origamicrane

one word pacojet the ferrari of ice cream machines

this isn't a frightfully freaky fruit but i thought it was freakily cool when i saw it I found it in Tescos supermarket and it was the only one with the heart on think someone stuck a sticker on it and allowed it to ripen cool isn't it is this like a new trend? or a way to label fruit?

cool!

hi there very simple question can marinades be frozen? I mean can i pre make a large patch of marrinade and freeze it and then thaw it and use it the same? ie: like stock I always find that when i make marinades for BBQ season i always have too much marinde for the amount of a specific meat usually i end up chucking the leftovers but seems wastful. and opinions?

cool post but i wished you had pictures!!

but where's the fun in that? hehe!

And the Koreans just eat it. ← heheh well we all eat our own country's produce, right? but having said i wonder which country exports the most amount of tofu?

yep you are correct. msg sit equally along side salt, pepper and sugar in a chinese kitchen. Used correctly it can really enhance a dish, used incorrectly it can give you a splitting headache. But salt used incorrectly can probably kill you and i got a feeling more people have died from salt poisoning then from msg poisoning. (any medics out there that can confirm this?). The main reason for msg's bad press is probably because historically chinese "chefs" did overuse it, I use the term chef here very loosely. The main wave of chinese immigrants came to the UK was in the 60's and 70's and pretty much none of these guys had any cooking knowledge at all (my old man was an engineer by trade) they were just here to make a buck. As such they would use the cheapest ingredients and use msg to hide there lack of quality and culinary skill. Back then the British public were eating vesta meals, spam and boiled to death yellow cabbage so they didn't know any better anyway. I think it was in the early 90's there was a newspaper article highlighting the potential side effects of msg and the article specifically mention "chinese restaurant syndrome". Because of this article a lot of my restaurant customers raised their concerns as such we decided to stop using MSG and food colourings. In the space of a week we had about 20 complaints about 'bland' food and that the sauces tasted different (even though all we did to the sauces was take the food colouring out!). As such the msg and food colourings were back in the dishes. But since then the Britsh public have become more aware and demanding, travelled more and become more health concious too. As such the catering trade as a whole has respond and quality has improved and the young chinese immigrants that arrived in the 60's and 70's finally did learn to cook and can officially be called chefs now. but having said that the most popular dishes in my takeaway and restaurant are still chicken curry and sweet and sour chicken balls UK Chinese restaurant can only change if the general public want it msg is all about economics, supply and demand.

True msg is considered a seasoning to a chinese chef. I doubt you will find many that would consider msg to be cheating, although they would look down on it if it was overused. other symptoms are neck tension and a splitting headache not nice.

nope but i once saw a cooking program on the chinese channel where these monks in this temple were burying chunks of bean curd into the side of this ice mountain and letting it freeze in the snow. They would dig them out a few weeks later and place them in a warm room where they allowed it to go mouldy! what was left was a black mouldy block they they steamed and ate its meant to be a delicacy although looked prtty scary to me

Yeah its gonna be the chinese that invented tofu but its usually the japanese that refine it. Take paper as an example, no arguement that the chinese invented it but it was the japanese that turned it into the art form origami

too much salt you can taste straight away whereas too much MSG you won't taste it but you will feel the symptoms. The only chinese restaurant that i know that didn't use MSG was Four Regions in County Hall but not sure if that is true anymore. You could just ask for no msg.

for large (2in) dried whole shiitake (not the sliced up type) soak in cold water for 4-6 hours. When the stem can be cut off easily rather then sawed off they are done. definitely keep the liquid! use it for stock or use it to cook your rice. Either filter the liquid to get rid of the grit or just don't use the last bit.

Hi all this series begins tomorrow on ITV @ 1.30pm. uhhh.... it's daytime tv..... so... well... what more can i say? But if anyone wants a laugh and see me get my butt kicked by gino's crabcakes tune in on the 7th July @ 3pm sigh... lost again third time lucky?

housewife's? why they called that? razor sharp tongue? will bleed you if you not respectful? yep i got a large bernier its very good but cut me a few times

very carefully If you get the really large bulbs of garlic the cloves are about the size of a thumb so you can mandolin about 3/4 of the way down before you get scared and return to a knife. I swear mandoline cause more injuries then any other kitchen utensil. or you can get one of these mini garlic slicer

hello I've been making garlic chips and I have a simple question. I use a mandoline and make 2mm slices out of the garlic cloves and then frying in a little oil until they go crispy. They are quite nice but sometimes they are a little bit too browned or sometimes a little oily. But went to a food festival over the weekend and they had these perfectly dry and perfectly crispy garlic chips? anyone know how to make them this good? i suspect they are baked but would like some cofirmation

took my old man here Hunan Restaurant, London, UK. Click! click!

isn't the answer beer? champagne sushi chocolate strawberries doesn't always work but at least the intentions are clear

so what did you think of the taste of london food fair? talk about the food! don't care what you say about it or how you say it but talk about the food!

In the majority of chinese restaurants anything that is deep fried will be premade in bulk and refrigated or frozen. stuff like crispy aromatic duck, spring rolls, prawn toast, won tun, crispy squid, etc. and for dim sum nearly everything will be premade and refrigerated. but don't let that put you off as long as the food tastes good its all that matters.

mine was quite reason actually new style sashimi black cod and miso green tea ice cream and chocolate souffle i like this thread its got a warm fuzzy feel to it

This isn't true! ← ok, not ALL restaurants. But the majority of London's chinese restaurants do.

Am I naive in being surprised and slightly appalled at this? Is off-site preparation common in mid-market restaurants? ← Cachan says this is true for Ping Pong. No you not being naive its not something that most restaurant would advertise but its nothing to be appalled of. Afterall whats the diffeence between making it on site and then freezing it and doing the same off site? Afterall all restaurants have frozen stuff that they defrost for service. By the way, did you know that Royal China already does a line of supermarket microwave ready dim sum meals? They are surprisingly edible and you can find them in most asian supermarkets.

There are loads of reasonable dim sum places opening up outside of central london now. Go Sing 22-24 Station Rd, West Drayton. Middlesex. UB7 7BY. go sing has a short dim sum menu but everything tastes like it was made onsite its not fabulous but if you are in that area and need a dim sum fix might be worth a visit. And there's one just outside Heathrow too its called London hong Kong Restaurant and its on the corner of A4 Bath road and Hatch Lane.