Blether

This whole repast leaps out at me, robirdstx. Gorgeous.

Oh dear. Got the arithmetic, failed on the thinking. Thanks for putting me right.

For the holiday, I took my camera for an evening stroll across Shinjuku and back, to my favourite Indian restaurant. Some sights along the way, from Shinjuku 1-chome and across Kabukicho: The head chef and branch manager - all the staff are Nepali: Being a bit of a girly, I ordered the lady's set. First plate: This guy was working the tandoor station: For my free choice of 2 curries, I chose my eternal favourite, dal mutton masala, which arrived with a nicely steaming plate of rice: My second choice was anda panir dopiaza, or Egg, cheese and onion curry, and the naan came along with it: This is the soirt of casual, relaxed place that you can bring your pack of tabs and a book along to, and turn up in your house clothes: Finally, this rather handsome mango lassi was included in the set, which was enough to feed two normal appetites, and came in at the astounding price of 1,580yen, or just under 13 dollars US, if my mental arithmetic isn't too far gone. I'm happy to introduce you to this place - feel free to send me a PM if you are interested.. The road home:

Gone but na forgotten. ETA

Yes, smoked trout is really a delicacy. isn't it ? Fresh trout is good on the barbecue, and I've mentioned the following method on eG before: Poach trout fillets in a few tablespoons of water. Transfer to a broiler tray, pour some cream over, and cover with breadcrumbs into which you've mixed salt, pepper, and chopped chives & parsley. Drizzle with melted butter and broil till golden brown. You'll fight over the leftovers

Ha ha - I'd not read these last two posts, and I'm happy to discover today's menu was so appropriate: un cafe et un croc. Pig looks finger-lickin' goodand screw the TM.

Haggis gyoza. Haggis ravioli.

In Glasgow they serve it as haggis pakora - so in a batter of gram (chickpea) flour, oil, chillis, cumin and as much water as it takes. That opens it up to all manner of Indian accompaniments, from chutneys through cachumbers and on to raw or cooked veg. Living in Japan, I've noticed there's a crossover between the use of rutabaga and the use of daikon (mooli in Indian shops) - so, deep frying again, there's haggis tempura with grated daikon. The haggis is salty, so dress the daikon with something like yuzu juice instead of/with soy. Haggis itself should be spicy hot, but there's room to use it in pita bread or on tortillas with a milder salsa (OK, hot if you want to double up), and the usual salad-type accompaniments. Haggis is crumbly and won't normally hold together, but (to repeat what i said in beyond the roasted leg), you can of course make it into crepinettes with some caul fat, giving it a new skin that's edible. Or stuff it into sausage casings for the same effect, which opens up all the possibilities in sausage dishes. Having just roasted a shoulder of lamb. I'm now enjoying a shepherd's pie with some of the roast meat, shredded. Mine is home-nostalgia food with a layer of tinned baked beans and a mashed potato topping. OK, I confess, my mash this time has cabbage in it so it's colcannon - if you want other variations, search for 'stamppot' and the Iish 'champ'. The beans can be replaced with more sophisticated home-cooked veg combinations - peas, carrots, green beans, onions are traditional. Haggis is lamb, so why not the Shepherd's Other Pie ? With its pepperiness I even think haggis would stand up to a tomato-based middle layer. Above all, whwther you re-skin it or not, I reckon you want to think 'sausage', with an awareness of how comparatively fatty your haggis is - isn't there sausage in paella and pasta sauces and breakfast and... ? Traditional Scottish dishes that are recognisably Scotland-specific are limited in number - Scottish food, like British food, has been under the influence of the European mainstream (read: French) for hundreds of years. Would you take Mexican food away from America ? If you're looking to 'gussy haggis up' look to the French canon - at the level you're aiming for, maybe you can work out some twists on bistro & brasserie standards ?

That was a long one, Dave, but worth reading. Lots of stuff I didn't know: I'm happy with my 150-dollar standard-Japanese-"gas table", but I'll be more forgiving of the electric I grew up with back in the UK, in future. Hey, Maggie. A knife balances quite nicely with its tip between two of the coils of an electric cooker - and gets as red hot. And in those days, the translucent, soft plastic milk bottles, with the bottom cut off them, were just the thing as inhalation funnels. Stay away from rugby players.

ChrisTaylor's Beyond the Roasted Leg thread left me with a hankering for lamb. I picked up a 1.7kg piece of lamb shoulder (1150yen/kg) and was left pondering what to do. Mince and burgers ? Cube and Indian ? Middle Eastern ? Pot roast ? But what I really wanted was that browned, roast, melting-fat lamb, so I googled 'roast lamb shoulder' and cheeky chap Jamie Oliver came to the rescue. I pre-salted the lamb, tied it up into what seemed the best shape after 10 minutes of experimentation, and left it for 36 hours. After that I pretty much followed JO's MO, leaving out the garlic (didn't fancy it this time) and olive oil (what, oil the fat ?! Too much River Cottage Italianism there, methinks, Jamie-boy. I gave it 3.5 hours in the oven, and tested it - well done by the feel of an inserted fork; yet not in the falling-apart category yet. It's hard when a recipe is accompanied by a picture showing a bone-in roast, but the recipe mentions nothing about the bone - is the timing for bone-in ? Rolled ? In the natural, varied-thickness piece ? I put it back in for the additional 30 minutes, and removed the foil in deference to the level of browning and the level of combined fat-and-juices that had already reached the level of the roasting rack. Thirty minutes later: Served with colcannon aka stamppot, for no other reason than that I'd cabbage and spuds to hand, and the continuing bounty of spring chives to lend an enticing accent. Gumption failure stopped me short of gravy, so I served it with simple pan juices poured over: Roast lamb shoulder with the barest hint of rosemary; colcannon with salt, pepper, butter and chives. Mmm-mm.

