liuzhou

I've taken to using ciabatta buns on the few occasions I make burgers. Ostrich Burger

Which countries? I've only seen examples from America and the USA, both of which I'm sure eat burgers with the hands. Well, I know the UK does.

I'm surprised to learn they are expensive in the UK. Maybe because they are little known and so, low demand? They certainly aren't expensive to produce. Here they are towards the upper end of green vegetable prices, but I don't think anyone would call them "expensive". About the equivalent of ₤1.40 for 400 grams today. For others elsewhere, that's about $1.90 USD.

Garlic scapes are very common here. They're just treated as another green vegetable to be served as a side to other dishes. Usually simply stir fried (in lard). Or used in other stir fries alongside other ingredients. Stir fried garlic scapes with ham They are also grilled by roadside vendors as a popular street food snack.

I don't know how common these burger are. I'm not in the burger market. But I know stupidity is everywhere!

干蝎子 (gān xiē zi), Dried Scorpions Usually rehydrated and fried until crisp then served as beer food or maybe an appetizer. ¥38 / 50g . That's $5.30 USD. Taste like shrimp. Enjoy!

It's Armageddon! Some morons have decided to launch this It's Luosifen (螺蛳粉) with added stinky tofu (臭豆腐). I like both, but separately! A dreadful pairing! Even worse than pineapple on pizza! The ingredient list is mainly just a long chemistry set of food additives, and artificial flavourings.

I used to make hummus regularly until it became too much work for my ravaged health, especially as I had to make the tahini from scratch as it isn't easily found here. Otherwise, I kept it simple. Chickpeas, sesame seeds, garlic, lemon, salt and olive oil. Now, I buy this brand imported from Lebanon. Usually, I get one of each - classic and za'atar flavoured.

OK. The first product This is a sauce mix for a famous Sichuan dish, Bobo Chicken (钵钵鸡) as written in the larger white characters. “BoBo” refers to a type of pottery or clay pot in which the dish is traditionally made. It is served cold, either as part of a meal or often as a street snack food in Chengdu. Sichuan’s capital. Underneath, also in large white, it says “Convenient Seasoning (方便调料). So, it’s a seasoning mix. Top left in the yellow box we have 四妹 Si Mei, which is the brand name. It means Four Sisters. Everything else is just irrelevant marketing nonsense apart from a warning that it is spicy. Here, obviously, we have the preparation instructions Top left – Step 1 Prepare vegetables for 3-5 people. Boil in a pan, drain and set aside. Top right – Step 2 Prepare 1 litre of cold water (mineral water or boiled tap water). Bottom Left – Step 3 Pour the water into a pan and stir in the seasoning mix. Bottom Right – Step 4 Place cooked chicken and the vegetables into the pan and leave to soak for 15 minutes. The information to the right of the sticker in English with the ingredients etc. just gives a table of nutrients. Whether that is referring to the dish or the package contents, I’m not sure. I have to say that that “recipe” must be for the worst Bobo Chicken in the dish’s long history. Not something I’d use. The dish really consists of cold chicken and vegetable skewers served in a spicy chicken broth with chilli oil and Sichuan peppercorns. There is a reasonable looking recipe here with a decent image of the dish. It also contains a link to an extremely irritating YouTube video. The second product. This one is strange. The front label tells me nothing. The strip down the left just says “Four Sisters Foreign Ingredients”. Where they are foreign to, I have no idea. The rest is more fatuous marketing BS, including “The secret to good taste is good ingredients”. I agree but doubt this is one. The reverse label lists suggested usages. These are that it’s for ”all spicy and fragrant dishes, fried rice, noodles and other dishes that need Four Sisters’ ingredients for creativity” Hmmmm. It goes on with “When cooking add a moderate amount to make it delicious in seconds. They do add that “it tastes good and is edible”! Glad to hear it! I don’t really know what it is. I see a white label to the left that appears to be in English. Is that the ingredients. If so, it may be covering the same info in Chinese. I hope that helps.

Good morning. I'm busy this morning, but free in the afternoon. So I can look at later. 5 to 6 hours from now. They are Sichuan style products.

This topic began with a rant about lychee colour and pointed out there is a range. One colour I avoid is that used by the OED in its definition of the fruit. Fresh lychees are never brown although they all turn brown within a day or less of being picked. You are unlikely to find anything else at any distance from where they are grown. The OED is also atypically hazy in the extreme on the etymology, merely saying it comes from Chinese. Chinese isn't technically a language; it's a group of many languages and even more dialects. For example, the Chinese governments insist that Mandarin and Cantonese are the same language; linguists strongly disagree. There are no linguists in the Chinese government! Around 600 distinct languages native to China. I hear many every day!

