Prawncrackers

A couple of very simple meals in the past week followed by something spicy tonight. First is fried pork chop with Tuscan herbs (sage, fennel, thyme, rosemary, garlic), green beans and a celeriac remoulade: Ostrich burger with triple cooked chips. First time I've tried the triple cooking method. I used King Edward potatoes but they were a tad on the floury side so they broke up a lot on the first boiling. Though the bits fried up very crispy indeed, plus I used duck fat so they were extra tasty: Tonight the wife was out so I invited my mates around for an extra hot and spicy pan-Asian meal. Plus it was an opportunity clear some room in the freezer, hence the lack of veggies! Twice cooked pork, Gung Pad Krapow (thai prawns, chilli & holy basil), crispy salt & pepper lamb ribs (piled high with green chilli & garlic), Ox Cheek Rendang and various fresh chilli dips & oils. I knew my mates were chilli fiends, so we were all very happy with this meal, it definitely hit the spot for us! Some of you may know that rendang is one of my favourite dishes. I only learned to cook it a couple of years ago and i've tried many different cuts of meat, lamb shoulder (good), mutton shoulder (really good), blade of beef, brisket, shin et al but they all pale when compared to rendang made with Ox Cheek. It has that perfect quality of being extremely meaty with incredible beefy flavour, yet when you pick up a seemingly solid lump of meat and put it in your mouth it literally melts filling your mouth with beefy rendang. No chewing required, it was easily the best I'd ever eaten. Oh and I also prepared a Mango Cheesecake too. The cheesecake was delicious but alas the frozen mango just didn't have any mango flavour. Will have to wait till April when the Indian mangoes come back into season before trying this again:

Thanks for the advice folks, The Fundamentals Techniques book (the first one mentioned in this thread) has arrived today and my wife is very enamoured with it. I've had a flick through and it very definitely looks the business. Can't wait to sample the goods soon. Will let you know how we actually get on with the recipes.

The first one sounds like a powerboat accident on a plate! NT Crocodile, Northern Territories? I like the touch of provenance in that description but is it the saltwater or freshwater croc? Big flavour difference I hear You have such a bountiful supply of tropical seafood in Australia but it seems that this chef has either become very blasé about the ingredients or has just lost respect for them completely. The other two sound on the acceptable side of eclectic, just.

Sure, although it's one of those dishes you need to start two days before eating it but actually takes very little effort. I chose a skinless piece of belly draft that i'd butchered myself and would fit snugly into the pan i was using. I sprinkled with salt and white pepper, I didn't cover it with salt just seasoned it heavily and left it for 24 hours in the fridge. The next day the cure was wiped off and the meat was poached in duck fat for 3.5 hrs at 140C. Now my duck fat is already flavoured with garlic, lemon zest, thyme & bay so it you are using fresh duck or goose fat then add those aromatics too. Make sure your meat is fully submerged in the fat when cooking, you may need to weight it down with a plate. When it is cooked gently lift it out of the fat and place it flat on a large plate. Press it down with a weighted board and when it's cool put it in the fridge to set. The next day or after a few hrs when the meat has completely set-up you can cut into portions. Dust those portions with a little flour and fry them up till they are crispy on all sides. I cut them into quite big portions but next time i'll do them smaller so there is more surface area to crisp up. Best thing is the trimmings from when portioning it made a great pasta dish. I diced them up, fried them with an anchovy, lots of evoo, garlic, shredded cavalo nero and then added orecchiette to it. Perfect leftovers dish.

There are a number of different versions of Chinese air dried ham. The one i've encountered is Gam Waa For toei (金華火腿), i think "Gam Waa" in pinyin is "Jinhua" where this ham is from. There is also the famous ham from Yunnan but i've never tried that one. There are probably more in China, after all the Chinese were the first to domesticate the pig. It might make an interesting and heated debate between Chinese and Europeans as to who made the first air-dried ham. Heck even the Welsh have a claim, it's like everyone knows that the original recipe for Parma ham was taken by the Romans from Carmarthen ham in Wales Anyway, yes a chunk of ham gives a fantastic flavour boost to Chinese chicken stock.

Thanks for the recipe link apshelbourne, those two hermanos love to eat don't they, i check their blog on occasion but have never seen them cook anything before! I've made plenty of rendang in the past couple of years as it's a big favourite. My recipe has a different spicing and finish to theirs but the technique is similar, I've got it just the way i like it . I'm excited about using Ox cheek for rendang, it should be the perfect cut for it.

