Kikujiro

Jin, Thanks. Would you not bother with any attempt to include the radicchio stems, then? Edit addition: Most recipes I can find for a radicchio risotto put some in before the stock, though not always before the rice ...

Surely, historically, you can divide certain traditional dishes into those designed to make the best of very fresh ingredients while they're available, and those designed to cleverly compensate for the need to use less ideal and/or preserved ones?

As I am getting lots of useful advice today, why not go the whole hog and run tonight's intended main by you? I came back from Borough with a bunch of vegetables, some of which will go into Italianate lukewarm starters and some into a salad, but I think I will use the trevise I bought, along with a jar of those Spanish Navarrico broad beans in brine, for a risotto. Now, trying an unpracticed recipe on friends is one thing but improvising it is even more risky. My main concern is that I haven't used these jarred broad beans before and am not sure how I should treat them v. fresh. Also whether this will end up too bitter unless i do something to the trevise tips first. Anyway, here is roughly what I intend to do. Is there anything you would do differently? Finely chop trevise stems. Roughly chop tips (maybe burn them slightly on a ridged grill first?) Blanch broad beans for 3-4 minutes. Drain (not too dry), add some butter, s&p. With hand blender, turn about a third of this to a rough paste. Melt finely chopped red onion and celery heart in butter (maybe a crumbled red chilli or two in there). Add stems of trevise and and stir for a minute, then add broad bean paste and wait another minute or so before adding rice. Make risotto as normal (glass of white wine or prosecco; then thin Swiss marigold stock [so sue me]), aiming for soupy Venetian-type consistency (rice=vialone nano). Stir in whole broad beans and most of trevise tips, a bit of chopped parsley, s&p. Scatter with remaining trevise tips to serve.

Stagis, Thanks for the encouragement I will give it a go at some point. I suppose what I meant was that with sushi partly what I'm paying for is someone to go and buy lots of extremely high-quality fish, probably with an expertise I don't have, in quantities I can't match and at I time I don't usually like having my eyes open, and then let me eat little bits of their various purchases sliced with a skill I am missing. But it's something I'll do at some point. I've always intended to hit Billingsgate one morning.

This was fairly high up on the list of criteria when looking at apartments to rent Looking forward to the photos. Sorry I missed you at Borough too.

Toby, thank you.

Any books useful to assist bashing?

The food diary thread (keep them coming) has got me thinking about my relationship to Asian (particularly Chinese) food. [i'm not going to start trying to make sushi at home except maybe as an entertainment.] Although I think its incidence may have been exaggerated over the past couple of weeks, it's clear to me that Chinese and related cuisine is a very regular part of my diet, but that I almost never attempt to cook it at home. There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, experience: I am confident I know more or less what I'm doing with European dishes generally. Meats and fish turn out fine, pasta and risotto probably better than the average decent restaurant over here (although some notches below the best). On the other hand, my occasional attempts at Chinese dishes are unarguably worse than the average decent restaurant. Of course, this is related to the relatively tiny amount of experience I have. The main issue here is fear of the wok. This may be partly rational, viz. the widespread line that you can't cook well with a wok on a domestic gas hob. Related to this is the speed of cooking: I am used to tasting throughout the process and adjusting amounts, speed and heat accordingly. Wok-cooking seems more like Superman in the telephone kiosk: when do you get to respond to what's happening? Then there's the sheer number of ingredients that seem to be involved in many Chinese recipes, versus European ones. Concerns here include both managing the increased number of variables and simply managing to control a decent larder of useable ingredients. Then there's the fact I don't have a rice cooker ... Firstly, then, is this something I should be pursuing, or is it best left to the several good-to-very-good restaurants within comfortable walking distance of where I live? And if so, am I best just continuing to bash along until I improve, in which case can somebody recommend a good book to work through, or should I think about an evening course or something?

JD: yes, this makes sense. I'm very much Waters/River Café school myself. Of course, it's more suited to a culture in which it's increasingly possible to get high-quality ingredients (just got back from Borough), whereas time doesn't necessarily allow amateurs to refine complicated techniques. But I find that even my memories of my favourite dishes, eaten out, turn out to be biased towards simple preparations that let through extraordinary ingredients. I'm not a big sauce person; nor can I really recreate in my mind, say, the cappucino fish thingy whatsits I had back at Ramsay's Aubergine. What I remember are things like branzino al sale, good sushi, that amazing acorn-fed pork at Eyre Bros. earlier this year. Odd, then, that of all the restaurants in the world, the one I've not been to and would most like to visit is El Bulli. Jin, is your early rising connected to the need for good ingredients? Edit note: I realise it takes years to train as a sushi chef. But surely the ingredients are paramount.

