Prawncrackers

I'm not a big coffee drinker but i will have a couple of small cups in the morning from the free vending machines. To tie me over till lunch I have a cereal bar and I drink plenty of water during the day. It's a conscious decision on my behalf to practise a little abstinence at work, it would just be too easy to snack all day otherwise. I'll try to take photos of the wholesale market tomorrow morning but be warned it's a very unlovely concrete carbuncle. Hopefully the produce will make up for it. Thanks Chris, the Charcuterie recipes are from Ruhlman & Polcyn of course. More with them later.

On the 15-20 minute drive home from work I pass by 2 Sainbury's, a Tesco and a Waitrose. If I continue to drive past my house for 5 mins then there's whole parade of Asian grocers. So i'm never stuck for groceries, today I popped into Waitrose because i wanted to pick up some cheese for a nice sloppy pizza. I have meat in the form of chorizo and salami that I made a couple of weeks ago (there's that pork theme again!): I'm not from Naples, never been either, in fact i'm not Italian so i'm not in anyway precious about pizza making. At the moment, I like a thinnish base and today I used only 200g of flour to make the dough which I try to roll out as thin as possible. But because of some kind of madness I try to put on as much topping as possible, it's like a game of pizza jenga! I've absolutely convinced myself that I don't like mozarella on pizza and over the years developed the rather unorthodox combination of Tallegio, smoked cheddar and parmesan! Waitrose is the only supermarket I know that sells Tallegio and I like to see the deli-counter assistant struggle to get the thin slices that i like for pizza topping. I like the Tallegio thin also because that stuff is so expensive. A little bit of smoked cheddar for me gives a nice base and i usually add that first onto the passatta with some oregano. Then cover as thickly as possible with sausage, anchovy next, then tallegio and parmesan. Actually looking at the photos now, I've only just realised that I forgot the olives and red onion! Anyway I build the pizza on a wooden peel dusted with semolina and slip onto a baking stone that's been heated in the oven at around 230C. I pulled this pizza out after about 13 minutes, the topping won today and some of the cheese had spilled over. Before slicing I dress it with some rocket. It was a good one today, a little mis-shapened but the base was cooked well. If anything I think i could have got away with a little more topping...

Thanks Chris for posting those links. Jenni, my camera set-up is very simple, just an Olympus DSLR (model E520) and when it's needed a flash pointed upwards so that the light is bounced off the ceiling. I don't try to compose my shots too much, just get it on the plate in a presentable fashion, take a couple of snaps and eat before it gets cold! In the early days of my photo-food-OCD folk would look at me like I'm mad but after a couple of years they've come to accept it.

Mmm, day 2 and I've only cooked one dish so far. Sorry for the slow pace folks, I mentioned earlier that I don't have breakfast on a workday and as there's a free canteen for lunch I don't need to prepare a lunchbox either. At work there's always a choice of three hot mains - today it's Chilli Con Carne, Salmon & Dill Fishcake or Creamed Mushroom & Peppercorn Tortellini. Plus there are Deli, Sandwich, Salad, Fruit and Pudding counters. You are limited to a certain combination of counters though, you can't just pile it all on like an all you can eat buffet. Though trust me some people do try. I'm really rather ambivalent about the food in the staff restaurant, but for the price I can't really complain. The quality is what you would expect from mass-catering operating at cost. What I do find puzzling sometimes is the insistence of some people that if it's free then you have to eat there, it's like the choice has been taken away from them. Maybe once or twice a week I would pop out for lunch and buy a freshly prepared sandwich from the next door farm shop (freshly baked bread is the bedrock of a good sandwich) but the notion that I would spend a few pounds to buy food just seems ridiculous to some! Yet I find it ridiculous that they wouldn't even entertain the idea of spending some money to buy food that you enjoy! I suppose that is the difference between eating to live and living to eat. Anyway, I stayed in the building today and had a salad, sausage roll, mini-samosa and a slice of watermelon. I tend not to have a big lunch as it spoils my appetite for dinner where all the good food is at! The fridge hasn't magically replenished itself overnight, it's funny how they don't usually do that. But I remember that I do have some small cartons of passatta in a cupboard somewhere and there are those homemade salamis. I think I feel a pizza coming on… Blether, yes that Chilli oil is the same stuff I put on my rice. It's good on roasted meat and fried stuff but really you can put it on anything you like. It's definitely more of a condiment rather than a cooking ingredient. Looks like you've had a couple of spoonfuls already, did you like?

