liuzhou

孜然山羊肉末 (zī rán shān yáng ròu mò) - Cumin minced goat Minced goat marinated in Shaoxing wine, garlic, ginger, shallots, cumin, chillies and salt. Stir fried and finished with soy sauce and Chinese chives. Served with 龙须菜 (lóng xū cài) - chayote shoots and rice. Very spicy.

It's half an hour long, but the first seven of so minutes are definitely food related and there are sporadic references thereafter. Michael Crawford as Frank Spencer, one of British comedy's classics. Pure slapstick. NB. He never used stuntmen. All his stunts he did himself.

He is cooking "spicy wheat gluten" or as he names it at the end "功夫面筋 - Kung Fu Gluten" In order, the Chinese captions read (in places a rough translation - the language gets a bit cryptic sometimes.) 00:23 面粉 Wheat Flour 00:34 冷水 Cold Water 00:59 醒面半个小时 Rest dough for half an hour 01:01 洗面筋 Wash gluten 01:07 第十次洗面筋 Wash the gluten ten times 01:10 放置两刻钟 Set aside for 30 minutes 01:21 温水下锅 Lower into pot of warm water 01:31 冷却一刻钟 Cool for quarter of an hour. 01:33 菜籽油 Rape Seed Oil 01:36 桂皮 八角 Cassia Bark Star Anise 01:37 油粗糍粑辣 When oil is glutinous add chilli 01:50 芝麻 Sesame Seeds 01:57 改刀 Shape with knife 02:03 酱油 Soy Sauce 02:54 孜然粉 Cumin Powder 02:57 辣椒面 - Chili Powder 04:21 功夫面筋 春宵宵，雨飘散 自制面筋兴致高 一洗二煮三火烤 辣椒红油怎可少 芝麻 This is a poem praising the dish. It is virtually untranslatable, but just really tells you he likes it! It was interesting for me to see this for the first time. I see the wheat gluten sold dried or in jars all the time, but I've never seen it being made from scratch before.

Fried rice with squid, dried shrimp, cordycep militaris mushrooms (garlic, ginger, red and green chilli, Chinese chives). Some kimchi on the side.

Many years ago, I spent a couple of months in Jamaica and virtually lived on goat curries. No two were ever the same but all were wonderful. And yes, a very few could be relatively mild.

苦瓜肉片(kǔ guā ròu piàn). Bitter melon with pork and fermented black beans.

If you like lamb or mutton, you'll like goat. In fact, in many cultures the are described as being the same. "Lamb' in India is nearly always actually 'goat'. This is not any attempt to defraud; they just think they are the same. In Chinese they are usually both given the same name, (羊 Mandarin: yáng) unless it is really necessary to differentiate, when they describe goat as 'mountain sheep' (山羊 Mand: shān yáng). Same in Cantonese. Unusually the meat I used was fully labelled as 'goat'. I can only get either infrequently here. Always in winter. People like it in hot pots , but it is relatively expensive. But, in northern China it is much more widely available and more affordable. You can't miss it in the supermarkets or markets when it does arrive. The Chinese aren't squeamish about proving what animal they are selling.

A few days back I posted in the Grocery Shopping topic that Ihad bought some extra-large duck eggs. This morning I boiled the larger one. I usually boil duck eggs for 5 minutes to get the whites done and the yolks just turning hard. This baby got 6½ minutes. Served on a crusty baguette.

I've said before, I find it near impossible to take decent photos of most soups. As you can see. Three Mushroom Soup. Button mushrooms, shiitake and cordycep militaris in a home made chicken stock enhanced with onion and some dried mushroom powder. I didn't purée it as I prefer the lumps in this one and the cordyceps look nice as the come. Served with crusty baguette.

NO! NO! NO! Corn on or off the cob does not qualify as food. Dangerous, yes.

I'm fairly certain I've been to restaurants where he worked!

Rachel Laudan is always a good, reliable read. Of course, she is an eminent food historian, not a scientist. Her Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History is excellent as is her website and blog.

I did have plans for dinner, but didn't have what I needed. The weather today was utterly miserable. Freezing rain, so I really didn't want to go out. So here is my emergency dinner, thanks to the store cupboard. Penne rigata with "Italian" sausage, mushrooms, collapsed cherry tomatoes, onion, chilli and probably the last of my balcony basil given the weather. I actually enjoyed it much more than I thought I would, although I would prefer it in better weather. Back to the original plan tomorrow if things improve.

That's what I usually do.

Saag gosht. Goat curry with spinach. Cubed goat leg meat marinated for four hours in a paste of home-made yoghurt with garlic, ginger and green chillies. Onions, curry paste, more ginger and red chilli fried until fragrant. Added the goat with marinade and some goat bone stock and slow cooked for two hours. Spinach and mint leaves added for last few minutes until wilted. Served with rice and a mint and shallot raita (not shown).

This amused me.

Ah! ha! My gratefulness is eternal. I told you I was numerically illiterate. I misread the '$' sign as a '1' and added on another dollar for good luck. Still seems ridiculously expensive to me, but duck is the cheapest animal protein here. I'm not even going to tell you how much I pay for a lovely duck breast. You would just hate me even more! But your $4.99 per breast could buy me a whole duck, a dozen of its eggs and the taxi fare home!

I'm confused. How much was each breast? I am seeing $15.99. But hey, I never did understand numbers.

Wontons in a spicy, garlicky chicken broth with spinach.

Same here in China. Eggs are always weighed. And bagged the same way. Here a couple of duck eggs I bought this morning. Sea duck eggs, to be precise. Very fresh. But I was interested in the differing sizes. These are the smallest and largest of the batch. More were at the smaller end of the scale. Those black lines on the mat are 2cm apart. They weigh 64g and 88g respectively.

another via Facebook

They also had these 融安金橘 (róng ān jīn jú), locally grown kumquats from Rong'an County, just north of Liuzhou city.

When I got back to the supermarket, the number of pomelo types had risen from four to (almost) six. One signposted variety had sold out. Here are the remaining five: 沙田柚 (shā tián yòu). Citrus maxima ‘Shatian’. The most common pomelo. 容县沙田柚 (róng xiàn shā tián yòu). This is another 'Shatian' pomelo, but a highly prized one. It is from Rongxian County in southern Guangxi. The area is famed for its high quality (and high priced) pomelos. 福建蜜柚 (fú jiàn mì yòu), Fujian Honey Pomelo, a sweet and again prized example from Fujian Province in SE China. Then two together in one pile. 红肉柚 (hóng ròu yòu), red fleshed pomelo (in the red wrappers) and 水蜜柚 (shuǐ mì yòu) or 'juicy, sweet pomelo). Next to them was an empty display marked 三江柚 (sān jiāng yòu) or Sanjiang pomelos, Sanjiang being a nearby county. They are usually very good, and being local means that they are often the cheapest, which may explain why they had gone so quickly.

The only crucial thing for me, and I use different rices, is working out the correct water/rice ratio for each type. Once I crack that, it is perfect each time. I mainly cook Jasmine/ Hom Mali rice, but recently my regular brand was out of stock and I had to choose another. The amount of water required for perfection (in my view) was slightly different, but I worked it out quickly. I've also cooked sushi rice, sticky rice, arborio rice, red rice, black rice etc. They all require slightly different ratios.

Another fermented black bean dish. Pork slices marinated in Shaoxing, with garlic, ginger, black beans and chillies. Stir fried with sliced mushrooms, and finished with soy sauce, scallions and coriander leaf. Rice. Simple but tasty.