Prawncrackers

Yes the Badami this season are better than the Alphonso but still not as good as last years. I will always buy a box of each if they're available as they're very different in flavour but are both amazingly sweet when they're at their best.

I think you're right, they're not as sweet as previous years. Maybe due to the bad weather, have you tried any other varieties this season?

He was using a lot of smoke flavours in that jelly. If he overdid it then I can imagine a solid puck of fishy smokey jelly would be close to inedible. Contrast the fish dish that Colin whathisname did a couple of weeks back. An elegent sheet of thin jelly to represent the sea and more importantly a good chunk of red mullet to represent er, the seafood.

Shame about Rogan's lobster dish not being lobstery enough, maybe he should have used a real native lobster. But Aiden's salmon looked like a 10/10 on appearance alone, stunning.

Big question is will he do Saturday Kitchen?

I'm glad that it's on. Where else are you going to see such standards of cooking on your tellybox? It's the perfect antidote for the usual "Easy Shit Made Easy" cooking shows fronted by wannabe celebs. Yes the whole GBM format is familiar now, maybe too familiar, but it's still very watchable. The voiceover is terrible, but without it you'd have no reason to shout at the telly! Another annoying bit is the footballer style interview after the tasting, walking-in shot shaky camera - hilariously contrived. Over the past couple of seasons Daniel Clifford has come across as bit of a tool but that chicken dish is truly olympian, he's trying a lot harder than the other two and deserves that 10 for sure. I think the brief this year favours chefs like him who push the boundaries; note Murchison's success last week, poor Aktar looks lost. Also where did Clifford get his asparagus from in the middle of winter, or is this just the magic of telly, don't ask questions?

Thanks guys. I often think about the wonderful meals we had on holiday. Abra, please make sure you post up your trip on this thread. Especially if you try any of the places we did, would love a second opinion on them.

Heehee maybe so, but I'm of the opinion that the best accompaniment to crispy belly pork is roast duck or in fact more crispy belly pork. Anyway to get back on track, have you been to the Mughal yet? I went again a couple of weeks ago and the Tandoori mix starter is truly a thing of wonder. It's expanded and now includes some very nice salmon tikka too. As the platter is brought out you can actually see it pulling in kebabs from other diner's plates with it's gravitational field, honest.

I never read the menu in these kind of places, just give me your roast meat. The rest is for chumps!

Looks like you'll have to wait a bit longer for Jay Rayner to review a Birmingham Balti. It was difficult to recommend one for a Monday lunchtime!

Last one I bought around the new year was £22 per kg, and it was dead on about kilo too. I didn't weigh the smoked fillets, but if I had to guess then I got about 200g from it. So not cheap at all, but so worth it. I'll give you a procedure in this very thread if I can get my hands on one or two soon. Watch this space!

Best smoked fish, no best smoked food ever, is eel. If I see any at the market then I'll be brining, salting and smoking these oily beauties sooner than you can say slimy!

Wow, that is really cheap, almost half of the UK wholesale price. I thought Indian mangoes were harder to come by in the USA, more common are the Caribbean, Central and South American varieties. Are you sure they are Alphonso? Early season Alphonso are never as sweet as they can be and whilst waiting for this first batch to ripen a little I made a salsa with one and served it with scallop ceviche and avocado:

The reports from the mango growing regions of India this year have been uniformly downbeat. Very wet weather has affected the flowering cycle of the mango plants leading to a reduction in yield and a later yield at that. But now the good news, the first mangoes are here in UK. I went to the wholesale market with hope in my heart and was rewarded with the sight of many boxes of Alphonso and Badami mango. I bought a box of each, £6 for 6 and £13 for 12 respectively. So although the yield is low the mango have come on the market at the same time, keeping prices down. So what you waiting for, go go go!

Last report for this place was in this thread here, I really enjoyed the place. A real gem.