A Ritter Sport and some iffy port - I like that, Mjx. You don't play the drums, do you ? Lunch. A couple of slices of no-knead wholewheat with the new, wonderful ww flour, with taramasalata made with prawn oil from the carcasses of these, and spring cabbage and bean soup based on surplus faggot broth: I'll get round to writing the faggots up, you'll see.

I'd say even heat distribution is something you should expect from good cookware. I remember reading in a reliable source that for the size range of cookware, a base of 2mm or more of copper, or 5mm or more (I think it was ?) of aluminium will ensure even heat distribution, poor welding or adhesion of layers aside. Where I find a flame tamer useful is when I need a very low heat, to simmer a bechamel sauce for instance. Even at its lowest setting, my smallest gas burner is just too fierce. So I use a flame-tamer to radiate some of the extra power away from the pot.

Why not ? You would need to bind a normal haggis mixture to get it to stay together - beaten egg ? Or just go the caul fat - crepinettes route and call them burgers anyway ?

Well, jackal10 beat me to it, but Scotch Pie - strictly a mutton delicacy, but shown nicely by a chap from Otago Polytechnic .And someone has to say it, so I will: haggis. Scottish fish 'n chip joints serve it for finger-eating in pudding form - a large sausage shape, battered (naturally !) and deep fried. You could do the same thing, or simply serve it as sausages or crepinettes, or, hell, even as sausage rolls. Brief cultural history of haggis. There are a number of haggis threads around here. There are of course any number of kofta preparations from North India and across the Middle East. Doner kebabs done properly, as by the (warning: tyneside accents), would be an excellent show piece.

Hi again. Yes, it's possible to cook sausage through without making a crust (or even browning it), of course you're right about that. And of course crusts on meat can be had both quickly with high heat and slowly with lower heat. In the sausage's case the wheatgerm definitely gives more crunch to the crust than browning alone. Oh on you go, let's have an equipment battle - and I would love to have a source for caul fat, believe me. I agree RRO's pork rind is a great idea. She's good at those. Andie, thanks for all those uses - now I really want to eat more of the stuff. How much do you pay for it ? Is it comparable to the dollar-an-ounce rate here ?

Another batch of no-knead wholewheat, the first with flour from a new source: Exactly 2/3 hydration (the flour is 13.5% protein). Mixed, shaped, allowed 3 hours at room temp, baked at 190C for 40 minutes, with a further 10 upside down, turned out of the tins. Good crust & texture, and a really excellent nutty flavour - a result. I might reduce the in-pan baking time a little next time (with the previous kind of flour, the bottom crust came good in only 5 minutes, so I didn't expect I'd need 10).

Both Suntory's and Nikka's whisky operations were established by a Mr. Taketsuru who spent time in Scotland learning the process and who truly loved his Scottish wife, "Rita frae Kirkintilloch".

Personally, I'm a big fan of red and blue markings, but R-L convention in this case has plenty of value. ETA: And Steven, I think it's pretty clear yours is a device that's been designed for horizontal deployment and shoe-horned in vertically.

Don't you call these "mixer taps" in the States ? How hard would it be to replace the tap altogether ? The one you have sounds, err, confused, to put it politely. I was taken aback once again this weekend over sink / tap design - I visited a restaurant where the bathroom sink was a flat, shallow, rectangular affair - most stylish but totally impractical. The tap barely reached over the back edge and despite the generous acreage of sink bottom, I was knocking my hands against both it and the sink back as I washed. I'm constantly struck, even in more mainstream deep, round sinks, by the number of stingy tap setups that hold you up against the wall. What is it with these things ? An authoritarian urge to put the needs of the sink over those of the people who use it ? I guess it's nice for the designer if he lives in a land of milk, honey & infinite leisure where everyone indulges in a filled and refilled sink every time. Me, I live in the real world. Am I missing something ? Give me a tap that reaches out far enough for me to wash under it in peace.

And the knife has to penetrate somehow...

That plate looks delicious, avaserfi. And Ann_T, chicken breast that brown has to have a story behind it...

Yes, favourite anything, just about, eh ? I really hope you get the chance some time, I'm sure you'd have a ball. Thanks for answering. I should go off and look for (Japanese / craftsman)ceramics threads on eG, there should be some.

Most plates, you stack 'em right ('interleaved') and you can run hot water through a pile of them, hands-free.

Just a thought, but 'roo (which I've eaten all of once, never cooked) begins to sound like big rabbit. There are plenty of ways with gamey meat - flavour elements of 'sanglier' (wild boar) recipes, though that's a fatty meat; things like game birds that take fruit or winey sauces. Then there's the rabbit preparations. I'm enjoying your blog, haresfur. Vicarious food travel again... yay ! Why is that your all-time favourite piece of pottery ? Please give us the insider's-eye-view.

Gotta warm the plates. Like you, jsmeeker, I'll put the oven on (to 110C) just for a plate / plates. If I ever forget, or I'm cooking a very quick dish, running it/them under a very hot tap is a quick fix. That's what I did for this morning's omelette. The first of the season's chives