Prawncrackers

Panino looks A-MA-ZING!!! A Panini press wouldn't last very long in our house Here are a couple of recent dinners, the first was a simple Pesto Linguine with Pancetta and a Poached Egg. Nothing beats fresh pesto though the addition of the egg i admit was a little superfluous!! Then today was braised veal in red wine with Camargue red rice. Never had the Carmague rice before, both my wife and i loved the nutty taste and firm texture. It went perfectly with the stew:

Yup a medium-heavy chopper is pretty much essential for serving up poultry on the bone Chinese style.

I've only ever had eaten Durians in Hong Kong and to me they were very fragrant and almost as sweet as mangoes. The ones that i pass in the UK never have any aroma so i've never bothered to buy them. They should be quite 'aromatic' even before you open them. Go outside now and just do it, use a heavy cleaver to split them open as you would a pumpkin and prise those fleshy lobes out with your fingers. It's now or never, our thoughts are with you!!

Wow thanks, i want to be a pig farmer too!! Lots of info on 'Boar Taint' on the web, ta.

Has anyone heard of this term? I ask because last weekend I bought a cheap piece of pork shoulder from a butcher’s that I’ve never used before. It was an impulse pork purchase (oh yes); I was at the market buying fish and thought the shoulder looked nice and fatty… and cheap. I took the pork home unwrapped it and that’s when I smelt there was something off. The meat looked and felt fine but there was a definite whiff of something else. Not of regular bad meat as such but as if it had done an hours worth of circuit training. This pork had BO!! It was a smell I’ve never encountered before in pork but it was unmistakably BO-like. I braised it anyway in some strong spices hoping that the smell might cook out but I kinda knew it wouldn’t work and it didn’t. The golden rule was broken I suppose; I didn’t use my regular butchers who I know will look after me. Don’t worry I won’t be tempted by the lure of discount swine again – okay at least not until the next time! But it got me thinking about this term ‘Pissy Pork’, I remember hearing years ago in relation to male pigs and their hormones tainting the meat. Tried to Google the term but got nothing. Is ‘Pissy Pork’ what I encountered, have I dreamt this term up or did I just buy a crap piece of meat?

I honestly have a very small kitchen too but am very organised when i'm doing my thing. As there's only two of us it's really no big deal. If there are more for dinner then it's definitely a military operation. Okay to answer your question (finally!), personally i would manage easily with 2 knives - Chinese cleaver and a petty knife. But hey i'd rather use this selection: I enjoy using all these knives regularly and see no reason why i should deprive myself. Don't even get me started on the aesthetic qualities of great knives, that's a whole other topic!

Thank you David Ross, my mother gave me pumpkin that she'd grown a couple of weeks ago. I hadn't a clue what to do with it until i saw your dish!! Here is my take on creamy roasted pumpkin and garlic soup, dressed with crispy sage and bacon: Followed by oh so rare and meaty Gressingham Duck Breasts, simply seared and served with cabbage:

Don't worry no animosity taken or intended by myself, we're just having a discussion here. I certainly didn't want to imply that you didn't love cooking. Just wanted to give you a poke and challenge your opnion! I just don't understand why you've set yourself this seemingly arbitrary number of 4 knives. To a pure Japanese chef this would be too little, to a similar Chinese one it would be excessive. Every cook is different so to set a limit is just plain wrong. I'm not arguing the fact that you should have 4 great knives rather than 10 average ones. But similarly i'd rather have 10 great knives rather than 4, space and cost allowing i would have more - why not? Timh has a point. You could probably get by with a couple of pans too but given the choice why would you? To extend this point; you could get by with a couple of spices in Italian cuisine and still eat like a king for the rest of your life. But you would be seriously limited if you wanted to cook Indian food with those same spices.

