Prawncrackers

Yeah that old link gone ga-ga-goo-goo. Try this one to my album.

I had a wonderful father's day meal here last night - no not for me but for my father-in-law, obviously the wife and MIL came too. Now i've been umming and ahhing about whether to take them to Purnells or Simpsons or any other of the Michelin starred fine dining restaurants we have here in Brum. But being that my FIL's name is Edmund, the choice was obvious! He could tell his buddies back in Hong Kong all about it. Plus he's never had that British "fine dining experience" before and the menu here at Edmunds seemed more conventional than at Purnells, which would have been my other choice for him. Anyway both my in-laws loved it as did my wife and i. Service and environs was excellent. The food was good, stand out dishes were the Courgette Flower Fritter, Sucking Pig and Rosewater Crème Brulée. I took far too many photos to upload onto here but please have look at my Picasa album if you're interested in this excellent restaurant, highly recommended.

That's exactly what I'm looking for Matthew, ta. Wonderful clear descriptions of which part to use and how to prepare it. I know exactly which cut it is now. It's the part I always save to make Char Siu with, though cut into strips, skewered and roasted quickly. Which is the total opposite to what we want to do here!

Okay, being a Brit I'm in a similar position to Thampik in that I've never had real BBQ and certainly never pulled pork (not even on a night out). But like any good gulletter I am willing to rectify that situation forthwith. Brand new Weber kettle, check. Thermometers, check. Charcoal, check. etc This thread is a beast, I've read a bit of it and I think I've got the jist of what to do and the recipes I want to try out. But there are some noobie questions I hope you experts can help with, best to start well and hope to get better I reckon: - My main question is the cut of meat as I'll be butchering a Tamworth forequarter. When you Yankees guys say Butt, I'm assuming you don't mean arse! What cut is that exactly? I know it's shoulder but how much of the neck should I leave on? On or off the bone, skin-on or skin-off. What about the back fat at the top of the shoulder? Should I tie it? - Do I really need to brine overnight? - When exactly should i be adding wood chips and what type of wood should I start with, oak, applewood, hickory? I've read that soaking them makes no difference but wrapping them in foil and piercing gives a more controlled realease of smoke, is that right? Let's just hope for some good weather this weekend.

I read of a different explanation of Carpaccio by the food critic Giles Coren of The Times in his review yesterday - fifth paragraph in.

Here's a seafood feast that I cooked last night for two of my mates. It was a belated birthday meal for them both so I had a good excuse to splash out on some great produce at the market yesterday morning: I bought lobsters, razor clams and a small turbot. Though I have admit the King Crab claws from Costco I had in the freezer already. Now, with these magnificent ingredients what would you do? I had all day to think about it at work and I almost convinced myself to do an East meets West type affair; maybe lobster thermidor or just grilled with butter? clams in white wine sauce or spicy coconut? roasted or steamed turbot? maybe I could defrost some prawns and make something really hot... In the end I decided to go with what I know best and did a pure Cantonese seafood feast. It was definitely a case of "If it ain't broke..."! The king crab was first up, just simply steamed and served with ginger-scallion-coriander oil and chilli soy: The crab set up the meal nicely and as it required little effort it gave me time to prepare the lobsters for the next course. It's lucky that my guests aren't squeemish, as we were all eating in the kitchen, they got to see me dispatch them. Chopped up, coated in cornstarch, deep-fried then stir-fried with lots of ginger, scallion, garlic. The sauce was made with a Shanton-esque stock and thickened with the mashed up lobster tomalley & roe and turbot liver! This was served on a bed of soft noodles that soaked up all of the luscious sauce flecked with brilliantly red lobster eggs: Then the final course was steamed turbot with scallion & ginger and steamed razor clams with black bean sauce. The razors I'd prepared earlier buy cutting them open, excising the crap out and smothering them with some powerful black bean sauce. I steamed the fish first for 12.5mins then the clams for 3 mins whilst I stir-fried some Choi Sum donated from my mum's garden. This course was served with a little rice: I was glad I stuck to my Cantonese roots as the meal was a great success, my buddies were bowled over. In fact I think it could be one of the best meals I've ever cooked, it does show to stick with what you know.

Is that it, is Alphonso season over already? I haven't seen any for 8 days now (i've been counting). They were available for about 6 weeks this year, wow it really does feel like it's getting shorter with every passing year. No Kesar either to be seen. Though there are still Indian Badami for sale, sweet but not as perfumed as Alphonso or Kesar. Nevermind, the Pakistani ones are coming in now, just bought two boxes of Sindhri - £6 per dozen.

