liuzhou

It is difficult to find celtuce here with the tops still intact, too. Luckily, I have a friendly market stall holder who obliges if I pre-book. Usually people, including me, just eat the stems. This unusual approach is what first attracted me to Carolyn's recipe.

You need girders.

Tahini v Chinese sesame paste.Yes, as @blue_dolphin suspects, the difference is in the roast. Sesame seeds for tahini are very lightly roasted. More what I call 'toasted'. The seeds for the Chinese paste are much more heavily roasted, resulting in a very different taste. Also, tahini is usually 'diluted' with other oils; olive oil if you are lucky. Chinese sesame paste is also sometimes 'diluted' or other oils substituted. Check the ingredients list. The best sesame oils/pastes are 100% sesame.

It does have a lot of oil. I still say this paste wouldn't work with desserts. I've tasted it! You are making judgements about a product without ever having seen or tasted it.

Yes, slowly but steadily on the mend. Still a bit weak, but it gets better each day. Thank you so much.

It is said that the soaking in milk reduces the "offaly" taste. It certainly isn't necessary. I eat chicken liver regularly and never soak it.

Liver 'n Leeks Pig's liver with braised leeks. Served with Malabar spinach and rice.

Yes, that's what gave me the idea (although Chinese sesame paste isn't usually a substitute for tahini. I make my own tahini - it's unknown here. I hope you can find celtuce. It is a wonderful vegetable. I can't see it working in desserts. It is very robustly flavoured and savoury tasting.

Egg noodles with pork, shiitake, Shanghai Bok Choy, shallots, garlic, white pepper and a hint of rice vinegar.. In a chicken stock.

I had to buy a couple of leeks to use with dinner later today. This is them as they came from the market. I haven't washed or otherwise touched them. I am confident that there is no sand, gravel or anything else lurking in the folds. There never is.

I picked up a jar of the black sesame paste this morning. Here is a preliminary impression. I smelled and tasted both "straight from the jar" ; i.e. No cooking. The white seed paste (left) smelled pleasantly, but not strongly of sesame. I wonder how much scent will remain after it is exposed to heat. Similarly, this paste tasted for sure of sesame, but again mildly so. That isn't necessarily a complaint. It also tasted pleasantly sweet, but not over so. There was little taste of 'toast'. On to the black. It was obvious as soon as I opened the jar that this had a considerably stronger sesame aroma and the 'toast' was more noticeable. Tasting it confirmed the smell impression. Stronger taste and noticeably toasted. There was a bit of a bitter after taste, too. It is a bit unfair to judge these pastes this way. They are not intended to be eaten this way. The black one may mellow with cooking, for example. I will attempt to do a side by side comparison in a dish, but it may be a few days. (In the meantime, I'm thinking the white paste may work well uncooked in a salad dressing. Hmmm?)

and another The presenters in the Tips video seem unaware of these standard techniques and are in danger of doing themselves serious injury!

I'm amazed anyone's got any fingers left. The knife skills are sorely lacking.

I know I've posted a version of this before, but tonight I just wanted some mince 'n tatties. And why not? There was a near disaster when I discovered I was right out of Lee and Perrins' Worcestershire Sauce. Fortunately, I do have a bottle of Shanghai Worcestershire Sauce which is almost identical.

I haven't bought the black yet, but when I do will let you know what I think.

Here is their stall and workshop with equipment. The main grinder When I took the pictures they were working on black seeds. You can see the paste collecting in the lowest receptacle. Above that is the grinding stone. The oil runs off on the right.

There is no standard stroke count in English. But it is irrelevant. I just wanted to point that what you agreed with me saying, I never said (because it wouldn't be true). When doing a list, I usually use the language in which I learned of the ingredients or became used to using the ingredients.

Well, English doesn't use strokes as such so you can't really compare that way. How many strokes are there in "eggs"?

Ah! But I didn't say that, I don' use the shortest. The Chinese name is nearly always shorter than the English (each character being one syllable), but I use English for ingredients etc which are commonly used in England irrespective of length. The majority of ingredients in Chinese are only two or three characters long.

One of my local supermarkets recently installed a sesame seed pressing facility and is now producing sesame oil and sesame paste. Their equipment toasts and extracts the oil and the residue is turned into the paste. Of course, I bought some of each. I have only used the oil so far. It tastes and smells more intensely than any I have bought before. The aroma also seems to last longer in a dish. These are the white seed versions. They also do black seed oil and paste which I haven't bought yet. Neither has any brand label - only a bar code on the back so that the check-out staff can deal with it. I am sorely tempted to try this recipe from Carolyn Philips for celtuce with sesame oil, paste and seeds. I'll let you know how I get on with this or any other recipe. Suggestions welcome, as always.

Yes.

Interesting question. As I said, I seldom make shopping lists, but when I do they tend to be in a mix of languages. Stuff which is common to both Chinese and western cuisines, I will usually write in English, but items which we tend to think of as exclusively Chinese, I tend to use the Chinese, especially if typing. Things like bamboo shoot, wood ear fungus etc are almost always written in Chinese, for example. (There are also a few things for which I don't know the English, or even if there is an English name. They get written in Chinese, of course.) Things like eggs, bananas and chicken get written in English, although there are exceptions. I tend to write 肉 rather than 'pork' or 大米 instead of rice. I think perhaps because the usage is different from English. 肉 literally means 'meat' but defaults to meaning 'pork' unless otherwise specified. 大米 refers to uncooked rice. Once I cook it, its name changes to 米饭. Of course, in English, the name remains the same. The 'hua lu shui' or toilet water was an exception - I was being lazy. The Chinese character for lù is one of the more complicated ones - 露. In fact, when I wrote the transliterated version on the list, I was double lazy and didn't include the tone diacritics. It should be 'huā lù shuǐ', but it was only a reminder for myself.) Curiously, I tend to count in my head in French! This I think is because I was raised bilingually and my French speaking mother taught me to count. I can count in English or Chinese perfectly well, but my default is French, but only for counting! So a Chinese market vendor tells me the price in Chinese and I count out the cash in French (in my head). No wonder I'm confused!

Yes, that is how I remember them in England.

You are correct, but we get both types. My comments above refer to the 'Welsh' type.

Tonight. Cuttlefish ink spaghetti with squid and wild shrimp. Garlic (lots), olive oil and a tickle of chill.