Prawncrackers

Blether, your mackerel earlier gave me hankering for something fishy. So I had a nice juicy salty smokey tarry Craster kipper with toast and egg. This is one of my favourite breakfasts but the wife can't stand the smell of them!

I know, what is going on with that?! As long you and I are still posting Bruce it'll be okay. Here's a new dish, for me anyway, Prawns with Salted Duck Egg Yolks:

I've only ever steamed it whole with slices of lemon. It's been a couple of years since I've had it but I remember it's such a delicious flavour I don't think you need to do much to it. The really fat mullet have a yellow fat under the skin that leeches out a little during cooking. I think if you follow Peter's suggestion but add some sliced par-cooked potatoes under the fish, it will soak up all that juicy yellow oil and taste amazing. In fact, I'm going to be on the lookout for grey mullet myself.

This is what's really good about these videos, that he's slowed the action down so we see exactly what's happening. The point of view camera work makes for the perfect educational tool. I don't think he's trying to impress anyone with rapid knife skills here. For the home cook like me 10 mins to fillet a fish perfectly is 10 mins well spent. In a commercial setting I'm sure Itasan would be much faster like other sushi chefs I've watched in real life.

Not posted breakfast for ages as it's never anything too exciting. But this morning I finally dusted down the Takoyaki pan we bought in Dogayasuji last year and made Takoyaki. We were snapped back to Osaka in the instant the molten batter scolded the roofs of our mouths, fantastic:

For some reason Paulraphael has put a link to his own blog, i think he meant to link to Itasan on YouTube. Possibly the best thing on the internet!

It definitely rewards the gentle touch and takes a little practise. I prepared ten lobsters recently over New Year and Chinese New Year, so out of twenty claws I probably only managed to do half cleanly.

If you want to remove the hard tendons/cartilage from the inside of lobster claw cleanly, do not crack it first. Gently twist the moveable upper claw shell to loosen it and carefully pull it away from the main part of the claw. If you do it right the main tendon should pull away along with the little piece of shell, in fact you should see a second smaller tendon too. You should have a filigree of meat that was inside the upper point of the claw, now you can crack the main part of the shell and release the claw meat in one whole fleshy piece. If you crack the claw first it's more diffcult to pull the tendons out cleanly with this method. I've not seen any other way of removing the tendons without cutting the meat. Hope that makes sense.

Isn't this what the Recipe Gullet is for?

From the shop Percy, I've been keeping my eyes peeled and yesterday was the first day they've come in. I love my Indian mangoes but trust me I don't have my own farm and import them! They are very early this year, I've been keeping a record in this thread here. Last year was mid-April but apparently it's been a good winter so the crops are early this year. I like all the Indian mangoes i've ever tried, Alphonso, Kesar & Badami. They're all incredibly sweet, all pulp, no fibre but all have a subtly different perfume. For me there are no other mangoes and certainly no other fruit that can compare. Though a lot depends on the condition of the fruit when they get here. btw, those dozen were £9, which is unbelievably cheap compared to price you've quoted. It makes a nice change from the usual rip-off prices we pay in the UK

A vendor once told me that the wiring was to help keep the claypot together. But Paula Wolfert has a better explanation in Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking: it improves the heat distribution. Thanks djyee that is what I suspected. We had some friends around for tea yesterday, one of which was of the vegetarian persuasion. I have to admit that I've avoided cooking for her for as long as we've known her but yesterday i had to bite the bullet. So apart from the slow roasted shoulder of lamb for us meat-eaters I had to get creative with some veggie options. I decided that i would try to make for the first time a Spanish Tortilla: I made a lovely feta, pomegranate and bitter leaf salad too and a creamy goats cheese, caramelised onion, fig, walnut & honey tart. This was wonderful and even had us meaties drooling: For dessert my wife made vanilla and chocolate cupcakes. For second dessert I bought my first box of Indian mangoes this year, yay it's mango season again:

From experience 8 o'clock should be alright, I've never tried going as late as 9. I would say it's pushing it at that time. When I go at 7 they seem to be starting to hose everything down. The best days are Wednesday and Thursday for wetfish and poultry, you'll be okay on Friday too for lobsters. One of the better traders is WS Scott, give them a call beforehand (try 07875325177 if you can't reach their landline). You can buy your fish singly if you want but they will get grumpy (ok grumpier) if you ask them to clean and gut them too! Label Rouge chickens, medium size £5 = much cheapness. Do not ever freeze them as it ruins the texture, best chickens for Hainan Chicken rice I reckon.

