nakji

Did you have it on its own, or with food? I'm wondering what would pair well with a diesel/petrol vapour . I enjoy Riesling, but Alsatian Riesling is usually priced out of my budget.

Thanks! Quite a breadth of offerings there. Do you have a favourite? And do they have a regular location? The donuts sound particularly good.

I don't have any, but I'd be interested in hearing some. I'll be in Calgary for the first time for the July first holiday - hopefully some will be out then. There's a popular grilled cheese truck, no?

Two places: Yang Yang dumpling house, near my house. I knew I had made it when the waitress called us 老客 - regular customers. They always bring the menu over anyway, even though they know we always get the chicken, the eggplants, and the green beans. We go there when it's been a rough day and decisions are difficult. The other place is a French-run Italian restaurant that we've gone to just about every Friday night for almost two years now. They have a really great collection of wines, and the owner or his son usually has a stash that's not on the list. He'll bring over something he thinks we'll like. Reservations are never a problem, and we always get comped a Calvados or a limoncello. I love that place.

This recipe for kefta with tomato and eggs is one of my favourite weeknight recipes. It's gorgeous. I'd never seen ras el hanout before, or tasted it - but Chufi was kind enough to send me a packet from the Netherlands to taste. Now I've approximated my own spice mix for it, but if someone gave me a big jar of ReH, I'd be thrilled. If you make this recipe, make sure you have plenty of bread on hand to mop up the sauce.

I'd love it, but the shrimp are a no-go in my house, I'm afraid. Steak's out of the question - no access to decent meat. I like the idea of using them in sweets, though - the gingerbread, the strawberries, or the pfeffernusse sound like great ideas.

Two dishes last night: Chicken tagine with preserved lemons and olives, p. 93. I've never had a tagine before, so I wasn't quite sure what the end dish would turn out like. Fortunately, Ms. Roden's descriptions at the beginning of the chapter help crystalize what to aim for with this dish. I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be soupy or not, but her explanation of the dish from the beginning of the Moroccan section helped considerably- -made sure I cooked it down until the onions were left to sizzle in the chicken fat. We ended up eating it with our fingers, it was so luscious. A slightly more elegant remake of last week's eggplant and tomato - thanks to a CSA bag that included both tomato and eggplant. For the tagine, I used the 4-day preserved lemons that I put on last Sunday. I haven't tried the salt ones, but I'm thinking I might put on some brine ones soon.

Actually, it's often me having that same argument with my husband! But Hong Kong I treat as basically a trip to the cuisines of the world. The main thing working against eating local for me in HK is that Guangdong/Cantonese food makes a lot of use of good fresh seafood, which I adore, but my husband refuses to eat. No. Seafood. At. All. So I just give up and go for things I can't find in Suzhou/Shanghai. Oh, yeah. It's like uni for old people, Lan Kwai Fong. (And I count myself in that group) It's fun for people watching, but so is sitting out in SoHo.

Yeah, we do get strawberries in February too - but they taste like February strawberries - tasteless. The pan-fried figs with black pepper and yogurt from the BBC site looks seriously delicious, however. Oh, that sounds excellent and quite up my alley. Was it minced pork or strips, maybe?

A friend just came back from Sarawak with a bottle of reasonably fresh peppercorns for me. The smell off of them is incredible: you can smell the oil almost like pine resin. I'd like to make a recipe that really shows off the flavour, but I'm interested in your opinions. Salt and pepper squid/shrimp are out, since my husband doesn't eat any seafood. (*sigh) I was thinking about a cacio & pepe, but I don't have any particularly good pasta right now. Any other ideas?

I try to get to Hong Kong every year, and it truly is one of my favourite eating cities in Asia, up there with Tokyo and Singapore. Ironically, though, I love it largely for the availability of its non-Chinese options. I think the first meal I had off the plane the last time I was there was at a Lebanese place somewhere in SoHo. We were meeting another transplanted Nova Scotian, where Lebanese food is a bit of a thing, and so we were thrilled, that being a fairly under-represented cuisine in the rest of Asia. Every time I go, I think, "Wow, I've really got to try some actual Cantonese food." And then I walk by a perfect pho joint and get completely distracted. And by the time I'm ready to leave three days later, the actual "Chinese" options I've eaten can be summed up by, "Mall egg tart. Milk tea. Bakery char siu bao." It's a scandal. Thanks for posting these restaurants; I'll put their names down on my To Do: Hong Kong list. Fortunately, Shanghai is getting almost equally distracting with international options, so hopefully on my next HK trip I won't feel like I have to make the most of those.