A lot of Cantonese home cooks will poach a chicken with ginger, scallions and garlic as part of a family meal. Then of course we use the poaching liquor as stock for other dishes. If i'm making stock from scratch for a specific dish then i would just use chicken wings instead of a whole chicken. Lately i have been saving the end pieces of air-dried ham and ham bones to add to the stock too in imitation of Shanton broth. I even bought a bag of Iberico ham bones for this very purpose.

Well I started cooking the two largest pieces of Ox cheek last night. All the recipes i'd Googled were just variations on the bourguinon theme so that's what i did. I wasn't sure whether they would fall apart so i tied them up just in case then browned them off in a pan then transferred them to a casserole. In the same pan i softened some mirepoix with garlic and deglazed the whole lot with half a bottle of shiraz (it was what i had to hand). After tipping all that into the casserole i topped up the braising liqour with some liquid beef stock and added some tomato puree, bay, thyme and a star anise (if i had an orange i'd have added a strip of zest too). I braised it last night for 4 hrs at around 135-140C and let it sit overnight. Tonight i was confident that it wouldn't fall apart so i removed the string and strained the gravy. I reduced the gravy before adding the meat back to reheat gently for serving. The result was spectacularly tasty, the last time my wife and I had this was at Purnells a few weeks ago, she declared that it was as good. The meat held its shape until the very moment you sunk a fork into it when it just collapses into a soft pile of gelatinous beefiness - magic darts! I'm well chuffed but to be honest i think it's a very forgiving cut of meat to cook. In tribute to Purnells i made some more toffee cumin carrots to go with it as well as creamy celeriac mash and cabbage. The best thing is I've still got four portions of it left in the freezer. I think an Ox Cheek Rendang is in order soon.

My favourite is Sichuan Fish-Fragrant Aubergine. Peel one large aubergine then cut into chunky batons. Deep fry them till golden, carefully drain them from the oil. Make the sauce; fry garlic, ginger and scallion white till soft then add a dollop of chilli bean paste (one or two tablespoons to taste). Add a splash of shaosing wine, soy, sugar and Chinese black vinegar. Loosen with water or stock if required to cook out the ingredients. The sauce should be thick and glossy from the sugar. Add the aubergines back in and coat with the sauce gently. Finish with chiili oil and green onion tops. The balance of flavours should be hot, sweet and sour and should look something like this:

Thank you for the compliment SauceRobert. I've never cooked for a living and you're right, if I did I probably wouldn't have the time nor the inclination to cook the last couple of dishes at home. I just like eating, a lot, trying new things and pottering around the kitchen in my spare time.

I'm leaning towards getting The Fundamental Techniques as it's such a good price on Amazon UK at the moment (£25 for 500+ pages) and seems set at the right level. The Bo Friberg book looks great too. I think the Pierre Hermé ones are more for pastry porn purposes at the moment but what's confusing is the Paris Patisseries book on Amazon France has an extra author noted - Julia Hung. But the English version on Amazon UK doesn't, any clue if they are different? Same number of pages though which suggests that taking into account translation, they should have the same content.

Parsnip crisps are dead easy, just deep fry them in oil for a couple of minutes. They come up crispy much better than potatoes in the same time. The long thin ones were done with a veg peeler and the round ones were just cut with a knife. Prepare much more than you think you will need because they shrink a lot and they are very moreish.

The weather has definitely turned this week in the UK; cold, wet & stormy. It's the kind of weather that makes you stay in the kitchen and cook long slow dishes with lots of veg prep and stock reductions. First of the wintry dishes this week was a pork belly confit. I've never cooked pork belly like this before and I don't know why it's taken me so long. It's fantastic - crispy, succulent and salty all at the same time. I made some pork stock and braised some fennel to go with the belly, it was the perfect combination. For an extra veggie hit I grilled some red endive, sauteed some cavalo nero and finished the plate with some crispy parsnips and splodges of salsa verde to cut through the fat a little: Today has been a lazy Saturday, perfect for making a stock reduction to coat some roasted pigeon. Roasted some pink fir apple potatoes to crispiness too and inspired by local chef Glyn Purnell i made some orange glazed toffee cumin carrots. Still had a bit of cavalo nero from earlier in the week so rested the pigeon on that, oh and those parsnip crisps again (a big one goes a long way!):

Hi folks, i was looking to get my wife a couple of pastry books for her birthday and have my eye on the following pair: The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts and Paris Patisseries: History, Shops, Recipes (English not out till Feb 2010 but the French very recently published) Does anyone have these books and what do you think of them? She says she's a beginner and she's been getting into baking cupcakes and cookies recently but is looking to take it to the next level. Of course I would benefit greatly too from her growing interest and am very eager to be her official taster. Any other French patisserie cookbooks suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Are you guys flipping psychic or something? I just picked up about 4lbs of finest Hereford Ox cheeks this morning from my local farmer's market. I did have to ask for them in advance a month ago but they were happy to sell them. They are out there David, in fact the farmer this morning had a load left. PM me if you want their number, they are in coincidently in Hereford.

