Prawncrackers

Creamy Crab Pots again yesterday morning, my wife got to try them this time and agreed that they are a sensation! Looks like it could be a regular dish for us: This morning we had the Full English of Wild Boar Bacon, Wild Boar Cumberland sausage, Bury-style Black Pudding, Fried Eggs, Beans and Fried Slice: Couldn't resist an action shot of pork products frying in the pan, mmm

I'm not much of a pudding man but this looks like perfection to me! Now where can i get the moulds from?

Damn, does that mean the party before me had a double portion of meat with their crackling? Or does it mean that the next party just has meat and no crackling? Because that would suck, the skin is the raison d'etre of baby pig! Oink

Thanks Bruce, i had a feeling you'd like the crab quiche! It's possibly my favourite shellfish and i know it;s one of yours, maybe we should start a "Crab Gallery" topic...

Mmmm, suckling pig crackling <<insert drooling emoticon>> Last time i went to a banquet meal in HK they served just the whole skin as the ubiquitous first course. It has always made me wonder ever since what they did with the meat!? Great job Ah Leung Gor, keep it up

Dr J could i be as bold as to comment that i think the presentation of your recent dishes is a little forced? I really hope you don't mind me saying as i genuinely think a little constructive criticism is good thing I loved the look of your early posts; duck leg, scallop, snails and especially the sea bass. These dishes focused on the main ingredient and looked scrumptious. Overly fussy presentation detracts from the food. I agree with David Ross (love your dishes btw) in that there really was no need for the capers on radish garnish. The Korean beef was perfectly cooked and looked delicious, however the presentation of the plate took away the eye away from that. Maybe it's just me but i find overgroomed food off-putting. Tonight as an example was simple steamed sea-bream, to my mind i can't think of anything that looks more appetising:

I have pork skin saved for the next batch of gelatinous stock to make soup dumplings - xiao long bao.

Poached a piece of lamb breast yesterday and pressed it overnight ready to cook tonight. I was just going to simply pan fry it but whilst waiting for the wife to come home from her yoga class i remembered a recipe from HF-W's MEAT book - Lamb Ste Menehould. Basically it's breaded lamb breast baked in the oven till crispy. I went a step further and did a Milanese style herb crust. So as well as simply pan-fried i also dug out some lamb sweetbreads from the freezer and crushed some boiled Charlotte potatos & peas. HF-W recommends salsa verde, it went very well indeed:

JapaneseChefsKnife.com is simply a brilliant web company. Fast and efficient there simply isn't a better option for us in the UK. I've ordered knives from US companies and without fail they always get stopped by customs. Somehow my knives from Japan have always sneaked through. Here is a pic of my set: The top sushi knife, and the two damascus patterned ones (third one down and bottom) are from JCK.com, you are simply not going to get these knives for the same price anywhere else. Do it folks, it'll be the best xmas present you'll ever get for yourselves!

Proportions, what proportions?! I poured enough double-cream to just cover a generous amount of crabmeat, season with salt & white pepper then smothered it with grated gruyere cheese. Baked in a hot oven till the cheese was browned, 20 mins or so. I suppose there was about a couple of tablespoons of crabmeat per little ramekin, and each pot was enough to thickly slather a slice of bread, mmmm. Kim please try this out, it's so satisfyingly simple. Spread on brown bread this was a taste sensation.

Question: What do you do with leftover crab meat, cream and gruyere? Answer: Put them altogether, bake them off and spread it on bread!! For a throw together breakfast with just three ingredients this was utterly delicious. Can't wait to try this again. Introducing my Creamy Crab Pots:

There is something almost evil about Marlene's chocolate cake! If you look deep enough you may see your own soul... Today, we started with a creamy roasted butternut squash soup with chorizo and it's own toasted seeds. To follow was crab quiche and salad:

This looks quite marvelous junehl , never seen anything like it in fact. Looks like a 4 or 5 stage process, more details are definitely required - inquiring minds need to know!!

Doodad the dipping sauce in the pic was just a couple of Thai chillies in some Kikkoman. Sometimes with fried dumplings I like the Worcestershire/Soy dipping sauce but mostly I like a little heat (ok a lot) with my dumplings. What kind of dipping sauce are you having trouble with?

