rarerollingobject

While roaming the valleys of a massive Vietnamese supermarket on the weekend, I saw and therefore had to buy this wonderful dried prawn and sesame seed rice paper. Isn't it beautiful?? And did you know that if you microwave any kind of rice paper or raw prawn cracker for 2 mins on high, it puffs up into a perfect crisp. And usually forms its own bowl shape, just right for filling with shredded mango, carrots, mint, perilla, sugar-steeped prawns and caramelised pork belly. And then dousing in fish sauce, lime juice, palm sugar, raw and crispy garlic, and lots of chopped fresh chilli. You just break off a bit of your bowl, use it as a chip, and double dip to your heart's content.

I like the bread to be basically nought more than a handle for holding the chicken.

Well, I'm shortly going to be in the market for a new bloke as it happens, and Criteria No. 1 is liking the food I cook.

My Valentine; hybrid Korean/Taiwanese/Nashville/David Chang hot chicken sandwiches, adapted from ladyandpups.com. Pounded a chicken breast very thin, into one huge jagged piece of chicken (that's the Taiwanese part), brined it in buttermilk, Tabasco, garlic powder and pickle juice, dredged it in tapioca flour (Taiwanese again) and then deep fried it to an impossible crisp. And then pulled on rubber gloves and rubbed a sauce I made from Korean chilli flakes, brown sugar, paprika, garlic, chipotle and white pepper into every nook and nubbiny cranny. And then shoved it into a soft squishy roll that I'd toasted the innards of with sweet miso butter, stuffed a few cucumber pickles and a shiso leaf inside, and handed it to my ravenous Valentine. (After, yes, pulling a corner of batter off the bottom corner for, you know, testing purposes.)

Ooh, a popiscle thread! I've been quite into popsicle making lately. Here are a few: Key lime coated in gingersnap crumbs: Sisters, not twins; one strawberry and black pepper, one strawberry and star anise: Elderflower, cucumber and tequila, with a mint and sugar dip; strawberry, white rum and Sichuan pepper, with passionfruit popping candy dip; and purple grape and sake, with raspberry popping candy dip: A baked Alaska/s'mores hybrid popsicle, with a frozen dark chocolate mousse, rolled in gingersnap crumbs, and then slathered in Italian meringue and blowtorched: Yuzu marmalade, lychee, raspberry and sake, and watermelon, kiwi and rum.

It's my only talent! And now; zucchini, feta, mint and dill fritters, topped with soft goat curd and trout I cured myself with beetroot, vodka, sugar, salt, white pepper and dill. And a boiled egg sprinkled with smoked and celery salts. Which I accidentally over-boiled past my preferred state of ooziness, but there you go.

Uni; uni on toast with guanciale; uni on toast with guanciale blistered under the grill until the fat is melty and the uni quivering like warm custard. And a Bloody Mary, not pictured. Because, as I was telling myself when contemplating ingesting seafood, pork fat and vodka before 10am, I'M AN ADULT AND I CAN DO WHAT I WANT.

Beautiful char siu, @mgaretz. With all my love of Chinese cooking, I've never made it..I must give it a go. Summer in Sydney and hot as hell, so here we have a crispy roast duck salad. With watermelon, pomegranate, the wiltiest, crappiest, most pathetic smithereen of mint, chili, coconut palm sugar, lime juice and deep-fried garlic.

Lovely meals, all. Mine; uni (sea urchin) carbonara with crispy pancetta fluff and toasted nori.

Very nice fish, @Ann_T. Here, Korean drinking food; dak galbi ramyun, or chicken pan fried in lots of gochujang chilli paste, maesil sour plum syrup, sesame oil, and soy sauce, with chopped cabbage, onions, ginger, garlic and spring onions. Then at the end of cooking, you stir in blanched ramen noodles (Shin Ramyun brand) and sprinkle it with cheese (I used provolone and Laughing Cow) and grill till the cheese bubbles. Sprinkle over some toasted Korean seaweed and roasted sesame seeds. Insert existing attachment

That's a hell of a meal, @BonVivant. Very impressive.

Never made it. I've eaten it in restaurants, but only the preserved greens version..have a distinct aversion to taro in all its forms!

Kou rou, or Sichuanese bowl-steamed pork belly. You poach some pork, and then fry it till the skin is crispy, and then soak it in water till the skin puffs up, then slice it and line a bowl with it. You then fill the rest of the bowl with pickled chillis, black beans, preserved Sichuanese mustard greens and glutinous rice and steam it for three hours. Pork belly cake abomination.

Haha, love it. OK, so here's the full thing; I ripped up some fresh shimeji and shiitake mushrooms and soaked a mix of dried forest mushrooms and then squeezed them dry. In a dry pan, I browned the fresh mushrooms until toasty. Then I added a knob of butter and some sliced garlic and browned it a little. Then I splashed in some sake to stop the garlic burning and sizzled the mushrooms in it till it evaporated, and tipped in the soaked dried mushrooms and a little of their soaking water. Then I stirred a heaped tablespoon of sweet white saikyo miso (the very delicate Kyoto-style kind, but any kind of white miso will do) into the water to dissolve it and bubbled it away for a minute. Added a dash of cream and seasoned with mirin, soy sauce and white pepper. I let the cream thicken and reduce, and then tipped it all out onto buttered toast and garnished with chilli flakes, thyme and goats' cheese. Took about five minutes' cooking all up.