They were at L'Enclume tonight, and I'm going for the first time next week so I watched with great anticipation. I corpsed, i belly laughed for a solid ten minutes whilst the pair of them were doing the impressions. This is a very surprising unique fusion of fine-dining and comedic genius.

Thanks Nickloman, I've never been to the Harborne market so I may take you up on your offer. If you are definitely going I will PM you later in the week. As for Berkswell cheese, you know i've never tried it? Berkswell is where my butcher is so I've been to the village plenty of times. I'll keep my eyes peeled for the local cheese next time i'm there. Dejah, yes mix up the egg and rice thoroughly just before you're ready to fry. You don't want the rice sitting around getting soggy. Please try this method and tell me if it works for you. I never cook it any other way now. Peas are just so convenient, tipped straight in from the freezer, it's invariably part of my fried rice ritual. I don't know if it's a European thing but I always seem to recall peas being in there.

Folks, i cooked some fried rice tonight on the first day of my eG Foodblog. Little did I know you were discussing here! I'd like to echo that good fried rice needs nothing wet other than oil, eggs and soy. Though I'm partial to a little fresh garlic and ginger with mine. Oh and am I the only one who mixes the raw eggs with the cooked rice first?

Monday my fridge is usually desolate, a wasteland, as Tyler Durden would say - a fridge of condiments but no food. Bottles of hot sauce, ketchup, mayo, olives, pickles, capers, anchovy, all the usual suspects. Of the 'fresh' ingredients there are a few bits of scallion, a couple of eggs and of course garlic, ginger and chillies always. There's a compartment of preserved stuff too - cured suasages, pancetta, dried shrimp. So what to cook tonight? Luckily I have provisions in the freezer for such occasions and I took out some char siu last night that I made a couple of weeks ago. This was from half a tamworth pig that I butchered not long ago. My freezer is good for pork at the moment so you might probably see a fair bit of pig on the menu this week. Anyway, tonight i'm going use up the last bits of fresh stuff in the fridge and make char siu egg fried rice. It felt a little strange photoing my food prep as it just seems so mundane but for one week only I'll do my best to document. As most of you know I'm all about getting the money shot and eating before the stuff gets cold! I'm pretty sure I'm the only person i know who makes egg fried rice by mixing the egg with the cooked rice first. Not sure where I got this idea from but I've been doing it for donkeys, every grain is coated and cooks evenly. On the highest heat possible I fry a little garlic, ginger and scallion first then add the char siu to heat through a little. Everything is pushed to the side and the rice mixture is plopped into the centre of the wok. The char siu is shifted to the top of the rice and it's all flattened out so just the rice is in contact with the wok. When the bottom has set a little it's time to mix everything through and keep tossing and stirring till it's done. A good glug of light soy is added along the way, and some peas and sweetcorn from the freezer. That's it, call me Cantonese but I like this very basic egg-fried rice! No need add sesame oil, oyster sauce or chilli sauce whilst you're cooking. Though I do like a dollop of chilli oil to eat with it. The wok handled it perfectly, no sticking at all - this could be the best wok ever Erin. Btw, for all you knifenuts out there tonight's knife is the 210mm Takeda Gyuto

