origamicrane

When your spouse, who doesn't really care knows who Ferran Adria is. ← When you are Ferran Adria or when Ferran Adria calls you up for cooking tips

one word EBAY and no i don't smoke rocks, i rather smoke fish

nah! i'm just fat

hehe! thank Mabelline it might work better on ropes or duct tape when you get kidnapped. Although to be honest carrying that around with me in the UK could probably get me arrested

When you don't smoke but you have a miniature blow torch on your set of keys just in case you have to flame a creme brulee or sear some tuna i kid you not!

When you spend more then 3 hour driving round to at least 4 different shops across the city just to gather that one missing ingredients for one dish that you are cooking tomorrow. When your friends call you up for cooking tips and restaurant recommendations. When the sole purpose of you being invited to a dinner party is to cook the dinner When you read a celebrity chef latest cookbook and think "man you're getting desperate" or " that is so!!!! not the way to make it!! "

Thanks Andy well I couldn't decide on the green papaya salad or the sashimi salad so i made a compromise and made both hehe Well they said that it would take an hour for filming and so it was plenty of time to make both salads. Well they came round spent about 5 minutes explaining about the show. Seem that it is a cook off with a celebrity chef and i can choose the dish!! Hooray!! Sushi it is then Whoever it is he/she is toast!!!! (unless he's Nobu or Tetsuya Wakuda. unlikely ) Seems that they want to get as many differnt cuisines in to the series as possible oh and it a 15 episode series. We have to cook a dinner party for up to 10 people and the people eating the food have to decide which dish is mine and which dish in the celebrity chefs and which is better. They need 2 days to film for the show , one day filming me shopping for ingredients and one day actually cooking the dish. They asked me if i go to any farmer markets or speciality shops etc. Well i guess my japanese fish monger is They also mentioned something about getting my family and friends to comment on my cooking. Time limit, budget, celebrity chef and judges still to be confirmed. Then they filmed me making the salad and asked questions about the dish while i was making it ala naked chef. After making the salad they tried it and i think they really liked it as they polished of all of the sashimi and half of the green papaya salad and remember these guys had already been to see 2 other people that day and still had another 3 contestants to see. Quite funny actually as they said they don't always try the contestants dish After filming the salad they just took some shots of my house and filmed me "biggin' myself up" and issuing a challenge to the celebrity chef which was a little naff!! as i just said "bring it on as i'm the best chef this side of London!" (Yes I know its not true but its makes good TV ) They begin filming in March and I should know if i get on in a weeks time. hope so as i'm really beginning to like this tv stuff. oh! and really enjoyed doing this it was really quite fun Green Papaya salad with lime and fish sauce dressing hmmm.... my favourite actually Dressing: 4 T fish sauce 4 T lime juice 4 T water 1 T sugar 1 inch piece lemon grass 1 birdseye chilli 1 clove minced garlic chop and mix ingredients or stick into a blender. 1/2 cup green papaya 1 T mint 1 T coriander 1 T sweet basil 4 T toasted peanuts 1/2 red sweet chilli 4 quartered cherry tomatos 6 prawns shred papaya using a madolin, roughly chop the herbs, peanuts and chilli pile into a bowl and top with the tomatos and prawns and serve with the dressing. Sashimi Seaweed Salad with orange and soya dressing. Dressing: 1/2 cup orange juice 1 t orange zest 1 t minced ginger 3 T rice wine vinegar 1 T sesame oil 1 T soys sauce 1 t sugar 2 t sake 1 t toasted sesame Tower: green leaves - rocket,mizuna, red mustard, spinach strip of cucumber in a ring use a mandolin to cut thin strips sea weed - wakame shallots - finely sliced daikon - shredded roast seaweed - nori thin strips topiko - seasoned flying fish roe quartered cherry tomato lemon wedge wasabi gari Fish: 3 slices scallop (smear with minced ginger and garlic and sear with hot olive and sesame oil) 3 piece salmon (smear with minced ginger and garlic and sear with hot olive and sesame oil) 2 cooked prawns 2 surf clams minced garlic minced ginger Searing oil: 1T sesame oil 3T olive oil Garnish: roasted sesame chives

hoho! you're treading on dangerous ground me thinks ← Hey, just because it's a stereotype doesn't mean it isn't true! ← hehe never said it wasn't true just that the truth can be dangerous

hoho! you're treading on dangerous ground me thinks

ere I go! ere I go! here i go again!!! "Round 2! FIGHT!!!" Yes I have applied for yet another tv cooking program!! hooray!! (let it never be said that i'm not persistent) This time its ITV and its for a series called CHEF V BRITAIN. The format is a member of the UK public that think they are hard enough to challenge a celebrity chef !! hmmm.. guess that would be me! But they haven't told me who the chef will be or if i am allowed to pick the dish to cook. Anyhoo! I applied last year after my unceremonious eviction from the second round of masterchef and they called me a few weeks back. They coming round tomorrow to my humble abode to film me make a salad?! This is just for the initial audition type thingy. well initially I was going to make Asia de Cuba's crispy calamari salad with heart of palms, cashews, chayote and an orange and sesame dressing but my attempt over the weekend just didn't hit the spot think the ingredient i got just weren't up to scratch. So i decide to make what i know best either a thai green papaya salad with pork and prawns and a lime and fish sauce dressing or a japanese new style sashimi seaweed salad with a soya sauce, orange and ginger dressing so anyone else applied for this gig?

