liuzhou

海鲜炒饭 (hǎi xiān chǎo fàn), Seafood Fried Rice Shrimp, squid, scallops, mussels. This is my recent fall back when I can't decide what to order. It gets here quick and I like it, so....

Soaking young nettles removes the stinging chemicals, as does cooking. To my palate, they taste much like young spinach. Once the nettles flower, the stinging chemicals can only be eliminated by using acid in the cooking process. Most people only eat the young ones, I think.

Flicking through the delivery app again, I spotted something of a surprise. 惠灵顿牛 排 (huì líng dùn niú pái), Beef Wellington! I’m tempted to try it, just to see if it’s up to Mr. Ramsay’s standard, but it is twice the price of my usual dinners even before adding any sides and I just know it won’t be anything like that picture. So, I passed for now, finally settling on 黄咖喱牛腩套饭 (huáng gā lí niú nǎn tào fàn), yellow curry beef brisket set meal. It was adequate but not great. The beef was somewhat tough and the potato predominated. Back to the drawing board.

豆奶 (dòu nǎi) - Soya Milk.

In order to show some of the food available in local restaurants, this video is nine minutes of ads on the main food delivery app in China, Meituan's version covering Liuzhou, Guangxi. For obvious reasons, it's all in Chinese, but you get to see the food.

Champ made with nettle tops is good, too.

尖椒葱爆要花 (jiān jiāo cōng bào yāo huā), quick fried pig’s kidney ‘flowers’ with scallions and chillies. Also contained onion, vinegar and soy sauce. The ‘flowers’ refers to the cut on the kidney, which wasn’t done well in my dish. The second picture is from listing on the app I use to order food and shows how the kidney should be cut. What I received was just cut into plain strips. Didn't have any effect on the taste, though. My meal (served with rice). Same dish as shown on the app.

The Grauniad has an article today.... A different kind of pothead: the Le Creuset cookware supercollectors A cocotte in every color, a $38,000 collection or seasonal pots: meet the enthusiasts of the French enamel cookware brand

If anyone missed the broadcasts, they are all available here.

I'm not sure you come to that conclusion. There are a number of vocal bean haters and bean agnostics here.

Pretty much what I do. I just wondered because I've seen it being sold on Amazon US. I can source here, too but it's usually imported from Thailand. I can only see one brand on Taobao, China's main shopping portal. Expensive. I doubt I'd ever buy a commercial version, though. So easy to make, cheaper and fresher.

Do you make your own shrimp head oil or is that something you can easily buy in NYC? I've never seen it here but have made it.

虾头油海鲜炒饭 (xiā tóu yóu hǎi xiān chǎo fàn) Shrimp head oil seafood fried rice. With a salad in a spicy dressing and two daikon radish cakes. The rice was exceptional.

Fuchsia is going to be reading five short excerpts from the book on BBC radio, starting tomorrow (Monday), Sept 5th, 09:45 British time. If things go as usual, they will all be avaliable on 'listen again' on the BBC Radio 4 page. More information here. Full schedule here.

Delicious heresy!

No. It's simply a wrap with some salad and stir-fried meats. The restaurant calls it a burrito, but I'd bet a lot on no-one in the place ever having seen a burrito in the flesh. Maybe saw a picture. But then, I've never seen one either. Whatever it was, it was good though. In fact the second one has gone! Just another example of non-Chinese food in China, but happily edible for a change.

I'm getting tired of delivery dinners. Although they have been good almost without exception, I miss cooking and being able to make what I want rather then what a restaurant wants to sell, no matter how good. It's been almost a year. So, today I clicked through the app in a desultory manner and hit upon a place I've tried before. I noticed they were offering a beef, pork and chicken burrito. The concept of a three meat burrito intrigued me. That said, I know nothing about Mexican food so maybe they're as common as fish and chips or pizza. No doubt, someone will tell me. Here it is. Actually, rather good. Spicy and lots of salady vegetables to accompany the meats. There was a second one, but the first filled me up. I'll have the second maybe for supper; maybe for breakfast tomorrow.

One of my favourites is this stir-fried sweet potato shoots and garlic. Fried in self rendered lard, yes. Even better with spinach instead of the sweet potato.

It surprised me the first time I saw it, but here the strawberries don't appear in summer, but in December. I was used to July in the UK.

Here (centre) are the potato slivers in my delivery dinner today.

China likes slivers, 丝 (sī), or julienned strips for dinner. The Chinese word is used to describe any threadlike thing and is the origin of the English 'silk'. So tonight a trio of slivers over rice slithered its way to me. On the left, we have 香辣鱿鱼丝 (xiāng là yóu yú sī), spicy squid slivers, centre is 清炒土豆丝 (qīng chǎo tǔ dòu sī ) stir-fried potato slivers and right, 美极杏鲍菇 (měi jí xìng bào gū), king oyster mushrooms (eryngii). I'm struggling to remember ever seeing this cutting technique used in any Chinese restaurant in Europe.

Who will ever know?

I have every intention of eating on and always did. I apologise for using irony. Most people got it but not all. Remember, my neighbours are the same people who went ballistic buying cooking salt when the Fukushima disaster occured in the deluded belief that it would somehow protect them. What I am worried about is that the very real outrage will be enough to damage the seafood business and I won't be able to get the seafood to eat on. In future, I'll have to add this to my posts.