Actually really good, as I'd let the cabbage crisp up in the pan, and it made it quite sweet. I actually garnished with fresh chopped cilantro, which helped a little, too. Mixed in with the rice, it wasn't as horrifying. But yeah, it did look like a stream bed.

I remeber seeing them for even more in Japan! Oh, but they were so worth it. I'm eating an orange right now, and it simply does not compare to Dekopon perfection. There's a Korean equivalent, too, I think - the Halla-bong, is it?

Really? I have. Pretty much every time I've eaten at a Chinese friends' place. Maybe it just depends on how ambitious the cook is?

I made this for lunch tomorrow, and I knew as soon as it was finished I had to report it here. Turmeric: meet red cabbage. Red cabbage: meet turmeric. Lunch: meet Gallery of Regrettable Food. My camera can't even capture the Prussian blue-meets-yellow ochre matte horror of this dish.

Nice work! (clapping) How was the zucchini? And what do you think went wrong on the green bean front? I had that recipe tagged to try.

....Aaannnd four months later, I've picked it up again. CSA delivered a couple of carrots - rare for them - and I knew I had pork at home, so it seemed a good time to do Carrot and Ginger Stir-fry. The flavour in this dish is just phenomenal - it calls for a cup of sliced ginger, and with the new ginger coming into season now, the intense heat from that, coupled with the sweetness of the carrots worked really well. Small changes - I left out the Sichuan peppercorns, as I'm not a huge fan, and instead of water I used some chicken stock that needed using up. Served with some gai lan and sesame rice on the side.

Oh, the egg tarts, the egg tarts. My husband is such a fan that the last time we were in HK we did a pilgrimage to Lord Stowe's Bakery in Macao to try the originals. They were worth the trip, and we came back with a half dozen more to eat with friends. I wish my husband ate seafood - I'd kill for an excuse to eat that crab! As for ordering the same dishes...you can always say you were checking quality across the board and needed a har gau baseline.

My thoughts were the same. The only thing I did like about it was that it seemed a little less heavy than the other wheat beers that I have regular access to - Hoegaarden and Erdinger. But yeah, the bottle's nice.

That's a good idea, Andie. I wrap mine in a towel and leave it in a warm space right now, but I also have a large thermal bucket that may work similarly.

That dim sum makes me want to go out and...get some dim sum. Oh, the pork. The last time I was in Hong Kong, I actually passed by that place! I wanted to go in, but I was completely full from a pho place just up the road from it. I'm going to save myself, next time. I'm not surprised that you didn't cross any char siu bao - I have found Causeway Bay a similar desert. I had a baked CSB in Singapore last week, but I haven't seen one like in your picture before - it looks like a Roti Boy. Yeah, a couple of Tsingtaos always make me happy, too.

I actually made "risotto" for dinner this evening, off of a bastardized Jamie Oliver recipe. I always stir, but don't use arborio rice. I used a mix of regular medium grain and mochi rice in a 2:1 ratio, and it came out very smooth. One thing I like about Oliver's array of risotto recipes is that he often includes some sort or textural contrast topping, like toasted breadcrumbs. In tonight's version of tomato risotto, I cooked in shiitake mushrooms, leftover chicken, and some finely chopped tomato. Then I garnished with some more tomatoes that had been chopped and marinated in olive oil and balsamic vinegar for the length of the risotto cooking time. No idea how authentic that is, never having been to Italy, but I do enjoy it.

I think you'll be happy with it. I've tagged about forty recipes with "want to make" flags. I think it's because we're dealing with the same restrictions! I actually went looking to buy MEF, but Kinokuniya didn't have it in stock. I hope to spot it in a used book store one of these days, like my other favourite cookbooks. What's god in it? It seems like the sort of book you could begin to not use almost right away. The mashed eggplant salad was so easy and delicious I think I could do it in my sleep even after just once.

I only ever cook two dishes plus rice on a weeknight for two people. It takes about 45 minutes end to end, but I'm fast with my knife and I have a good mental layout of how things will go. It's no worse for me than cooking a baked potato, a vegetable, and a chicken breast. Those are technically three different dishes. (Although to be fair - you just bung them in the oven and walk away.) I don't find wok hei dissipates, but heat often can. I usually cook my green or pure veg dish first, because it mucks up the wok less, and then transfer that to a lidded dish on a warmer. Then the protein.

I love Causeway Bay! My husband and I always stay in that neighborhood when we're there. Looking forward to seeing some good eats in that area. Any good char siu bao stalls, for example?