My ears are burning adey! I think David means the Wholesale market not the Indoor market, where I agree some of the stuff can be a bit ropey. The Wholesale market is about 400m down the road from the Indoor market. I go there fairly regularly, about once a month to stock up on fish and other goodies. Be warned, it's a proper wholesale market so you have to get there early. I usually go around 7am and the best days for seafood are, infuriatingly, Wednesday & Thursday. For somewhere so far from the sea they have some very good fish though and it's definitely worth it. There are always lots of cheap live shellfish; lobsters, razors, scallops, crabs etc and a big selection of wet fish. Sometimes they have surprises, on separate occasions I've bought live mediterranean & Norwegian sea urchin and live abalone. The fish market is adjoining the poultry section, where you can find my favourite label rouge chicken (sold out by Thursday), whole lobes of foie gras, cheap gressingham ducks and game. There used to be a website with a map of the complex but it seems they've taken it down recently because the whole place is being moved out of the centre. If you're driving you will struggle to get past the guards unless you're in a traders type van. Don't worry you can just walk in so park up in the multistorey next door or on the street. Apparently it's the biggest market in the UK, so as you go in follow the road to the right and the fish & poultry section is in the big building on the left. After shopping for fish & poultry check out the veg section ( as you come in on the left), you will not believe how massive this space is. Good luck and try not to get mown down by the trolleys.

Whisper it quietly but I've seen the first box of Alphonso this year. Wow, first week in March is early indeed. Unfortunately all of the dozen or so in the box were badly bruised in some way so I didn't buy any. Though for 69p each I should have bought one at least. They were very green these mangoes so I suspect that not only they were picked very early but they were from manipulated trees. It's made me very excited though, apparently it's been a good winter and the main crop should be here by mid-March, yippee!

Thanks Kim, yes we still do gobsmacked over here as well as flabbergast. Though I think gobsmacked is the better adjective for food, one up from lipsmacking but not as good as your American term “makes you want to smack your momma”!! Blether, that’s a small Chinese Claypot aka sandy pot. I’ve seen them with and without the wiring around them. Your guess is as good as mine as to its function; it either a) holds it altogether or b) distributes the heat better. Thinking about it now it’s probably b), as the wiring is too loose really to hold anything together if it cracks open. Though I really can’t be sure.

Yes, that was a nice little trick. I think the purpose of that was not only to season but to protect the cut flesh of the prepared fish. A thin barrier of cold butter will keep it fresher in the fridge. I did that yesterday with some sea bass, it worked a treat. As for the mackerel pin-boning technique that is common in Japanese cooking as is lightly curing it before eating. Another excellent show. Tres Bon Raymond.

It's been a good one for dinners this week. Mid-week I cooked a pan-Asian meal that included a Vietnamese dish I'd never cooked before, Catfish in Caramel Fish Sauce - Ca Kho, we all thought it was brilliant dish and can't wait to try again. There was Tea-smoked duck, fish fragrant aubergines, choi sum (kept whole to baffle Chris), pickles and salted duck eggs too: Yesterday I fancied some seafood, so bought a crab and a wild sea bass. I had a load of lobster legs & shells in the freezer from the massive Chinese New Year meal the other week so made a creamy lobster bisque with them that also included the crab and sea bass trimmings. The crab meat I mixed with chorizo to make tortelloni and plonked those in the middle of the bisque. A really involved dish but so worth the effort: To follow I simply fried the filleted bass along with some of the milt that was in the cavity. Braised fennel and pea and some salsa verde to accompany: Yesterday I started to cook some pastrami too. I corned the beef using the recipe from Charcuterie but rather than smoking the meat I cheated and just baked it in the oven. The results were never the less incredible. First rested and cold: Then gently steamed and sliced we had it with sweetcorn and a potato salad:

Okay I've been very diligent these past couple of weeks and have been trying out a few curry recipes. Some have been disastrous, a mutton biryani turned out just so bad it was almost inedible - burnt tough meat, salty rice and too much screwpine water! But a couple have just been wonderful. My first eureka moment was an Ox Cheek Vindaloo using Camelia Panjabi's recipe in "50 Great Curries of India" and parathas: It was so good I had to call my mate over to try it and confirm, he was knocked out by it too. The second success was a spiced rack of lamb with saffron cashew gravy and pilau rice inspired by local restarant Lasan's recipe here. The sauce was simply sublime: Very much looking forward to cooking more curries this year.