I would have to agree with you there Maggie. The whole point of a fried egg sandwich is the runny yolk, it's the gravy/sauce. Lightly toasted bread, a little ketchup then eaten over the sink.

Poached Duck Egg & White Asparagus on Sourdough with a kinda brown butter and jambon cru dressing. Sorry didn't get the money shot this time

Everybody's meals look great as usual. I've not posted on the thread for weeks, don't worry i have been eating Dinner! Just haven't had the time to post any pics. Been taking my first steps into pasta making and my first couple of attempts have turned out great. First was Crab Ravioli with Clams & Asparagus, the sauce was simply a butter emulsion made with the clam liquor: Tonight was some Squid Ink Vermicelli with Crab (again!), Grilled Squid and some brown crab meat toasts: The verdict from my wife was a success, fresh pasta is definitely worth the effort.

I remember posting this a while ago on the Dinner II thread <click> (remember this topic - needs an update!!). Freshly steamed sloppy brown crab meat from brown crabs is one of my ultimate treats, yum yum. For me the reason to eat crab is for the brown meat, the white stuff i cook for others.

He is a City fan, hence unaccustomed to winning.

I grew up in Sparkbrook and the Balti triangle is not a myth it does exist!!! Broadly speaking it's the triangle bounded on two sides by the Stratford and Ladypool Roads. 100s of balti houses line the streets with their garish neon entincing late night revellers with the promise of a 4am vindaloo or fahl, a ghee-slicked Vegas of pleasure and pain. Who can forget the sight of The President on the corner with the Warwick Road, once the Mermaid Pub, with it's rainbow water fountains? It was only open for a few years but my how it distracted the traffic at that junction!! To be honest with you the food was never that great around there as it mainly catered for pissed up Brummies. All we wanted was some meat and gravy back then and that's what we got, if we were lucky they'd be a fight too. The only curry house I go to with any regularity nowadays is the Kababish in Moseley. The photo they have in there of when Muhammed Ali (the boxer) ate there always brings a smile to my face. I suppose it's right on the edge of the balti triangle though nowadays they served their desi gosht on white plates rather than rusty metal bowls. I'm convinced that for that authentic balti flavour you need that metallic tang. If i had to recommend then it would be them and maybe Al-Faisals on Stoney Lane too.

Hmmm Pasta with Kimchi, yes, Kimchi with bacon, well bacon goes with most things. But Pasta, Kimchi, bacon and cream, now that's a combination! How much kimchi do you use? Do you think some parmesan cheese would work with that too? It's the combination of dairy and Asian ingredients that is under-explored in my mind. I once made a creamy saffrony prawn risotto with fresh prawns and the large dried Chinese ones. It didn't really work, the flavour was ok but the textures were all wrong.

Indeed thanks for the news Sabiha, sad though it is. I will cherish and savour every fruit even more than I normally do this year.

The other week I found myself combining two totally separate dishes that in my head just couldn't work together but to my tastebud's disbelief was absolutely sublime. It happened by pure chance that one dish I had leftover from the night before and the other was a take-out brought home by my wife. It got me thinking what a once in a lifetime combination of flavours it was because a) unfrozen leftovers are a rarity in my house (especially the tasty ones) and b) my wife never usually buys the takeaways but this time she was returning from a visit to her uncle's Chinese restaurant. Ok, ok what is this combination....this culinary chimera? It was Mole Poblano Chicken and Singapore Noodles!!! Who'd have thunk it. Even my wife who is deeply suspicious of fusion food thought there was something magical about it. The Mole I'd cooked the day before from a nice paste made by the Cool Chile Co (purveyors Mexican ingredients in the UK) and if anything tasted all the better for leaving a day. Singapore Noodles are fried rice vermicelli with a medium hot curry flavour and usually with an assortment of meat, fish or veg. This one had prawns. Can you imagine the flavours of these two combined, well I couldn't and normally I wouldn't dream of putting the two together. It just so happened that I was feeling lazy and couldn't be bothered to cook some carb to go with the mole, so just zapped the noodles instead. Has anyone put these two dishes together before? idunno. Will anyone ever put them together again? Oh yes, me for one and hopefully one of you after reading this! Please try it I promise it really works. Why? I don't know, is a Mole equivalent to a Mexican curry? But then why would any curry go with any other... Are there any as seemingly outlandish combinations you've had, by chance or by design, that you want to share with us? After this episode I'm willing to give my tastebuds the occassional challenge. Rendang and champ mash maybe, or coq au vin with soba noodles, or pesto with char siu, or pulled pork with kimchi & oysters, oh that's been done already!