Great dinners everyone, not posted for a while as i've not been doing much cooking recently. Though I have picked it back up last week. Firstly was braised duck legs in orange juice, seasoned with cinnamon, star anise, ginger, garlic, fish sauce and chilli. There was some salted duck eggs and pak choy too. Simple and tasty to go with lots of steamed jasmine rice: Then inspired by my Tonkatsu adventures through Japan, and to show off my grills, a Tonkatsu from a Saddleback pig. Very tender and juicy, definitely up to Japanese standards: Yesterday , i prepared my first Chinese hotpot. I'd been hankering for some for ages and when i saw the induction plate on sale i snapped it up immediately. I made a luscious chicken wing stock with an Iberico ham bone thrown in for good measure. The hot side was Sichuan style made with lots of chilli bean paste, those round dry Sichuan chillis, a couple of dried birds eye chilli for extra kick, a tablespoon of Sichuan pepper, black beans, shaosing wine and a knob of ginger. It was a big hit and I can't wait to do it again:

I live around the corner to the Lasan Eatery in Hall Green and can vouch for it too. As my local Indian it takes some beating.

Those chickens look like the ones you get in Hong Kong too. The flesh is incredibly dense and moist, and the skin is deliciously thick. I think the prime factor involved are the chickens themselves not the cooking method. I cook a lot of Hainan chicken rice, the local UK and French chucks that i use are very tasty but very different to those Asian ones. The dunking in ice cold water method doesn't set the gelatine in the birds that i use. Anyway I've seen a HK foodie TV show recently where they went to Taiwan and had salt-baked chicken. Maybe that's what you had?

If only I had seen this earlier. Just caught the train back Euston and had an hour and a half to kill waiting for it. Ended up in Nandos! Temari sushi looks so cute. Fresh back from Japan this week too so would have been in a great position to assess the quality.

Osaka, wow, Dotonbori, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such a density of food outlets. The only shame was that Sammy’s Ebisu Plaza was closed for the duration of our visit. That would have added another 50 or so units to the mass. We were impressed and grateful for the covered walkways along Shinsaibashi and Namba areas as it peed down the first night we were there. The first refuge we found was in Kani Douraku and had a feast of crab. Very touristy place, it seemed full of Japanese at first but it then everyone was speaking either Cantonese or English with a Malaysian accent! But that’s not to detract from the crab which was fantastic, my particular favourite was the crab back grilled over the brazier and the sashimi. Never having had crab sashimi before it was quite a revelation, slippery & sweet. We didn’t go for the more expensive Samurai looking snow crabs but the more common spindly legged ones, what is this crab known as? The lighting was really good in here so some really nice pictures to share (or did I bring the spooky light with me Blether?). I might not be let back into Osaka for saying this but after the magnificent Mentaiko Takoyaki we had in Fukuoka, the Osakan offerings were poor in comparison. In the morning, we sampled them from two different vendors on the street leading up to Dogayasuji but they were squishy and bland. In one of the larger Aladdins caves in Dogayasuji we bought loads of baking equipment and of course my Tako pan (still looking for good recipes please). Though I did manage to resist buying another trad Japanese knife even after I’d semi convinced myself I needed the Honesuke style to joint my chickens! My only regret was I didn’t splurge on tableware here thinking I would wait till Tokyo. The variety, quality and price of plates and bowls along this street made the ones I would see in Tokyo not worth buying. We spent too much time in Namba Parks and ate some average tempura on the 7th Floor there in the day. On the last night my wife chickened out of the full Fugu meal but did order a couple a pieces of fugu nigiri along with our wonderful sushi sets in one of the places along Dotonbori again. The fugu was pleasant enough, a little bland and unexpectedly chewy. Not sure if it’s really convinced me to have the full experience though. We headed of to Tokyo the next morning with a carrier bag full of snacks for the Shinkansen. I simply love those sausage in the buns you have over there. Especially in Osaka where they come on a stick too!

I really enjoyed the meal at Wako that we had last week in the Diamond City mall Fukuoka. It had a very good family atmosphere and nice decor. I ordered the mixed set and the wife had the plain pork loin katsu. The mix set included a medallion of pork loin, prawns and a mushroom croquette. Oh and we ordered some oysters on the side too. I'm just a sucker for a good frito misto I suppose! The crust on all the items was spot on, light, crispy and just the right amount of oily richness. There was a lovely citrusy dressing for the cabbage and two types of sauce, the regular sort and a miso based one which was much tastier. I'm with Blether on this one, i can take or leave the regular Tonkatsu sauce. That's why i was really impressed with the miso based one, it was very savoury indeed. The pork was lovely and juicy too which me wished I had ordered just the pork for myself.