Have a look over at the Chinese forum Ce'ndra, there's an impromptu Siu Yook cook-off (click) developing there - maybe you could be next to post some results!!

None at all, I gave it a good scraping at the end so there would have been virtually no soda left on it anyway. Besides i didn't use much, maybe just under a level teaspoon or so. It would be interesting next time to see how effective it really is, maybe treat one half the pork with it and the other half without. Whose next in line to try it?

Mwahahaha!!! You know you shouldn't have opened this thread if you're on a diet Now you have, you might as well try to make some for yourself. It's really quite sraightforward, i promise!

Yesterday was Siu Yook (roast belly pork - more info on how this was made in this thread): Then today with the leftovers and little Char Siu we had Egg Fried Rice and some Gau Ji:

Yesterday was the first opportunity i've had to make Siu Yook since i fixed my oven. I am also happy to confirm that a little bicarb on the skin does help to make it a little lighter and crispier. Though unlike muichoi i left the soda on the skin throughout (after getting my mum to admit that this was the right way to do it!). My wife says that it was the best yet, i would have to agree with her as it was also a great piece of pork to begin with. Anyway here it is: And a close-up of the left-overs:

Gosh 21 days!! I hope you take some comfortable trousers Ah Leung Gor I've not been back for a couple of years now, but my wife and i used to go back fairly often to visit our relatives in Yuen Long, Tai Po & Kowloon. Half of the time they would take us to local joints serving local food which as you would expect are out of this world. Especially the street food in Tai Po Market, I still remember the sight of live snakes, the smell of snake bile and the taste of them in Black Bean Sauce! The other half of the time they would show us how cosmopolitan they are and take us to eat ‘foreign food’; Shanghai, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Thai even French! What was surprising was how good this stuff was, the Escargot and Sushi was as good as any I’ve had in France or Japan (respectively…. of course). HK is truly is a global kitchen, I think with 21 days you could afford to spend a couple of meals outside the Chinese circle. I’m afraid I can’t be of any help with vendor names, it’s always the case that we just eat where were told to eat by our relatives! But I have no worry, with your gastroinstinct Ah Leung I know that you will find the best eating in HK. Just remember to take lots of pictures. A tip or two for you. Like you I use a DSLR on holiday with a P&S as a backup. I find that a lot of the time when taking pics of food in cramped places the P&S is better to use. This is because the barrel of the standard telephoto lens on my DSLR is a tad too big and the built-in flash casts a shadow on the food. I’ve ruined plenty of pictures this way. At home it’s no problem just stick a flash-gun on, but it’s a bit of chore in a cramped eatery whilst the waitress is pouring your tea. And you know how rude HKers can be! Especially if you are using flash and they think you’re taking their pictures. Of course, HK is the place to go for cheap camera gear, get yourself a compact bright prime macro lens in Mong Kok for your Nikon so you won’t need to use the flash. Have fun!

Ahh so my mother was right! Not that i ever doubted her of course How much soda did you use? Will definitely try it out next time.

That's good point, i've been fortunate and have never had to use an electric stove for any period of time. It would be very difficult to season a wok evenly on an electric stove.

To me, it looks like you need to scrub your wok more after you've used it as it appears to have too much residue on it. It looks glossy almost gummy and a little tacky. Does it feel tacky to the touch? My main frying wok (i have a separate larger wok for steaming!) is a flat bottomed one and is celebrating it's 14th year of continuous use: As you can see it has a very matt even finish and nothing ever dares sticks to it. I scrub it well with plenty of running water after i cook with it, then usually leave it on a low flame to dry out whilst we're eating. When i'm done eating i give it a wipe down with an oiled paper towel whilst it's still warm to give it the thinnest film of oil possible.

Lovely Spanish style saffron rice tonight with prawns, chorizo & peppers. I would call it a Paella but i so didn't use a Paella pan!!! Couldn't resist a close-up...

LOL, the egg was only good for egg-porn i'm afraid - it did nothing for the dish except to titillate the eye. Do you think if we used the phrase 'egg-porn' enough we could submit it to the Oxford English Dictionary? Egg-porn, [noun][colloq] - gratuitous visual images of running yolk in food context. First cited - eG Forums Breakfast! thread.