I can appreciate in a pro kitchen that you are working under time constraints and other pressures. This affects what you cook and how you cook it. It means the number of knives you use at work is a practical issue. You can take your point to the extreme and quite easily argue the case that with the required level of skill just one knife is all you really need. Why waste room with 4 knives? Go Chinese and learn to use one cleaver for everything. That would streamline your pro kitchen operation instantly! From a home cook’s point of view, we are not under the same pressures. We cook for the love of it and not because we are ultimately getting paid. Therefore what we cook and how we cook is fundamentally different to that of a pro kitchen. You do not mention what type of cuisine your pro kitchen produces. Personally I’m open to all types of cuisines and like to try my hand at everything. So my selection of knives ranges from bone-choppers to sushi knives. Which one of your 4 knives would you use to go through pork ribs or slice immaculate sashimi? Okay, so used aggressively your chefs knife will go through bone and your carving knife will do a decent job on fish. But the point is that neither will match a cleaver and a yanagiba for the job. I even have a home-made razor knife for bread making!! So in this respect I’m not limited by my equipment (only by my skill). If you are limiting yourself on the number of knives that you use what other aspects of your cooking does this philosophy affect consciously or sub-consciously?

I don't think i've ever seen that combination of colours before; orange, green & grey! It looks sooo wrong, like you've poured mold onto your food

Sorry folks i didn't do anything to cross off the list! Actually i'm not sorry because we had fantastic Chicken Satay with some peanut sauce and sambal oelek to go with it: oh and there were some breaded prawns too

Not posted on Dinner! for weeks. Another hearty meal tonight, juicy Tamworth Pork Chop, Crackling (of course!), Spiced Red Cabbage, Parsnip Chips and there are some boiled new potatoes somewhere lurking in the background, enjoy:

That is beyond fraud and into the realm of villanry. I knew a i guy once who knowingly used ham stock for his vegetarian soup and fed it to his veggie guests. This was ten years ago and i've never looked at him the same since.

Hey hands off our beef!! Our tabloids would have you strung up for saying that

It's a solid half hour show on the BBC and the "Beeb" does not have commercial breaks. So if there are breaks in your half hour show then you're definitely getting a little short changed. The new series started on Tuesday here and both my wife and i love it. Now my wife loves eating but has no interest in cooking but still finds this TV show very watchable. Heston is an incredibly amiable chap and comes off as a genuine character. Unlike 95% of other foodie shows there isn't any other fluff of lifestyle padding that usually drives me mad. Every second of the show is relevant to the dish that is being created. There are no cut-away scenes of Heston tucking the bloody kids in!!!! The great British classic Chicken Tikka Masala was showcased this week (not sure about the olive oil but who am i to question!!), wonderfully convoluted and thorough as always. Next week is the hamburger.

BINGO!! Nice one Tepee that crackling looks spot on. Light and crisp, yum. I would have joined you this week in roasting some but my oven has been on the blink. Maybe this weekend i'll make some and post here, come on the rest of you there's no excuse!!

What is Egg Foo Yong?! It sounds like a type of omlette, is it a Chinese-American invention?

Ok, i know i've joined the party a little late but i couldn't ignore it any longer, better late than never eh?! Having had my first Beef Rendang in a "pan-asian" restaurant a couple of weeks ago i've been wanting to cook one for myself. The dish in the restaurant was okay but i thought that there was a lot potential for improvement. That's when i remebered this thread and of course this cookbook. I ordered one at the first opportunity and am so glad that i did, it is a wonderful book and an inspirational gateway to a hitherto unexplored world of cuisine for me. First off, to ease myself in i did something recognisably Chinesesy, Spiced Braised Nyona Pork and Cucumber Carrot Pickle: This dish was delicious, the flavours familiar and lusciously bold - though next time i'll use fattier piece of pork Then today i made Beef Rendang: This was incomparable to the dish i had previously in the restaurant. I'm almost speechless with the depth and balance of flavour, the meat was meltingly tender. I'm delighted that i have added these dishes to my repertoire and am looking forward to plundering more treasures from this book!! Tonight i am a happy boy Just one thing - anyone know where i can get Salam leaves and Candlenuts here in the UK? Birmingham has a huge Asian population and i can get Indian spices galore but none of the Indian Asian grocers have heard of Salam leaves or Indonesian Bay Leaves. I substituted fresh curry leaves for the salam leaves in the Rendang, am i missing out here?

