https://imgur.com/a/AxVBkKm

//

Curry #3: Murgh makhani / Old Delhi Style Chicken Curry

For the third week I decided to make a more classic dish, butter chicken! Which had less butter than I thought it did, but that's besides the point. This was the first dish where the meat wasn't entirely braised, which made it have a different texture to the last two ones. We used chicken breast, which might've not been the best idea, it came out a bit dry. This recipe calls for garam masala, which is a pretty classic spice mix used for a lot of different recipes. I can tell ya, it's pretty amazing. The whole recipe was a joy to make, and ended up being the best recipe I had eaten so far honestly. I'd highly recommend doing this !

Also, shoutout to my homemade naan bread that ended up being p sucky. Will have to keep experimenting until I perfect the recipe.

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/QrxP9T0
Recipe: https://imgur.com/a/6Kcbpc9

//

Curry #4: Kozhy kuruma / South Indian Chicken Korma

A month into this curry business, and also the third time I try to make naan and the only time it has come out well, very happy with the bread ! The recipe calls for mostly a water and spice based "broth", no sort of milk product like the other ones I made. Also called for some cachews which was surprising. It's genuinely surprising how much you can do with water and some spices, I'm genuinely really surprised. By far the easiest recipe I've made so far and honestly well worth it. Can see this as a recipe you could make as a weeknight dish. With the naan bread coming out so well, I think this was my favourite experience making one of these !

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/4Hp8Yxk
Recipe: https://imgur.com/a/2PKt7II

//

Curry #5: Jamaican Goat Curry

So I had been eyeing this recipe for maybe a month or so now, and I'm very happy to finally make it. Funnily enough, I didn't get the opportunity to use goat for this recipe. My dad and I went through the entire city, butcher by butcher, trying to find some god damn goat, but to no avail. That's alright, though, we just used lamb instead. The recipe called for "Caribbean curry powder" which was very vague in in of itself, so we found this real nice spice mix from the spice market near our house that kind of made this dish what it ended up being. I don't think this ended up tasting anything like what it was supposed to taste like, but who's to say that's a bad thing ? I loved this as a curry, even though the experience making it ended up being a bit tedious (going around the city trying to find something you ultimately don't find really gets you a bit cranky hahah) but well worth it after all. I think my mom is starting to get tired of this silly tradition I've cooked up, but I don't really think I'll be stopping anytime soon.

The curry ended up being very coconut-y like every other coconut milk based recipes I've made so far, but so far I think it's been the best of it's kind. Definitely does not taste like anything from India, which makes sense since, it's, y'know, carribean. This being pretty different but similar to things I've eaten before made it a fun and enjoyable experience in the end. Definitely recommend you make something like this someday, maybe with some real goat instead of lamb.

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/2K6Yw5H
Recipe: https://imgur.com/a/Bh72GGt

//

Curry #6: Gang keo goung / Green shrimp curry with fresh dill

Sixth curry in, this one was surprisingly incredibly simple. It had like three steps to it. Really cost efficient, too. This recipe called for some lime leaves, which give a sort of orange peel flavour to the whole dish. I'm not the biggest fan of this, like I think it's good but it's not something I seek. I do think it worked well with this specific recipe, though. Other than that, the potatoes were really nice and tender inside and the curry paste we used had nice flavours. We also added some peanuts alongside the dill for garnish, which wasn't part of the recipe but it really brought the thing up to a new level. Overall, I am very satisfied with it, but it might still be something that I need to indulge a little bit more in to find its truest colours.

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/Vq7Wxlv
Recipe: https://imgur.com/a/8OpcWRd

//

Curry #7: Geng Massaman / Muslim-style curry of duck with potatoes and onions

Genuinely one of the strangest cooking experienced I've lived through, I learned what people meant by "don't touch your Weiner after cooking with jalapeños" maybe in too much of a hard way... Sheesh... And just, in general,

What the fuck is this dish?

