Prawncrackers

For my wife and i today i cooked Razor clams in Black Bean sauce, Squid and Gai Lan in Oyster sauce, Pork Spring Rolls with dip. Very Cantonese, very full - i need to lie down.... Sorry about the blurry-ass pic, was in in hurry. It's that Chinese thing - have to eat it while it's hot!!

Lucky they're lamb sweatbreads then! As for chicken necks - forget about it! I'm Chinese, i'll eat ANYTHING! Duck necks are nicer BTW, much more meaty. The Chinese places would give stuff like that away by the bucket load when i was a kid - ahh, childhood memories. Maybe, we should start an offal thread - get some French food lovers in. We could literally turn a sow's ear into a silken purse!!

You should have seen them before i'd trimmed and rinsed them! They have a neutral smell but are quite messy looking with a peculiar texture raw. I was surprised at how cheap they were, only £4.10, bargain! Especially as you only really see them on the menus of the more 'aspiring' restaurants.

I may need a few recipes - he managed to get so much, i bet my butcher is still giggling to himself now!! What to order next from him, eh?? I heard that they should be poached first too. Sounds good Fibilou, a herb crust would go well i think with the soft texture. I'll cook some tomorrow maybe to accompany some breast of lamb. The rest will have to go in the freezer.

So, my butchers and i have had this thing for the past couple of weeks. It started when i innocently enough asked for some pigs trotters for a Xiao Long Bao recipe. He shook his head and said i'll have to come back later in the week as he'd have to order some in. In passing he asked if i wanted anything else, not thinking about it i said i'd always wanted to try pig cheeks. I go back to them a couple of days later and what do you know in addition to my trotters there's four pig cheeks to pick up too! Ok, this time as i leave i ask for some Osso Bucco as i know i've never seen them in his shop. The next week i'm back and good as gold he's managed to get two veal shins - he'll cut steaks out of one for me to take home straightaway and save one for me to pick up later - fantastic! Right, this time i'm really going to test him out - "got any, er, veal sweatbreads?". He laughs, he'll "see what he can do". I pop in every so often to pick up my 'normal' stuff - rib-eye steak and pork belly draft, and i laugh about how he still can't any veal swetbreads for me. I joke and say that i'd settle for lamb ones... Today, with a big grin on his face this is what he presents to me: Help, does anybody have any good recipes for these? I've had throat sweatbreads before in a couple of restaurants and they were sublime. These look like gullett (how apt) ones and are much bigger than ones i've eaten before.

whoops, haven't read this thread properly! i'm surprised that your wire stand works better for you than the proper wok collar - maybe an unusual combination of the size of your wok and the stove explains this.

hzrt8w, i'm looking at your photo of your wok stand and that it's exactly what it is - a wok stand! I've never seen one of those used on a stove before. I think what you need is a wok collar like the second picture in this link: http://www.foodventure.com/Book_Utensils.htm Ths should get your wok much hotter!

Hi all, i am new to this forum and was just browsing through and couldn't help noticing this thread on Cherry Blossoms. Made me want to post these photos of a cherry blossom themed wedding banquet that my wife and i had for her brothers wedding in Fukuoka. It was a truly memorable meal, hope you enjoy the pics:

Oh yeah there's got to be soup! Though one of them did burst as i was lifting it Kinda got stuck to the paper - very frustrating. Next time i'll use lettuce or maybe a slice of cucumber.

Hi all, i've lurking here for a couple of months now and wanted to share with you my first attempt at Xiao Long Bao today: I'm pretty chuffed with them, though they could obviously do with some refinement. I've enjoyed reading your posts and hope that you will enjoy some of my contributions.