Yup she usually stuffs all those and sometimes fresh and fried tofu too. The funny thing is she used to do the regular pork and prawn stuffing but of late she has been experimenting. Pork and cod, prawn and cod, this time it was chicken and cod!! I have to admit that it was surprisingly good. Very different from pork/prawn in texture and taste and in a good way. The chicken breast and cod was hand minced using the flat of the cleaver and had a lovely smooth texture. I think she's hit upon a winner here, it's just a shame that cod is getting more and more expensive and is of course an endangered species. I have a feeling that she tried that combination because she reckons it's healthier than pork. Maybe I'll try it myself next time i cook this dish. Has anyone ever heard of a chicken and cod mixture before, Chinese or otherwise? Sounds like something Iberians would do. Though i'm sure my mum would not have been influenced by them

Fantastic looking char siu Dejah, i bet it tasted as good as it looked. Did you use a pre-prepared mix or from scratch? I would love a recipe as i've never made it at home. Tonight, we had spare ribs too but steamed in plum sauce, stir fried mange tout and steamed egg with har mai:

Okay here's something to keep you all going; from my mum's kitchen on Thursday - Stuffed Three Treasures:

I've never heard of washing or boiling sichuan peppercorns before using. Surely you would lose all their potency! Could it be a case of bad engrish perhaps?

It could be down to the type of salt these restaurants use. If you or I were cooking this dish at home we would probably use the best salt available to us – either a natural sea salt or rock salt. Personally I use English Maldon sea salt or French Fleur de Sel in making these types of dishes. It’s one of the main ingredients so it’s important that the salt is good quality. However, I imagine in most Cantonese restaurant kitchens there would be one kind of salt, just ordinary ‘cooking salt’ laden with anti-caking and other chemical agents. To my mind, there’s a big big difference between the ordinary processed salt and natural salts. Especially if you say they are over-salting this dish anyway - no wonder your tongue feels like it’s jumping!! There’s another point you raise about asking restaurant cooks to change the way they cook a dish specifically for you. I would feel uncomfortable about doing that unless I am a regular respected patron of the establishment. If the manager came around to ask how the meal was I would maybe politely tell him or her that I thought the S&P dish could do with less S, but I wouldn’t order a waiter beforehand to tell the cook to use less salt. If I knew that they usually over-salt then I wouldn’t order that dish. After all there are plenty of other dishes. As for the getting older and not taking as much salt thing, I don’t presume to know your age Ah Leung Gor but I’ve seen it happen to all my older relatives! It’s mostly a health rather than a taste issue though.

Now there's a happy coincedence Chris, a fresh thread in the Chinese forum on making Roast Belly Pork (Siu Yook) has just been started. Includes a fool-proof way of getting the perfect crackling skin as you would from Chinatown

All I use for flavouring is a dry rub of five spice and salt on the flesh side, I then poke the skin with this gorgeous looking implement !click! (Well, actually not this one as it’s new and fairly blunt – read the topic for explanation!!) If your pork belly is of good quality then the skin should be nice and dry anyway, there will be no need to treat it with boiling water/vinegar/lemon juice etc. Besides I’m not sure how effective any of that stuff really is. Rub a mixture of coarse and fine salt onto the skin and roast as normal on a medium heat on a trivet. My idea is just to cook the meat till it’s done ignoring the crackling. I roast mine for only about an hour and fifteen in a 180C oven by which time the meat is still succulent but the crackling is nowhere near done. Now comes the grilling/broiling part; under a moderate heat, blister the skin evenly all over until it’s just about to char. Too much and you’ll get that acrid burnt skin taste, too little and it’ll still be chewy. In a perfect world your belly will be flat (pork belly that is) and your grill will grill evenly. But the real world isn’t flat and even (literally) so you will be moving your belly around placing shunts underneath to make sure the skin blisters evenly. When you’re done the crackling will have big blisters all over and maybe a little charring – pretty unappetising. But let it cool a little (hot crackling is never crispy) then gently scrape way the top layer with a sharp knife. As you scrape an even layer of thin crispy golden crackling will reveal itself to you. That’s it, that’s my method! My mother mentioned once that there’s an extra step the pros do with bicarbonate of soda to make the crackling even lighter, but she was hazy with the details so I’ve never experimented. I’ve never used maltose on pork belly skin, I think that is more for ducks and geese to give that lacquered finish. Maybe it’s used for suckling pig but that is a different beast and method altogether.