Prawncrackers

Cantrabian anchovies are the business but having eaten the house-cured anchovy on toast at Asador Etxebarri recently I doubt anything will come close now. Similarly the Palamos prawns served there, as close to perfection as I could imagine. I cry a little now every time I have to cook a frozen Asian tiger prawn. Baklava freshly baked from karaköy güllüoğlu in Istanbul. I can't even bring myself to buy the stuff anymore. So good that nothing will ever compare to it.

Big silver eels hot out the smoker in the best tasting fish I've ever eaten. The oiliness and richness of the flavour is just on a different level to anything else. Conversely, I'm partial to steamed turbot. The thick gelatinous skin around the side fins and the pearly clean tasting flesh are a textural wonderland to Cantonese fish lovers.

I like bring this topic back every so often as I love the variety you get in seafood. I was thinking the other day that I don’t eat enough razor clams. They’re plentiful, cheap and delicious. So to address that I bought a kilo of them and scoffed them all on my own! Almost 30 of the buggers for £8, I was in razor clam heaven for an evening. They don’t take much to prepare either, the six dishes that I tried out only took a couple of hours from start to finish. First up was Crudo. Shuck open half a dozen clams, take out the prime fleshy muscle ‘foot’ only, butterfly them open, scrape along them to make them curl up like ferns. Dress them with sea salt, lemon, caper, shallot, parsley and olive oil. Eat. Another raw dish of Sashimi again using only the fleshy foot, slice it on the bias and return the pieces to the shell on top of finely shredded daikon. Dress with salmon roe, ponzu and very fine Thai basil (I couldn’t get hold of shiso). Then two classic Cantonese variations; Black Bean Sauce and Ginger Spring Onion. Prepare the clams first by opening them and loosening them from the shell. Traditionally the black bean version is stir-fried because the razor clams you get in Asia are quite small. But with bigger clams I like to make an extra rich black bean sauce separately and dress the raw opened clams with this sauce, mild red chillies and steamed for two minutes. The sauce is made by frying garlic, ginger, spring onion and crushed fermented black beans together till aromatic. Add a splash of shaosing then stock, chicken preferably but instant dashi is a good for convenience, simmer for 5 minutes. Season with sugar and soy then thicken with starch. Strain the sauce before using it.Even simpler is the ginger and spring onion variation. Dress the raw clams with this finely shredded stuff, add salt then steam for two minutes. Add a splash of soy to the clams before sizzling with smoking hot groundnut oil. Finish with some fresh curls of spring onion. Clams with fried shallots. Really simple dish. Deep fry the shallot first and season them with a little salt. In a searing hot pan or hotplate place your clams so they open downwards, add a little olive oil, a splash of lemon and clamp a lid on for one minute. Remove the clams right away, slice them and return to the shell, dress with the shallots and a drizzle of the best sherry vinegar you can afford. I’ve been curing my own n’duja, So it made sense to cook some with the clams. Shell your clams first and slice them into chunks. Start frying off the n’duja in a pan, it should melt into a crimson slurry of pork fat, cook it out a little then add garlic and then the clam meat. Cook for one minute, at the end season with lemon juice and parsley. That’s it, serve them back in the shell or just as it is with some bread to mop up all those juices.I think frying some breadcrumbs till crispy in the n’duja first would be a good variation, will try it next time but as it stands clams with n’duja is pretty good eating. So which would be your favourite way of preparing razor clams?

Dejah, great minds think alike, I had Chicken Rice this evening too. Made plenty of it because I love eating the leftovers the next day. Do you salt your leftover chicken overnight? Love the flavour that develops. Also with the leftover rice have you ever dry-fry it? It gives chicken rice another dimension of deliciousness. Been making some sausage recently. First up some hot smoked andouille, I'm trying to think of anything so simple yet perfect than andouille hot off the smoker with a dollop of mustard. Food heaven: With the same batch of pork I also made some N'duja but I couldn't find any Calabrian Chilli powder so I used the reddest chilli powder i could get, Korean Gojugaru. I also added some fish sauce to the mix and smoked it with cherry wood. It tastes fantastic, as good as any commercial stuff I've tried and actually quite simple to make. Went great in a dish with Bucatini pasta:

It was Ridonkulously cheap! Keeping my eyes open for those reduced priced Hereford rib roasts at Waitrose on a Tuesday afternoon. Of course I've been having it with grilled pork chops and beef. I retro-engineered it from one I had in a steak restaurant in Fukuoka. It should be mixed with freshly ground toasted sesame before dipping your meat into it. In the restaurant we each had a small bowl with grooves etched into it called a suribachi. The sesame seeds are ground in this before the sauce is added. The combination of the sweet deeply savoury and deep nuttiness of the sesame is simply sublime: 200ml ichiban dashi made from katsuobushi and kombu 100g brown miso 120g mirin 75g sugar 50g rice wine vinegar Simmer the above for 15 minutes then add a teaspoon of finely grated ginger and simmer for another 5 minutes. Take off the heat and stir in one tablespoon of yuzu juice (or a mixture of lime and Seville orange). The sauce will keep for a while in the fridge.