Blimey those images turned out a bit large. Ah Chicken & Seafood soup at that ramen place. I just assumed it was going to be a pork base, no wonder i couldn't work out the flavour combination. Yes the noodles were thick cut too which was another novel treat for us. Bear with me I'll get on to some of the stuff we ate in Osaka later today.

Okay let's start with the start in Fukuoka. We landed early afternoon and after checking in we had a couple of hours to kill before meeting up with our relatives so we headed straight to Canal City which was a 10 min stroll away. After watching some Japanese TV show about Ramen noodles on the Virgin flight, we were hungry for some of that, in fact we were craving it. Luckily we knew that in Canal City there was Raumen (sic) Stadium where 6 or so Ramen vendors from around the country compete to stay in. From what I remember there were a couple of local boys, one from Osaka, one from Tokyo, even one from Hokkaido somewhere. I didnt really take any notice though as we were always going to choose one of the local offerings, when in Kyushu and all that. We decided to plump for these guys because we'd never tried the dipping ramen before. What is this style called? It just looked so good with the soft-set egg and the rashers of pork. I decided to go for the biggest 300g offering of noodle and tucked in with élan. The first mouthfuls were simply incredible, the flavour of the intense pork soup stock had something else to it too. Maybe it was part of the stock itself or maybe it was the powdered stuff floating on the square of nori. Can anyone enlighten? In addition to the rashers of pork there were sizeable cubes of succulent pork hidden in the soup too. The texture of the noodle was firm and slippery and coated with the viscous soup, well as first mouthfuls of Japan go this was very memorable indeed. The only gripe I had was because I'd ordered a massive portion I found that at about 60% finished the soup was as cold as the noodles, which made finishing this very rich dish a challenge. So much so that I had to leave a couple of mouthfuls of noodles in the bottom of the soup bowl. I felt bad about leaving it and a little ashamed. My wife was able to finish her 250g portion and have a little of mine too. Thinking about it now what would have been great would have been a ladle of boiling water to loosen it all. I would have drunk the thinned yet still delicious soup and been able to the finish the rest of the noodles. I can't be first person to think of this, can I? The rest of the meals in Fukuoka were spent with family. One included a 100Y Kaiten Sushi place that was surprisingly good and a great Tonkatsu meal at Wako which i'll save for Blether's new Tonkatsu dining topic. The one other thing apart the Ramen that blew us away, again found in Canal City, were the Takoyaki balls. In previous visits to Japan I've been pretty unimpressed by them but these beauties covered with cheese and Mentaiko sauce were a taste sensation. We went back for seconds and thirds. I was so impressed that in Osaka I bought a Tako pan, all I need now is tried and tested recipe. Can anyone provide a link or two? If only I can reproduce that Mentaiko sauce too.

Thanks for all the tips folks. Back from Japan a couple of days ago and we had a wonderful time as usual. We managed to eat pretty well but you know I wasn’t going to let you down in that respect. In the end we had four tonkatsu meals: one at a Wako in Fukuoka, one at Maisen in Omotesando (shame we couldn’t meet up Blether) and two at Horaitei in Shibuya (big up to the lobster for this rec). They were all excellent but surprisingly the Wako chain offering shaded it for me. The extra sauce options and the dressing for the cabbage made it stand out. Didn’t get as far as Butagumi but that’s something to look forward to for next time. Anyway I’ve got lots of questions and photos to sort through. Would you guys be interested in seeing some of this stuff? There was a couple of snack items in particular I wanted to ask about.

Brilliant, looks like it’s going to be the great Tonkatsu Tour of Tokyo 2009. Maisen, Wako, Horaitei. Check, check, check. Horaitei looks like it’s just across the road from our hotel in Shibuya too so there’s no excuse not to try that one first. Rona thanks for the neopolitan pizza tip, I appreciate that the Japanese do such artisanal dishes probably better than anyone but being such an infrequent visitor I would really feel like I’m missing out on another memorable Japanese meal. Besides, I’ve never been to Naples so I wouldn’t have anything to compare it to! You seem to know Osaka pretty well. Considering we’re only there for an evening, a whole of the next day and the morning after that; is it worth going to the Momofuku Instant Ramen museum? Looks fun but not sure how easy it is to get to from the Namba/Shinsaibashi area.