Chris, the best day to go to the Birmingham Wholesale fish and poultry market is on a Wednesday. So i'm planning an early morning trip to snaffle up some seafood and cook a Cantonese meal for my friends that night. The weather is atrocious at the moment so I hope the fish can get to Brum on Wednesday. It's actually a funny week for markets, the usual farmers market in town are on the first and fourth weekends so not this week. Which is a shame because I'd have loved to cooked up some game birds as November is good for wild duck, partridge, pheasant and pigeon. But then there is so little time and so much to cook. Peter, yes, all curry connoisseurs know that Birmingham is the curry capital of the Western hemisphere and the Balti was invented here. No one cooks Balti at home so if you really want to see a one I may be tempted to take a break from cooking and take visit to the legendary Balti triangle. As for local cheeses i can't think of any expect for Ozzy Osbourne... I agree with you Erin, the perfect wok is the one I have now! I deep fry in a wok and I was always terrified that I would knock the long handle of my old wok, so i knew that the new one must have the small metal loop handles. So far, i've deep-fried tokatsu, cooked dry fried beef ho fun in it and stir-fried some greens. It's handled those pretty well but I'm still getting used to it. Tonight will see it's toughest challenge yet - egg fried rice.

Ah the panda wok is only a couple of weeks old, that’s why it’s not grungy at all. I’ve had one wok since I went away to University, a smallish 11” one that is just perfect when I’m cooking for just the two of us. On occasion for bigger meals I’ve borrowed my mothers wok so I’ve been on the lookout for one just like hers for a couple of years now. Hers is a 14” pan with two small metal loop handles, the classic basic wok shape. Can you believe that I’ve scoured the country but could not find one? It was only when she revealed she bought hers from an Indian shop that I realised hers was a karai, not a wok at all! Looking at it again, it is slightly fatter, the sides become more vertical than the classic sloping Chinese wok shape. But still no luck I couldn’t find it in any of the many Indian/Pakistani shops around here either. No, I found my perfect wok a couple of weeks ago in Manhattan! Williams-Sonoma in the Time-Warner centre of all places, not even in Chinatown, among the $600 Mauviel copper pans was this $20 wok. Probably the cheapest pound for pound item in the whole shop, I didn’t hesitate and snapped it up. Yes, I went shopping in New York on holiday and I brought home a wok. Such are the priorities of your average egulleter. As for seasoning it, I've never done anything special. Give it a scrub, bang it on the heat to dry till it turns blue and give a wipe with oil while it's still hot.

Was it a bit too obvious? I mean a panda in a wok could practically have been anyone really! But it is me and it's now my turn to contribute to the much loved eG Foodblogs. I was asked a couple of years ago by Pam R to do one but could never find the time because of work and study commitments. If anyone knows about the UK Actuarial exams then you will know how involved they are, if not, trust me they are - very much. Well, i'm still studying for my qualification but Pam's timing has been good and having just sat a couple of exams I feel I can make a good stab at food blogging this week. Thanks also to Grace, Foodmuse, for contributing last week. Hope I haven't overlapped too much, it is Monday here in the UK. A little about me first, I was born and bred in Brum (that's what we Brummies call our hometown) to Hong Kong Chinese immigrants in the 70s. I'm in my mid-30s now as is my wife who shares a similar upbringing to me. We both love to eat but it's me in particular that loves to cook too. Seeing my mum cook fresh food everyday when I was growing has given me a lifelong appreciation of home-cooking. So this week, I hope to pay some of that forward and do week of Cooking with Panda! If you've ever read my posts on Cooking forum then you'll know that will pretty much try my hand at cooking anything and of course take a photo of it before it's devoured. Please have a look at the Food Gallery cum diary by clicking on my tagline sometime for the kind of stuff I like to cook and eat. This week should be no different, I'll cook some favourites and maybe try out some with new ideas. I think it's so much more personal and of course unique to do a cooking week so I'll try to fit as much as I can in and resist the temptation to visit the many fine restaurants we have in the city (maybe next time!) I have only a loose plan for the week, today and tomorrow I'm in work so the evening meals will be very simple. Wednesday and Thursday I've taken off so we'll see what's good at the market and build some meals around that. Friends have been invited round so these two days will see me stretch my culinary muscles a little. Friday, back in work so I may have a break that evening. Saturday and Sunday, who knows? I'm open to suggestions... It's 8am now and so I have to dash to work. I never have breakfast before going out, so it's going to be a very low key start to my food week. So please in the meantime ask me all the food related questions you have of me and we'll get the ball rolling. Looking forward to this week and to all your responses.