It calls for tamarind water, pineapple juice, cumin, lemongrass, sugar !!!!, coconut milk and cream, cinnamon, cloves, garlic, shallots, and so much more. I didn't even cut the lemongrass well so the paste I ended up making was really fiberous and it wasn't that great of a paste but God damn those flavour combos are off the charts ! I've never eaten anything like this before, it tastes like a sweet soup that also managed to be spicy and taste like god damn onions !!! You had to DEEP FRY the god damn duck, potatoes, and even peanuts!!!! DEEP FRIED PEANUTS !!!! that means some idiot like me who picked up this book and decided to make this recipe had possibly deep fried peanuts in God damn peanut oil !!! (Which is honestly pretty hilarious to think of)

I genuinely don't know what to say other than I had a blast making it. My dick basically caught on fire and we made a huge mess. One of the best cooking experiences I've ever had and the result doesn't even look like the recipe we tried to make !!!!

The flavours were so complex it just blew my fucking mind, I love this so much. If you're looking to expand your palette and wanna try something real different from any other Western culture I fucking recommend this. Solid solid dish, and would be better if the execution wasn't so disoriented and disorganized.

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/GzT7sjF
Recipe: https://imgur.com/a/UbAAJ8n

//

Today's question: what makes you personally enjoy home cooking? What makes it something you desire to do?

Have a great day <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

Hello my dear Tildees! Today seemed to be quite a turbulent day for us all as we settle in a lot of different prevention methods for this so called COVID-19 outbreak, which is truly shocking for me and probably a lot of other people. But alas, the planet's is still spinning, time is still going, and we still have our own personal things to do and to enjoy. I hope that whoever is feeling anxious and discomforted by this entire COVID-19 outbreak can feel relieved by posts such as these and I hope it can make you realize that things are gonna be alright after all :)

Today we decided to make Chicken Tikka Masala! A curry staple, it is probably THE english curry dish to top them all. I've heard a lot of people say it is best left to the restaurants to make, and that it isn't very suited for the home cook, so I decided to try it out because I have no self control ! The finished result ended up being very good, but with a lot of flaws (probably mostly because of me though hahahaha). It ended up tasting very lemony and, comparatively to something like the butter chicken that I made (which, I know doesn't really have much to do with Tikka Masala but I was expecting them to be very similar), had a bigger emphasis on bringing out the sauce ingredients, like the tomatoes and peppers, over bringing out the spices, which I don't find as interesting. I think this might just be because it's not really an 'Indian' dish, and more of a British dish. I am fine with it, but, honestly, I do prefer me a spicy and aromatic dish compared to one that just tastes of tomato hahahah. I also put wayyyy too much lime in this, so it just tasted very limey....

I am talking badly of this a lot but I do think it was a real nice meal in the end. I just do believe, comparing it to something like the butter chicken I made a few weeks back, it could've came out a lot more interesting and unique comparatively. Still would recommend giving it a shot if you personally love Tikka Masala, though!

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/csvu2uQ
recipe: https://imgur.com/5pynwkb

Today's question: What makes you like Indian cuisine? And if you do not personally enjoy it, what makes you dislike it?

Have a great day <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

Greetings fellow Tildes users! It has been quite a long time since I have found myself on this website. I hope everyone is doing just fine today :). For a while now, I have been getting increasingly more interested in food and everything that has to do with the cooking process. I have put it into my hands to try to learn as much as I can about this beautiful art, starting with a special type of dish that really speaks to me: Curries!

My uncle gave me this odd little book once called "Curry Cuisine: Fragrant Dishes from India, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia" by David A. Thompson and Vivek Singh. (here's a link if you're interested to buy it: https://www.amazon.com/Curry-Fragrant-Thailand-Vietnam-Indonesia-ebook/dp/B07HXVWFCJ) I hadn't really thought of it that much until one day I had a mind blowing night at an Indian restaurant, which, I cannot remember the name of right now :/.