A little known fact, of which I only recently became aware is that lychees are prone to producing conjoined twins. However, the dominant twin quickly kills off the runt of the pair. Most often they look like this one at the front. But occasionally like this. You don’t tend to see these in the stores (and certainly not in the canned abominations) as vendors remove the unsightly specimens. I get my lychee directly from the farm so get the mutants.

First the name. Are they litchi or lychee? Actually neither. They are 荔枝, pronounced lì zhī (lee jig) in Mandarin and lai6 zi1 (lie zip) in Cantonese. The etymology of the English is unclear. The scientific Latin name is Litchi chinensis. However lychee is the more common.

I really had a yen for this favourite dish tonight. I have made it in the past but one local restaurant does a class A version so I ordered delivery. 黄豆焖鱼仔 (huáng dòu mèn yú zī), Stewed soy beans with rice paddy fish. A local Miao minority dish. With rice.

This is ridiculous. I am no fan of the recipe website Food Tin Eats, but the cook behind the site, Nagi Maehashi has been forced to issue this appeal. I understand people's interest in the case, but does it really matter a damn where Patterson got the recipe, especially as she didn't stick to it? I haven't read Maehashi‘s cookbook Dinner that the recipe appeared in but I'm fairly sure it didn't recommend death cap mushrooms! What the hell is the world coming to?

I respectfully disagree. I chose my words with care. 🤪

They don't have a hard shell; its more a papery skin. They only last about a week in the fridge. However, they freeze well. I'm busy uploading some on friends and neighbours.

I remember that and had it in mind. The Fenwick Arms. They sold it shortly afterwards.

Guilty of all charges - three murders and one attempted murder.

Jury reaches verdict. Live coverage here

Here are but a very a few of the 10kg of litchi / lychees that arrived at my door today as a gift from a friend's family farm. She tells me they were picked just yesterday. (Also mentioned on the Unexpected Gift topic.)

This just arrived at my door. 10kg of litchi/lychees picked yesterday on a friend's farm. Now in my over stuffed fridge.

There are several comedies in the long running Food Movies topic. My own favourite is Eat Drink Man Woman - if you can cope with subtitles. It's in Mandarin.

The Tragick Tale of Trout Brown Trout - PD I am fond of the occasional trout or two but alas cannot sensibly buy it here and the reason is unreasonable. A tale of stupidity and conspiracy theories. Trout, as I’m sure you know, is a non-specific term covering several species, but all true trout are in the same overall family as salmon and to an extent share the same migratory habits. What I particularly ate in Europe were rainbow trout or brown trout, the later being my favourite. Unfortunately, in Mandarin the term 鲑鱼 (guī yú), meaning the overall family is often applied to either specific species, causing great confusion. A more specific term for trout is 鳟鱼 (zūn yú), with Oncorhynchus mykiss , rainbow trout being 虹鳟 (hóng zūn), literally ‘red trout’. Salmo trutta, brown trout is 褐鳟 (hè zūn). Knowing these names is no guarantee your wait staff, chef or fishmonger will give you what you ask for. In 2016, the China Aquatic Products Processing and Marketing Alliance (CAPPMA), overseen by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs decreed that rainbow trout could legally be sold as salmon, throwing China’s fish eaters into meltdown for all the wrong reasons. To make matters worse, the Alliance’s justification was a quote from Wikipedia (despite it being blocked in China)! The media then argued back, although some of their arguments were as tenuous as the government’s. Whatever, the public decided that trout were dangerous, being riddled with parasites that would slowly eat them alive from inside. Trout are susceptible to parasites but no more than salmon are. After all, their lifestyles are the same. For that reason, all salmon sold as sushi or sashimi has to be frozen for at least 12 hours to be legal. Trout disappeared, although the ruling remains in place. My local delivery app carries none but the national online shopping sites offer live trout for approximately ¥1 or 14 cents USD each. With a minimum order of 300! They are only about 7 cm / 2¾ inches long and being sold as bait fish. I suppose I could bung them in my bathtub and grow them! But I don’t have a bathtub. I do have some imported Danish trout roe, though. I refuse to call it caviar