Thanks Keith, i'm going to claim that it is actually my original idea to steal from! The eureka moment happened in this cheeky thread back in 2009. Cheeks are great eating, I had some pigs cheeks in the freezer and made a mole poblano sauce to go with them today. Delicious but impossible to photo nicely: Grilling season is definitely here and I know you good people like to see a nice steak. As a plus the asparagus season as also started in the UK so i grilled some of those too. Served over Japanese rice with miso aubergine and that same sesame miso sauce from my last post (a real favourite). Best thing was the steak only £6.50 from my local supermarket! Reduced price as it had been on the counter for a week apparently. Whodya thunk aged beef costing less, that's supermarket logic for you. I aged it another 8 days in my fridge before cooking it. I think £ for lb ('scuse the pun) it was the best steak I've ever eaten. Really flavourful and tender.

I'm going with Keith too, the real artistry and skill in that tofu dish is to cut it like fine hair. So when suspended in the broth it floats cloudlike. Never tried cutting it myself either but will get some tofu next opportunity and have a go at it! I forgot to post this nice meal in my last catchup post. I had some foodie colleagues from China, Singapore and Malaysia for dinner recently so it was a good reason to put together some of my favourite Asian dishes. We started with lobster noodles and followed it with ox cheek rendang, golden sand prawns, catfish in caramel fish sauce, tong ho choy and some pickles.

It's actually ridiculously simple once you know how to do the caramel. Heat a tablespoon of oil and start to caramelise 150g of sugar in it. Use a light pan so you can see the colour of it. You're looking for a deep mahogany colour. Too light and the flavour is a bit one dimensional. Too dark and it's burnt and acrid. Once that's ready add 70mL of fish sauce mixed with 50 mL of water. It will bubble madly and spit so be careful. That's your caramel fish sauce made. You can adjust it to taste with extra fish sauce and sugar. To make the dish, fry off some garlic and spring onion in a tight fitting pot. Add your catfish and octopus cover with the caramel fish sauce and simmer for an hour. Add slice chilli if you wish. At the end garnish with fresh coriander and stir in a teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper.

The baby baby ones are delicious in the Vietnamese dish Ca Kho or Catfish in Caramel fish sauce. They take as long as the fish to get tender - about an hour, and add another textural element to the dish.

Miso-glazed eggplant, according to the internet. You'll have to ask Prawncrackers how he cooked it (although I will not complain about being given completely unwarranted credit for the fantastic food that he makes . . .) .Yup I have take responsibility for that dish! Here's a closeup I normally slice the aubergine lengthways but this time I tried it horizontally because I had fat western aubergines. First take peeler and peel several lengthways strips off. This is so that they are easier to eat with chopsticks. Cut them horizontally then make a cross hatch pattern on the cut surfaces. Brush them all over with oil and roast in a hot oven for about 30 mins or until they are just done. Not too soft as they will finish with the glaze on. To make the glaze. Mix white miso with mirin and sugar. Make it as sweet as you like. Add the white part of spring onion and a little grated ginger. Glaze the tops of the aubergines with plenty of this paste. The deeper you've cross hatch the more glaze it will take. Finish under a moderate grill/broiler till the miso is cooked and nicely caramelised. Garnish with spring onion tops and toasted sesame seeds. Simple yet the most delicious way to prepare aubergine.

I wish I could plate like that whilst sloshed! Lovely looking dish, not too over composed. It looks like i haven't posted dinner for a over a month now so here's a catch up, please bear with me! I smoked some beef cheek pastrami recently and been experimenting with it. First up was a kimchi reuben: The kimchi completely chnaged the nature of my favourite sandwich. It was delicious in it's own right but not as good as the standard Reuben. Then with some more beef cheek pastrami inspired by Mission Chinese i Gong Bo'ed it (aka Kung Pow). Though mine is the more traditional version in Fuchsia Dunlop's Sichuan book (and cashews instead of peanuts): Duck leg confit with a black garlic salsa verde: Smoked chicken and fixings: It's grilling season, one of my favourite things to grill are quails. These were smothered in a homemade Thai red curry paste and served over a green mango salad: And today, grilled pork chop of course (i like pork you might have heard!). With a toasted sesame miso dipping sauce, nasu dengaku and kimchi:

This thread needs a bump up. One of my favourite Chinese meals recently. Steamed lemon sole with lap cheung and doong goo, chicken rice and some plain pak choy with oyster sauce. Ultimate comfort food!