Define a few

I'm an ingredients guy myself, with just a side of technique. Off to Borough now. Edit: Jin, what time is it over there? Don't you sleep?

Re. the skate and monkfish -- not that they have an excuse, 'cos they don't, but I tend to avoid fish on a Monday.

Hashi.

also within 2 mins of pizza meto

Oh, so you're not writing any of this yourself? Temaki: hand-rolled sushi ('te' means hand) wrapped in nori (dried seaweed), large and conical. Chirashi-zushi (scattered sushi, the 'su' of sushi being voiced when preceded by some modifiers): deconstructed sushi, a pile of sushi rice in a bowl or box covered with nigiri toppings (sashimi, tamago, etc). [Hey, how about sashimi in the list?] I'm really bad at trying to write down pronunciation. Agemono. Fried foods. Edomae-zushi. Same as nigiri-zushi Donburi/don -- not sure about the distinction between these, if there is one. Someone ask Jinmyo.

... kaiten ... um ... everything else I can think of is specific to a foodstuff.

temaki and chirashi?

The competition is extraordinarily profuse: within a couple of minute's walk of Pizza Metro, there is off the top of my head Buona Sera (pizza and pasta); Zizzi (pizza and pasta); Strada (pizza and pasta); the place whose name I can't remember that has replaced Wok Wok (pizza and pasta); another two minutes gives you Need the Dough (pizza); PizzaExpress (pizza) ... and probably several others I have forgotten.

Do you run on a machine, or do you have a route?

Simon, tell us about your fitness regime. (I can confirm Simon is surprisingly thin.)

I was worried it wasn't echt for a first go. Also, I didn't have an apple

Is there anywhere to eat in West Hampstead besides the Gourmet Burger Kitchen? Or indeed Hampstead? I've been to the place Akiko describes, although not for years, but I remember it as being good. Visited on several occasions. Many years ago I was taken to Red Pepper in W9 by a bunch of Italians. I can remember nothing about the food now (I think I liked it) but it must have been fairly decent. My family, who are Pizza Metro regulars, sometimes go to Made in Italy when stuck around Kings Road seeing a movie. I haven't yet been -- one time I tried it was full -- but based on their visits it can't be bad. (But then you're nearly in Battersea anyway). In the West End, Spiga is okay. The Kings Road branch is vaguely annoying. However, these are all at least a tier below PM. (I maintain that Strada (pizzas only) is not half bad for a chain.)

In the end, I followed more or less the procedure described here although I omitted the apple as it sounded a bit arriviste and Gagnairey. (Despite Macrosan's kind provision of prepared onion, I decided to do the onion part because I had an onion to hand, it seemed that the onion wanted partly to flavour the schmaltz, and it looked like fun.) I ended up with two containers of schmaltz, a clearer one taken off earlier and a darker one with brown flecks that had seen the onion through to the end. I chilled these and dried the crispy onions and gribenes on kitchen paper. I prepared several small (honestly) pieces of toasted light rye (from St John), and added to them as follows. 1. A small smear of the clear schmaltz, s&p. 2. Ditto the darker schmaltz. 3. Mrs Macrosan's chopped liver combined with a little of the clear schmaltz, chopped raw onion. 4. MMCL combined with a little of the darker schmaltz, crispy onions and gribenes. 5. MMCL au naturel. 6. MMCL with a drop of Tabasco (didn't have the chipolte version), per Simon. Pepper. With these I had some additional New Green pickle from the Nosherie (who concurred with macrosan's preference of this variety to accompany chopped liver). Evian. I then did my best to compare. My takeaway: * Both schmaltz-on-toast versions seemed fairly similar. I'm not sure I didn't prefer the darker one, which contravenes the advice I found online. * Wasn't wild about the light schmaltz and raw onion version, which seemed a bit gelatinous and rude. * The dark schmaltz, crispy onions and gribenes made the most substantial difference to taste and texture (sweeter, smokier). Liked this very much, but ... * I think my favourite variant remains Mrs Macro's original, sans schmaltz, sans gribenes, onions, everything. The drier texture is more up my street, and the flavour is not hijacked by the onions, as was the case with the previous version. I'm glad that my remaining stock is unaltered. How long will this keep in the fridge? * In the face of expectations, I thought the Tabasco worked pretty well. (What happened to the blush emoticon?) Now I feel stuffed and can't contemplate dinner. I am reserving the schmaltzes for unspecified future use.

Pizza Metro, Battersea Rise. Pizza Metro, Battersea Rise. Pizza Metro, Battersea Rise. etc.

Tomato sauce?