It was superb and what all TV food show should be like. Maybe someone has taken notice of all that moaning on the Beeb messageboards! Take an amiable and charismatic master chef. Film him in his restaurant kitchen cooking firstly a simple dish and gradually finishing with a signature dish. What's not to like? It was edited well, no frantic cut-aways, there was none of that dodgy dramatic camera work that and i can't remember the voice-over annoying me either. Well done beeb.

That's usually with duck's feet in the UK, the wrapping is bean-curd skin and the veg is taro. It's an unusual dim-sum item that one, I like all of the components but that dim-sum is not greater than the sum of its parts!

Here are a couple of recent brekkies that I've saved for the egg-porn thread. First up is Eggs Benedict, with home-cured back bacon and shop-bought soda farls. Sorry no egg-porn money shot this time: Today we had gravadlax and boiled spuds. We were going to have these small salmon tranches for dinner on Wednesday but at the last minute we opted for a take-out. I did a quick grav pickle instead with the salmon, wasn't sure how well such small pieces would turn out but in the end they were brilliant. Sorry (again) no egg at all in this one:

Splendid, I will be loading up on Caramel Fleur de Sel macs very soon!

Any chance you have a recipe for this please? :-) looks wonderful! Of course, I've just put this recipe into the recipegullet.

Dong Po pork is one of my favourite things to eat. There are a couple of preliminary steps to ensure that the skin in the finished dish it is soft and melting. First blanch the pork in some boiling water for ten minutes to remove some of the impurities and set the flesh a little. Remove and pat dry before frying the skin in a wok or skillet on a moderate heat till the skin is evenly brown all over, you can if it’s more convenient deep-fry the whole piece instead. If this isn’t done then the skin will be too chewy, it should be very soft and delicate. If you find that your piece is curling up, either cut into smaller pieces or make deep slashes into the flesh side. It is better for presentation purposes that the pork is as flat as possible. Now the pork is ready to be braised. Choose a suitable sized pot that is just big enough to hold the pork and line the bottom with spring onion and slices of ginger. Place your pork on this bed of aromatics then add the braising liquor. For the size of pork you see in the photo (approx 1lb), I use 100ml of Shaosing wine, 75ml each of light and dark Soy Sauce, 100g of Yellow Rock Sugar, one whole star anise and just enough water to barely cover the meat (do not dilute the mixture too much). Simmer gently, covered, for three to four hours. Turn occasionally, but be careful near the end as the meat will be very soft. To serve, let it cool a little before slicing, then pour the strained braising liquid over the meat. The meat should be sliced almost but not quite all the way through. When you dig in with your chopsticks to take a piece then the meat should be so soft that the chunks should pull away easily. Of course as with any braised dish it will taste better the next day. You can slice it much more easily when it’s completely cool and you can skim the fat off too. Simply steam the pork on the serving plate and finish with some of the liquor warmed through.

I'm mightily impressed with robirdstx's bread in the dutch oven. It looks fantastic, very well done indeed. Picked up some game birds the at the market other week. I've been buying wood pigeons recently but fancied something different this time. First off is simple roast partridge, orange toffee cumin carrots, roast pink fir spuds and cavalo nero with some of the bacon used to roast the bird. The sauce was just a pan reduction of marsala and chicken stock. The second bird was wild duck. I fried the breast with a some warm spices; cinnamon, cumin & coriander and did a little confit of the legs with the some spicing too. This was served with curried pumpkin (from my mum's garden) and basmati rice. The combination of the duck and pumpkin was sensational and something i'm itching to do again: Sea Bass with chorizo laden rice: Dong Po Pork, doesn't look like much but tastes incredible. One of my favourite things to eat: Blueberry Cheesecake