Duck looks fantastic David, I'm a big advocate of the combination slow oven bake then crisp under the grill/broiler method too. Works wonderful well with pork, never fails too get crispy crackling skin that way. In fact that's surely going to be on the menu soon... Blether, fish and chips is total comfort food for me too but i'm more of a mushy peas kind of guy. What's the chippy scene like in Tokyo, can you get a proper fish supper over there? I don't think i ever came across one the times I've visited.

Live plants Peter, I like the idea of you chewing the cud on all fours! Me, I prefer to have them humanely ripped from the earth or torn from branches first. I sleep better knowing that they've been dispatched in the proper way!

This is the very reason this forum exists for me. I get inspiration all the time from it, so far it's worked and thankfully I've never been in any kind of long term food rut. Inspiration drives motivation and being a greedy bugger helps too, because I just want to eat good food at every meal. If you're dining-out options are limited then the only guarantee is to cook it yourself. I think that is what it comes down to for me, I want to eat good stuff so either I can spend £££s on good restaurant food or spend £s on the raw ingredients and do it myself. For me there's definitely more pleasure in the latter! Fat Guy's idea of keeping a list is exactly what I've been doing for the past few years but in photo form (have a click on my tagline if you've never checked it out before). If I need inspiration I can always have a flick through and think wow that Osso Bucco dish was nice or it's time to make Chicken Rice again. I'm only surprised that not more people do it! As for inspiration for new ideas, I follow the others here in thinking there's quite a big world of food out there. There are enough great dishes out there that I could cook a different one every day for the rest of my life, inspiration enough. I crave variety, my idea of food hell would be to eat the same thing day after day, even if it's a favourite.

The first is specifically Chinese cured belly pork (bacon) the second refers to all types of Chinese preserved meats like bacon, sausage, duck etc.

Hairy crabs are so popular I can understand them being sold in vending machines. Live, of course, no sane Chinese would want buy a dead crab! But eating live as a commuter snack? I think the headline writer has made the supposition there, the story doesn't really support it. I bet this one will run for a little longer

Wow, dcarch that maggoty-skull food sculpture is a truly skilful and visually delightful piece. It's also way beyond dinner!, maybe you should start a separate thread for your more artful creations so that we can enjoy them in a more suitable context? That way you can really let loose your creative urges without the incongruity of dinner. Love your work, I've just come back from a holiday in NY where we visited MoMA, I honestly think your pieces would look great on some of those surreal walls! I've not done much cooking recently, been on holiday and feeling a little ropey when I got back. So here's a couple of dinners that I didn't get the chance to post before we went away. A variation on a theme: roasted game birds, veg, sauce and something crispy. First up was Teal, Toffee Cumin Carrots, Kale and parsnip crisps. Second was Pigeon, grilled red chicory, those same carrots, Cavalo nero and crispy curried shallot rings. The sauce on both was lightly spiced honeyed marsala reduction. I think of the two birds the teal had a much finer flavour but the accompaniments in the second, especially the shallot rings, were better. Next time I know which combination to start with!

You know I've never thought about whether my pasta was gritty because of semolina. So I made some tonight and I can confirm that it is silky smooth. I used 120g 00 flour, 80g finely ground Indian semolina, a pinch of salt, two egg yolks and enough water to bring the dough together. Kneaded briefly, then rested the dough for half an hour in the fridge. I used a pasta machine to roll out the dough in two batches folding it over several times to get it really smooth and finished to thickness 7 on the machine. I had it with a creamy pea, pancetta, pecorino sauce and it was pretty good, very smooth with some body to it. Maybe it's the type of semolina you're using but I would find gritty pasta off-putting too.

When I want to make fresh pasta with a little more bite I substitute 40% of the 00 flour with durum wheat semolina. I would use proper Italian stuff but it almost impossible to buy in domestic quantities here in the UK so I use the fine ground semolina used in Indian desserts. It's much cheaper and gives the desired results.