My mum always adds soy after steaming just before sizzling with the oil, i don't know if it makes a difference but it's just the way it is. Mullet roe is delicious and there's always so much of it. We get grey mullet over here and the fat ones have this yellow tinge just below the skin. The yellow fat leaches out during cooking and has a very distinct flavour, very under-rated fish imo.

Beautiful fresh lemon sole today fat with roe, just simply steamed for 9.5 minutes exactly: But it's got me thinking about something stuck in my mind, a nagging quote from a chef/fisherman/some-other-kind-of-expert saying the flesh isn't as good from fish that are fat with roe. Has anybody else heard of this? The theory is that the flesh is leaner or less succulent because the fish's metabolism is geared towards egg production. Is it purely a subjective thing? It would be very difficult to do a direct side by side comparison of the same breed of fish from the same waters because they would obviously be in the same breeding cycle. So really it's down to individual opinion as to whether there's a taste difference. Personally i think there is a noticeable difference, especially with Lemon Sole as my family eat a lot of it throughout the year. Though what you lose in the flesh you make up for in delicious roe. So basically we're happy eating this fish all year round.

Overnight none for this last piece but before cooking i sprinkled some, just enough as if you were seasoning it. I start off with a dry skin anyway because of the pork i use. If i had some wan & flaccid regular supermarket pork then i would probably have to take additional steps to get the crackling just right i.e. i would use salt to draw out extra moisture overnight.

That is exactly what i did last year, buy them by the box so there was a constant supply of mango goodness. But i will wait a week or two for the price to drop a little first. I've never heard of the Guimares mango but it's not surprising as goods from the Phillipines are non-existent in the UK. So i can't comment on their flavour. What i do know is that Alphonso ones are world renowned for their sweetness and incredible flavour. They are nicknamed King of Mango for good reason. Kesar are less well known but just as good hence they are named Queen of Mango - it's true!! For me, out of the ones i've eaten, Kesar and Alphonso rank as the best. Next would be the Pakistani "Honey" ones. I tried some Thai "Elephant Tooth" the other week which were pretty good but ones from Brazil/Kenya/Caribbean i would not even class as mango! I would love to try a Filipino one because as you can tell i am a bit of a mango fiend. Would i ever post a photo of my food Rona? As if you don't know me by now

It's only a gentle scraping of the very top of the layer where the crackling is uneven and maybe slightly charred in places. The scrapings are like fine sawdust that can be blown off (if you were cooking for loved ones) or tapped off. I'll definitely take a pic next time.

It's that time of year again, I've seen my first box of Indian mangoes! Any news on this years crop? As it's the first week Alphonsoes were going for £11 per dozen, Kesar singly for £1.20!! As i had a fiver on me i got some Kesar. Let's hope the price comes down a little more than that next week. Now i play the waiting for them to ripen game....

Any luck with making this yet Saladfingers? I made some yesterday with a small piece of belly using the overnight vodka method. I think this is my favourite denaturing agent now, very consistent results. Cooked for one hour at 200C then finished under the grill till the crackling blisters. Here is a pic of it after the scraping, though thinking about it now i should have taken a pic of it before scraping, just for the record - will do so next time! and chopped up: This thread has been great, i now get perfect results every time. My wife even said that it's better than the shops! Though the difference for me is that i use top quality rare-breed pork to begin with. This one was a Tamworth - delicious.

Yes yesterday was the UN anti-racsim conference and i'm surprised that Mr Rayner would stoop to Ahmadinejad levels of crassness. As Rona (Prasantrin) said earlier, the exclusivity of those mythical high-end Japanese restaurants isn't just aimed at us foreigners it also includes 99.99% of Japanese too. So it is just plain wrong to call these places racist (without tongue firmly in cheek). This is exclusivity in another form and not just as a function of money. Ignoring these super exclusive places. If the same level of PR and recognition were afforded to the "normal" high-end Japanese places (i.e. the Robuchons in Tokyo etc) as most of the Western restaurants in that list, then i would not doubt that there would be sizable Japanese representation. Even the ordinary sushi and noodle shops are better than Hakkasan and Nobu. I think the same points were debated last year on this forum regarding Asian restaurants. Change the moniker of the awards from "World's" to "Western Experts Opinion of the", bit more of a mouthful but may be more apt. At the moment the list looks a little racist

Lamb has always been popular in the UK. The best i've ever had is North Ronaldsay lamb from the Orkney isles. This rare-breed feeds exclusively on seaweed, which gives the meat an incredible flavour. It has an uber-sheep taste that would put most non-lamb eaters off. It's a real tonic to most lamb that you get in this country which has a very mild delicate flavour. If you ever the chance to eat it then take it. But i suspect it's very different to Awassi meat which sounds very subtle.