At the moment i can only buy the ones imported by Kaybee. Out of the dozen or so Alphonso I've tried so far, only one was any good. The others have not travelled well at all, spoilt and fermented near the stone giving an unpleasant sourness. All of the Badami have been very poor.

Most of the country is under a foot of snow. But it would appear that the first Indian mangoes are here already! March 27th a whole fortnight earlier than last year. I bought a box of Alphonso and Badami, each £12 per dozen. Now we play the ripening game... Alphonsos and snow, a combination never seen before

Bruce I'm almost licking those prawns off my iPhone screen!

This topic is why I love egullet. I have no idea how to cook walrus but if its anything like minke whale then the loin will be great medium rare like s beefsteak. Please post photos.

Ooh is that a Brill? Lovely fish, I had some tonight filleted, crumbed and deep fried.

Even though we're due more snow next week here in the UK, BBQ season has started! Here are some baby backs and spares to see in the spring: More porky goodness. I very rarely cook for one so I was very much looking forward to a nice big juicy pork chop for myself. Simply pan fried and I threw some tong ho choi for a more balanced meal. Sesame miso dipping sauce on the side and a bowl of plain Japanese rice. My idea of comfort food. Sick of pork yet? Another meal for one, albeit badly misjudged, I was so stuffed after this one. Pork tenderloin and kidney stirfried with kimchi, tong ho again (far too much) and a salted duck egg: and as a break from pork, Moroccan lamb tostadas!

I have the 6 litre Kuhn Rikon, I think it’s the 22cm base with the two side handles. If I were to use a rice cooker, for 16 portions I would put the following together in the cooker : 10 cups of washed Thai Jasmine rice3 cans or so of coconut milk (approx. 5 cups) then top it up with the same amount of water. This is the tricky part, I don’t measure out my liquid so I’m estimating this will be enough. Ideally I would like to increase the ratio of coconut to water for more coconut flavour.1 Tbl of Salt3 stalks of lemongrass8 pandan leaves1 big knob of gingerWhat do you think?

The title says it all really. I normally cook my nasi lemak in a crappy rice cooker with a rattly lid, it's ok, could be better though. The cooker is not good and I have to keep topping up with water to make sure the rice is tender enough. I get better results on the stove in a pan that I can get a tight lid on, keeping the steam in always makes the rice fluffier. But it got me thinking whether I could make this in my pressure cooker (a Kuhn Rikon). Especially as I have to make it for 16 diners this week. Im thinking my PC is exactly the right size for the job. Of course I could just use it as a normal pan but seeing it is a pressure cooker has anyone actually tried it? Questions that come to mind first are: · Shall I cook the rice uncovered normally first letting it absorb the liquid a little first before clamping the lid on? How long should I cook it under pressure? · Or should I bring it up to pressure from cold? Then how long under pressure? Any help or ideas would be great. Would like to nail this first time natch!

This is a great recipe from one of my favourite cookbooks. It's actually the dish that's on the front cover. But don't you think that the cover photo is too red considering the amount of tumeric in the recipe. Every time I've cooked it, it comes out as yellow as yours?! For Vals day I bought some scallops and a dover sole. The scallops were smoked over Jasmine tea and dressed with ponzu and ikura. The sole was simply pan fried. The sauce is a combination of black butter and sauce vierge with added goodness of tiny brown shrimps. We ate this with a few saffron potatoes cooked in scallop stock and wilted red chard. For dessert the wife made mini green tea eclairs filled with white choc cream, accompanied with a red bean dip

Happy Chinese New Year of the Snake everybody. We had a hot pot over the weekend to see in the new year and yesterday we made some dumplings. Pork and prawn potstickers (鍋貼) to be precise. The unbleached flour and the light in my kitchen made them look particularly golden!

You're crazy Scotty! Cooking steak in pan, hoodathunk? Nice work though, i'd say it was acceptably med rare. I wouldn't send it back that's for sure.

Yup it's not nasi lemak without pandan! For extra goodness I add lemongrass and ginger too. No they're just frozen ones. I've been asked this before and there's no secret. Just make sure it's drained very well and fry them till they're crispy. Gak just seen what a dreadful job I did of brightening the foreground of that photo. Very amateurish!

One of my ultimate dishes tonight; nasi lemak, ox cheek rendang, sambal ikan bilis and soft-shell crab. Guaranteed to hit every savoury spot i got!