During that time, as well, I hadn't really been feeling that great mentally and I didn't really know what to do with my spare time without just getting bored all the time. So, combining that exquisite culinary experience plus the fact that I needed new activities to get me out of the boredom I was feeling, I decided to start up cooking for my parents and myself, and what better place to start than the cookbook my uncle gave me as a gift ! So now, every Friday, I make a curry from this little cute green cookbook I own, and it brings me a lot of joy to make it!

for the two months I have been doing this so far, I have posted little blog posts on various discord servers about the dishes I make, and due to some people enjoying what I write and do on the discord servers and due to some demand, I have decided that I will post those blogs up here in Tildes for you people to enjoy and share! I will also be putting a question at the end, just to not make it too dry in the comment section :P If asked, I will post the previous posts from the 7 first weeks in a separate post, if you would like to read :)

But enough of that, here's what I made today! (I usually make these on fridays, but I am doing this one day early because I got stuff to do tomorrow hahah. You do with what you've got !) Today I made a pretty simple dish that I ended up fucking up somewhat. The potatoes ended up being a bit overcooked and not crispy at all, which was disappointed. But at least that was just the side dish! Main dish was a very simple "hogao" like sauce on some pork chops. Man, it's impressive what you can do with water, onions, tomatoes and a few spices! It's tasty and very simple, I'd do it just for any day weeknight meal ! Highly recommend this kind of curry for anyone trying to spice up their weeknights, it'll give ya a nice kick :)

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/fAZyj7F
[EDIT: will put a picture of the recipe from now on due to demand !] recipe: https://imgur.com/GUN52uz

Today's question: what is your favourite recipe containing pork chops?

Have a great day <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

This question has come up a few times now in the "Unofficial Tildes Chat" Discord server meta/curation channels, but I wanted to open up the discussion to ~tildes at large so we can perhaps finally get a more definitive judgement on it. So here goes:

What are people's thoughts on using the above topic tags in cases where a Tildes user posts something that they themselves have created, have hosted on their own site (or another), and/or could potentially profit from (monetarily or otherwise)?

Should only one of the tags be standardized on, or is there enough of a distinction between some of them for their use to be situational?

Should such tags be required?

Can anyone think of any better tags for such situations than the ones listed?

A while ago I mentioned I was going to attempt making a knife for the first time. Well, I did.

Apologies in advance for there not being many photos of the process - steel is really messy to work with so I mostly kept my phone safely out of the way. I'll try to get more pictures next time, although there are plenty of videos and picture tutorials around if people are super interested in the process. I shall endeavour to describe what I did in text, however.

I started out with a bar of 01 tool steel (wiki) which I cut into a rough knife blank. This I then hit with a ball hammer a load of times to get some texture. Then I used a belt grinder to put a bevel on the edge side, although only enough to thin the knife down to roughly the right shape, not actually sharp. Once that and a few other minor shaping tasks were done, it was time to heat treat it.

Heat treating changes the structure of the metal to make it harder. Hard steel will hold an edge longer, but it does make it much more difficult to work, hence doing most of the shaping before heat treating. To harden steel you need to heat it to a particular temperature, which depends on the exact alloy being used but 'bright orange' is close enough. Fun fact - when steel gets to it's 'critical' temperature, it stops being magnetic, so that's another way you can test it. The steel is then quenched, this one in oil, which makes it hard.

Hardened steel is very brittle so it's usually tempered after hardening. For 01 steel that means putting it in an oven at 160-200C for a couple of hours. You lose some hardness but you gain back some toughness and flexibility.

After tempering, cleaning, polishing, polishing and so much polishing. Steel is so dirty and difficult to work with compared to the silver, gold and copper I'm more used to. But eventually, and after glueing and bolting a sycamore wood handle on, then giving it a final sharpen on my wetstone, I had a knife.

It is a Japanese-style Nakiri knife. Usually used for cutting vegetables, it's really nice to use. Lightweight and agile, the balance is nice and it's comfortable in my hand. It's not perfect and there are a few things I'd do differently but I can see myself using this on a daily basis. More pictures

I have already laid out and started shaping my next knife, which will be a slightly more complicated bunka knife

Any questions, please just ask and I'll do my best to answer.