Whoops i meant 5000Yen! Yeah I know for a pair of wooden chopsticks, like I said they're really nice...

Gotta have pair of cheapo wooden ones for cooking any kind of meal, they're as versatile as long heat proof fingers in that respect! I also have long pair of metal Japanese "tempura" style ones which are great for deep frying and a shorter pair of moribashi that I rarely use. For eating, I'm not so fussy. I grew up using the long Chinese ones which are best for family style meal and shovelling rice into ya gob. The length helps give better reach to grab that last piece of chicken thigh on the other side of the table before my brother sees it. Though I love the balance and feel of the shorter Japanese ones, particularly the double ended ones you use for Kaiseki-style meals. But I think my favourite is a 500 Yen set of pointed Pentagonal ebony ones i got in a Hashi shop off Omotesando Dori in Tokyo last year. They're feel absolutely fantastic, the shape of them rest perfectly in my fingers. Absolutely useless for soupy noodles though!

Sure menuinprogress and jmolinari, it's a very a simple recipe. I have to caveat first that I am in no way an expert in Vietnamese food but I had this dish about a year ago in a restaurant and I've been trying to perfect it ever since. It's all about the sauce, you can make a big batch of this and it will keep indefinitely. The following amounts will make enough for two meals - about two of the small claypot that you see in my photo. For the sauce: start to caramelise 300g (yes that much) of plain white sugar in a tablespoon of veggie oil over a low heat. This is the most important step, keep stirring the caramel with a wooden spoon until it is the right colour. This takes a little practise, too light and it has no depth of flavour, too dark and it becomes bitter and acrid. One day i will use a thermometer to measure the exact point but for now the colour you're looking for is a deep mahogany. If you've ever made profiteroles dipped in caramel then it's two tones past that! Cool the pan down in some water to stop the cooking and add 140ml fish sauce (I use squid brand) mixed with 250 ml water - be careful it will spit. Keep stirring till all the caramel has dissolved completely, you may need to put it back on the heat. That's the sauce made. I fry off some garlic and spring onion before adding the sauce and your desired fish. Catfish is perfect because it has that fattiness which gives the sauce body. I like to simmer it uncovered for 45 mins. Half way through add a couple of slit bird's eye chillies and right at the end you must add a an absurd amount of freshly ground back pepper - half a teaspoon, it makes all the difference. Lastly garnish with plenty of coriander.

Been doing some clearing-out-the-freezer type cooking, I had some odd stuff in there that needed consuming. In particular there were some baby octopus and frog legs that I'd bought earlier in year, for what reason I can't remember! Maybe it was for hotpot? There was small chunk of catfish in the freezer too so I made my favourite new dish of the year, Catfish in caramel fish sauce and padded it out with the octopus. You know it went really well, the octopus absorbed the delicious flavour of the sauce and was cooked tender at exactly time as the catfish (about 45 mins): I also had a glut of chilli peppers so made a rather extreme version of salt & pepper frog legs (with cashews too). This one needed the back door open whilst cooking but boy did it taste good: Rummaging through the cupboard I found a packet of Zatar that I'd brought back from Istanbul in May. It still smelled good so I tried to recreate the wonderful grilled lamb dishes that we had there. Just so happened that there were some Lamb chops in the freezer too, so bingo, simply chargrilled with Aubergine and Pepper, served with a pilaf. It hit the spot for us, the smell of the Zatar blend and the sizzling lamb fat took us straight back to Istanbul:

No the Hadley is very compact, you can just about fit an A4 file in it. Here's a better picture, very discrete and very un-camera bag looking. Not cheap but they are fantastically well made. Love the look of those ladies bags Rona, if I was one then I would lust after them too!

I know exactly where you're coming from that's why I got a Billingham Hadley Pro in black. Not only is it a great camera bag but it's quite a stylish one too and great around town. They're made down the road from me, but I have no affiliation to them.