I know several retired soldiers who served with 14th Army who would disgaree with you. :) ← hehe! i disagree with me too afterall I am chinese and if the emporer of japan had his way my old grandaddy would have popped his clogs before my dad was born, thus depriving the world of yours truly but back to the thread tarka why does your brother care about the lack of spanish restaurants? afterall you have to admit the quality of most spanish restaurants in uk (at least the ones i been too) are hardly anything to shout about?

hmmm... a possible answer in several parts. Please take what i say like a shot of tequila ie: with a big pinch of salt well there are a lot of chinese and indian restaurants in the UK due to the fact they were british colonies and there was an immigration wave from those countries also these cuisines are cheap, distinctive and tasty kebabs and burgers are just cheap eats so are popular on price. There are quite a lot of thai and japanese restaurants and this i believe is purely due to brits travelling to those countries, coming back and wanting that type of cuisine. So in this case its supply and demand i guess. There are a lot of italian and french places and to be honest i believe that a lot of modern british/european is just really italian and french in disguise. French food is rightly or wrongly is seen as the king of cuisine and as such has the image and price tag of posh nosh which is an attraction in itself and to be honest french food is pretty tasty. Italian restaurant in uk are really just pizza and pasta and these have been cultivated by pizza and pasta chains pizza hut, express , strada, zizzi'z etc Real italian i think is quite rare outside of the big cities. So my explaination for the lack of spanish restaurants are 1. brits might just not like spanish food as much because spain is influenced by both france and italy but yet its cuisine isn't as distinct as theirs. 2. Spanish food seems to be more informal eating in the form of tapas as such it seen as a less high class dinning experience but not as cheap as other fast foods. 3. Brits going to spain end up in resorts where they serve all uk fast food and the likelihood of them trying REAL Spanish is on the low end of the scale 4. Spain was a facist country during the second world war and if you notice there aren't many German restaurant either Italy was too but they change sides at the end of the war so they were forgiven Yes i know japan was as well but as they were on the other side of the world they not seen as the main villian in europe ie: not as ingrain in the brit psyche. 5. Spanish cuisine just doesn't hit the right spot for brits. Come to think of it there aren't many portugese, swiss, dutch, russian, african, etc either, guess you could say there is a possible niche in the market place

well as a first attempt i think it looks extremely sucessful thanks for the photos think i need to go and get some peking duck this week

well have fun if you got a digital camera why not document your escapade for our culinary pleasure

hi all friend of mine just told me that in the old Royal China site on Baker Street is now a new japanese restaurant called Michiaki. Its part of the Royal China group seems like they are spreading their wings ala Alan Yau. Well its only just opened but they are doing a 50% of the menu unitl the 18th janurary I will give it a try and report back soon Michiaki 40 - 42 Baker St. Tel: 020 7486 3898

if you doing it for a challenge for yourself then go for it. but if you're doing it to impress family and friends with your cooking skill i think i tend to agree with the "its not worth it " comments above!! The other duck dishes mentioned above are much more impressive for the amount of effort required and the results will be a lot better then making peking duck. Being a chinese restautant owner's son that serves very good peking duck and crispy aromatic duck i would never attempt to make them at home. mainly because the end results will never be as good as a commercial restaurant because home oven usually are not large enough to hang the duck to roast and they not as hot or cook as evenly. As well as the fact that its a lot of work over the course of a whole day with the blowing, marinating , hanging, drying, etc

sticky rice photos of ingredients use the slide show in reverse order well something that might make you all smile well made this today and a quick recipe is 3 cups thai fragrant rice 1 cup glutinous rice handful of dried shiitake mushrooms handful of dried shrimp 1 dried squid 3 chinese wax sausages 1 Tbsp soya sauce 2 Tbsp oyster sauce 1 tsp sugar 1 Tbsp vegetable oil. 1.Soak the glutinous rice in water for a few hours and drain. 2.Rehydrate the dried mushrooms, shrimp and squid in water. 3.Reserve the rehydrating juices as we will use that to cook the rice. 4.Chop up the mushrooms and squid to small pieces. 5.Mix the thai and glutinous rice together into a rice cooker. 6.Take the reserves rehydrating juice and mix in the soya sauce, oyster sauce and the sugar and pour in to the rice cooker and put the sausages into steam too. 7. Half way through the rice cooking take out the sausage chop into slices and fry in the oil until they start to brown then add the shrimps, squid and mushrooms fry for a minute then pour it into the rice cooker mix together and carry on cooking the rice. 8. When it is cooked you can make rounds rice cakes out of it and shallow fry on both sides and serve with chopped scallion yummy!! hope you like it ;)

http://www.recipezaar.com/90032 i tried this the other day i didn't wait for the ingredients to come up to room temperature and so when i folded teh mix with the white it came out a little too watery and so when i cooked it it was very dense but tasted about right although i think i put too much corn starch in.

cool hmmm think i might have to locate one

in my circle of friends i am known as sushi-sam try to guess what my signature dish is

Hi Kiem This castella looks yummy might have to give it a try soon but just picked up on a comment you made about milling your own matcha. How do you mill your own green tea? and what type of tea leaf is it that you start with? thanks for your help

hmm.. anyone got the recipe for the japanese steamed cheesecake? if you haven't tried it you should its like a sponge but light anf fluffy like eating a cloud

hmmm.. alan yau's busaba eathai i think is a excellent thai chain or will be ;) another london chain is maroush and ranoush admittedly its only kebabs but good ones. Belgo is fun too.

hmmm i would resurrect "GET STUFFED!" doesn't get lower budget then that

hmm.... yeah i guess its true oranges at the end of a chinese meal or if you lucky a little mixed fruit platter. But you know what about dim sum dessert you got teh sesame paste in glutinous rice balls rolled in cocnut and peanuts etc they nice too:) Or you got the coconut paaste with yellow beans in haven;t had that in ages.