muichoi

I quite agree-De Gustibus is v. bad. I was delighted with Ginger Pig sausages last time, a huge improvement on a couple of years ago when they hadn't got the hang of it. the Toulouse was a minor masterpiece.

Nice fellow, Arnaud at Bedales, and always interesting wines.It's the restaurant-style markups that are a little saddening.

It's better than other Supermarkets, but it's still a supermarket-for example they stock a few of the same cheeses as Neal's Yard , and the inferiority of the Waitrose versions is quite incredible! the fish is poor, the meat and poultry tasteless and the service willing but cack-handed. Much better than the competition, though.

Hi Carlovski,Another UK gulleteer here. Can you tell me which supermarkets you have been able to obtain sichuan peppercorns from? I think I have seen them once but can't remember where; I think it was also the Bart's Spices brand. I tried to make mapo tofu with a supermarket brand of sichuan sauce. It was OK, but not really good enough. Next time I will try from scratch. ← See Woo supermarkets have a variety packed in oil which is astounding.

It depends very much on the quality of the peppercorn. I used to think that the numbing effect was very mild, but buying the sichuan pepper preserved in oil now available was a revelation-only matched by a can of root beer from singapore which must surely have been a mispackaged dental product!

Got sichuan chillies in front of me, but no technology unfortunately. Imagine a miniaturised bell pepper with no edges. Amazing fragrance.

That's just what I was going to say-the chillies don't appear to be cooked, and they are the wrong variety. The true Sichuan chili gives such dishes a wonderful aroma without being really hot. This looks like a version of a deep-fried'salt and pepper' dish where the whole lot is put into hot oil and removed with a fine strainer-the chillies presumably being added for the last seconds. In other words,not a Sichan dish at all.

I don't remember the exact proportions, but the duck is halved lengthwise, marinated in salt and five spices(whole)wine, ginger and scallion, steamed until very tender, the bones carefully removed, and chilled under a weight. You then make quite a thick paste with plenty of wheat starch and some boiling water, which you mix with mashed steamed Taro, some ham,soaked dry shrimp and lard. The inner side of the duck is coated thickly with more starch, the paste spread over more starch applied to the whole assembly, then you chill again to set and deep-fry. sweet and sour sauce. It's pretty much the same mixture as woo kok. It's the sort of labour-intensive, rather hokey dish that's good to have in restaurants.

I don't think St.John's the place if you want preparation! kind of the opposite-which has its place.

16 quid for a woodcock??!! I got one from Wyndhams for 8.50 last week - and he was embarrased at charging that much and gave me a partridge for free as well! Very tasty it was too. The man there said they have gone up over the last couple of years - used to be 6 each. I do wonder about the foodcost percentage at St.Js sometimes, as much as I've enjoyed the cooking. 22 pounds for a partridge and lentil dish - partridge 3 quid retail, can't be more than 2/2.25 wholesale, not much for the lentils, so pretty much 10% of the cost of the dish total. hmmm... ← Nice price! was it properly hung?

Woodcock is pretty expensive-about £16 each retail.Why would chitterlings and turnip be bad for your heart?-very lean and not high in cholesterol like brains, sweetbreads, marrow and testicles. The dish itself is notably unrich, I recall.

Lidagtes still has some good stuff, but it has gone a long way down the "organic chicken breast marinated in thai spices" route. For me a good butcher has to sell tripe, and veal bones. Lidgates does neither. 218 Portobello Road, has a halal butcher that sells cow feet and tripe and mutton. And is maybe 1/3 of the price of lidgates. But the quality is not so high. ← Tripe! where, where?(not the nasty soft bleached stuff!)

Can't really agree-fairly able butchers but very average quality of meat.

I think a £25 corkage charge is reasonable if the glasses are good-means no-one's trying to stiff the restaurant, but still good value if you drink really good bottles.

I own a Magimix, but I don't like it. i've gone back to a saucepan-buy a thermometer if you don't have one. FWIW, If your oven goes very hot, no need to fry. Pull off the heads along with the guts, roll in seasoned flour and put on a preheated heavy roasting dish. No oil needed. should be done in five minutes. I think these are nicer, and just as crisp.

Sam, what a great link. Many thanks.

I'm pretty sure she died a couple of years ago!

Whatever happened to Marco?I see him occasionally around town,looking madder and madder.

Is this PRB gold a different grade than regular PRB light/dark soy sauce? I don't think I have seen that before (or have paid enough attention to it). ← Supposed to be brewed and matured much longer,with the finest ingredients. Still cheap,and very good.

What an excellent idea!

Don't know what the price difference is in the US, but I find the older and stronger Shaoxing wines well worth the premium for the amount of flavour they add. Do you get the PRB gold label soy where you are?i find this really good.

Thanks very much! can't get the picture, though. I'm not sure that it's practical or economic to order foie gras from America. Even the very best I can get here requires thorough deveining-even though a lot of people don't bother! Are you planning a second British edition of the book-not that there's anything unclear in the American one?

While you're here, a quick question...I bought the wonderful new edition and am thrilled with it,but I wonder why you do not emphasise the deveining of Foie gras, to me the most important part of any preparation involving it. Is it simply that the foie you get is of a quality not available to us?

Any responsible Doctor will tell you that the idea of a Detox is absolute nonsense-and please remember that too much water is really quite dangerous.

Yum! dried scallops are incredibly expensive here, unfortunately.