Beautiful chicken, @Patrick S. And no photos, @Thanks for the Crepes?! Tease! As for me - a massive pile of flowering yu choy, mint, basil and Thai wing beans and what it became; poached coconut chicken salad, dressed with lime, chilli jam, fish sauce and palm sugar and sprinkled with crispy fried garlic, crispy eschallots, and roasted peanuts. And, um, crushed deep fried chicken skins. As you do.

[Host's note: this is part of an extended topic that periodically needs to be split to ease the load on our servers. The discussion conntinues from here.] Thanks so much for the warm greetings, all! It's lovely to see so many familiar names, and so many new ones. And this; a Korean feast of barbecued wagyu intercostal bulgogi, perilla leaves, clam kimchi, cucumber kimchi, cabbage kimchi, fish cakes, mushrooms sautéed in soju, sesame oil and anchovy paste, and salted radish kimchi.

Shiitake, shimeji and wild forest mixed mushrooms in white miso cream and garlic butter sauce, heavy on the mirin, with chèvre, dried chilli and lemon thyme. On sourdough toast.

Pork belly and pork mince patties, marinated in lemongrass, fish sauce, brown sugar, black pepper, garlic and ginger. Grilled in a copper mesh grill thingy, and eaten with rice vermicelli, rice paper spring rolls, mint, perilla/shiso and carrot quick pickles, and a fish sauce/sugar/garlic/rice vinegar sauce. Which makes the lot a pretty close approximation to the good old Hanoian dish, bun cha.

Just out of curiosity, has anyone else experienced troubles in their order shipping or seeking response from Anova? I ordered 21 Dec at which point their website clearly stated the PCs were on back order and would ship the first week of January and that shipping notifications would be emailed. I was fine with that, but by 7th Jan, I hadn't heard anything so I emailed to query, and was told "Upon checking your order, it appears to ship in the next few days/weeks." I replied that same day, pointing out that "days/weeks" was a pretty big window and could they be any more specific; I haven't had any reply at all to that email since. I'm not impressed so far with their customer service. I understand there are backorders and shipping delays but that's pretty vague and non-responsive. Anyone else had problems??

Another vote for Paprika; I use it to clip and add recipes. It's excellent. And syncs wirelessly across my iPhone, iPad and laptop. As others here have said, you can import Live Cookbook content into Paprika, and then use Paprika to read your Live Cookbook stuff on your iPad in the kitchen.

Thanks for the kind words, gfweb and Kim! Kim; I meant to say; loved your orange danish Christmas tree. I tried my hand at cinnamon buns for the first time this weekend..not good. I'm cooking more lately than I used to; I'd been ill for nearly two years and had stopped cooking almost entirely as a result, but I'm kind of back in the swing of things. A couple of dinners from recent weeks to share; first, pistachio and saffron soup. The Ottolenghi recipe. Beautiful soup, but skinning pistachios? Let's just say life is too short. Not shelling, SKINNING. I realised the true horror of the task about four pistachios into the pile, and made my boyfriend take over and do the rest. With crushed harissa carrots and spiced Greek yoghurt: Another night; pissaladiere: Cherry clafoutis and pistachio ice cream for dessert (unconventionally, using leftover egg nog from Christmas in the clafoutis batter instead of milk): Pan-fried gnocchi, Roquefort, jamon and candied pistachio salad: Grilled trout with butter-braised asparagus and raspberry whisky cranachan: Crispy pork belly, prawn and green mango Thai salad: A very big vegetable tagine-y thing on Turkish couscous: Freekeh and beetroot fritters with sweet potatoes roasted with caramelised figs, green onion and chilli:

Probably Mason Cash. It's kind of THE British bowl brand all British grandmothers would have. See hither: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=mason+cash&espv=2&biw=2144&bih=1072&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=ZvykVKPFNYi2mwXs94HwCQ&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg

That turkey porchetta looks amazing, gfweb. I recently did something similar to the Food Lab turkey recipe, but with chicken. And pork stuffing. And cooked it sous vide. So, OK, not that similar, but still: Chicken breast, stuffed with pork and fennel sausage, cranberries and sage. Sous vided for awhile and topped with a stuffing-crumble mix of buttered, toasted bread, pistachios, more cranberries, thyme and crushed pork crackling: And crispy potato and thyme gratin: And grilled apricots brushed in pistachio oil with crushed pistachio amaretti biscuits, roast pistachios and pistachio gelato. And more thyme.

From a few days ago now, but the only dinner I've made lately that didn't solely consist of wine, cheese and crackers. Bibimbap, as fun to eat as it is to say.

I don't always drink on Sunday mornings, but when I do, it's a Bloody Mary heavy on the Tabasco and celery salt. With maple syrup and black pepper bacon on avocado mashed with chilli and lemon, piled on sourdough toast, aka a Coronary on a Plate. But delicious!