Who knew that the dining scene in Reykjavik was so brilliant? Certainly not me, I went to Iceland hoping to see the Aurora Borealis and incredible geological wonders. It turned out to be a bonus four day gastronomic adventure of exciting dishes in some fantastic restaurants too. There's not much in-depth info to be had on Reykjavik dining so please indulge me if you think this post is little long-winded! The holiday was booked months ago by the wife and duly put on the back burner by me, I’d not researched any of the dining options until a few days before the start of the holiday. I really wasn’t expecting a long list of options but the more I looked into it the more it dawned on me that Reykjavik was bursting with great restaurants with some tasty looking websites. So I hurriedly made bookings at a handful of restaurants: Fish Company, Fish Market, Grill Market, Seafood Grill – notice the theme running through here? What’s more the city’s top restaurants were participating in the annual Food & Fun festival. For the week we were there, guest chefs from around the world would be taking over the kitchen and celebrating the local produce by creating adventurous tasting menus. The first night we had a Food & Fun tasting menu in Grill Market sheltering from the Arctic blizzard that had descended without warning. This is an ultra-cool spacious contempory dining space split between two levels. The open kitchen greets you as you enter at the ground floor with the flaming grill foremost. There’s a bar on this floor but we were lead to the lower level to the main dining area that exuded Nordic chic, warm wood merging with natural volcanic rock with industral metal flourishes. The menu started simply with potatoes boiled in seawater that was well matched with a smear of seaweed butter. Cabbage wrapped langoustine with mussels showed off the freshness of the main ingredients but the cabbage was oddly tough. A perfectly flame grilled slab of Arctic Char with roe, beetroot and cucumber continued to emphasis the quality of the local seafood. The meat course was a crusty chewy (in a good way) wood-fired beef ribeye, oxtail, potato skins and truffled gnocchi. This was a fantastically flavoured piece of meat, with a nice smoky flavour from the grill that is the heart the restaurant. A dessert of crunchy chocolate, caramel mousse and frozen skyr finished the meal in comforting fashion. The food menu was 6900Kr, around £35. It was the most expensive meal of the holiday so all those horror stories you’ve heard about the cost of eating in Iceland are completely untrue. Cafe Loki serves up traditional Icelandic grub next to the main landmark in Reykjavik, Hallgrímskirkja; the monolithic futurist looking church. The only thing I knew of Icelandic cuisine before this holiday was the infamous putrified shark, Hákarl, which by all accounts reeks of old Victorian public toilets. Basking shark is inedible you see, the flesh is poisonous, but the locals over the centuries have found a way to make it at least safe to eat. They bury the sharks in the sand for six months, the rotting flesh is rendered non-toxic but of course is now utterly foul smelling. Hardcore TV chefs like Ramsay and Bourdain have wilted in the presence of this stuff. Cafe Loki serves up little cubes of the ‘delicacy’ as part of an Icelandic platter with arctic char, smoked lamb, mashed fish, dried cod and rye bread. It isn’t nearly as bad as it’s made to be, just merely like someone’s pissed on your Camembert. All our group of nine tried it, none of us gagged but then we are Chinese and pretty hardcore eaters! But seriously the other items were delicious, the best marinated herrings I’d ever eaten and a very moreish rye bread ice-cream which is a speciality of the cafe. Icelandic Fish & Chips and The Sea Baron are both in the old harbour. They’re part of a small cluster of little eateries that includes sushi, tapas and a Haitian Cafe. Icelandic Fish & Chips is not a takeaway in the traditional British seaside way. It quite a spacious comfortable restaurant with very warm and friendly service. They serve various deep fried fish in their special recipe batter made from spelt and barley. The chips are actually sautéed potatoes and they have vast selection of skyr based dips. We tried Red Fish and Haddock, both were really fresh and the batter crispy and light. Best of all though we ordered a big bowl of garlicky langoustine to share between us. We had langoustine at almost every meal, they’re ubiquitous in Reykjavik and that is no bad thing at all. The langoustine trail continued at The Sea Baron which has the most famous lobster soup in the whole country. Deep fishy broth with a generous amount of lobster (langoustine) tails submerged within. The soup is delicious, a nice hint of curry in there, though the bread supplied to mop it up with was disappointingly pappy. The Sea Baron is shack-like and does grilled fish and even minke whale but we were too stuffed to try anything other than an oversized grilled lemon-sole, which was merely ok. Fish Company is at the forefront of Icelandic cuisine, particularly championing the concept of Nordic Sushi. Which isn’t as preposterous as it first sounds because if you have fish as plentiful and fresh as you do in Iceland then applying Japanese concepts to eating it makes perfect sense. It helps too if your culture deeply respects fish and it really shows at Fish Company, another gorgeous restaurant in the heart of Reykjavik city centre. The restaurant was participating in the Food & Fun festival too but we had lunch when only the regular menu was available. The wife was smitten with the bread here in particular the combination of creamy skyr, butter and apple jam that accompanied it. We asked about the apple jam having never come across it before, we were told it was a speciality of the restaurant and couldn’t buy it but will see if the kitchen could spare us some. Apple jam was quickly forgotten about when the starters of fish soup with lobster tails, and minke whale arrived. The fish soup had little cubes of coconut jelly and seaweed, there was a Thai red curry flavour to it and all in all it’s probably the best fish soup I’ve ever tasted. The flavours were so deep, I can only imagine the amount of lobster tails that went into it. The dish of minke whale was very peculiar though, virtually raw there was a very strong livery flavour to the meat and a lingering mineral after-taste that was very interesting, like sucking on a freshly minted coin. The shredded cucumber helped to cleanse the palate a little but I couldn’t help thinking a good splash of something acidic would have done wonders. So to our mains of Nordic Sushi and Arctic Char, both wonderful dishes. The sushi was presented on a wide wooden platter overflowing with varied preparations of char, roe, maki rolls and the most savoury of marinated shark. The plated Arctic Char dish again featured langoustine and was highlighted with smoked apple. This is fine cooking and after our meal one of the chefs presented us with a little jar of apple jam to take home, we were delighted! Just over the road from Fish Company is Tapas Barinn. It was displaying its Iceland Gourmet Fiest menu outside and we couldn’t resist the look of it. I mean how can you resist any 7 course menu that starts with smoked puffin and costs only 5890Kr? We shared one menu between two and it came with a shot of the local firewater Brennivin. It’s like aquavit and goes down very easily. Smoked puffin is a cross between duck and pigeon and went very well with the sharp and slightly sweet blueberry sauce. The rest of the menu was spot on too but especially the minke whale, which this time was served grilled in steak like fashion. It was delicious with no hint of peculiar after-taste. The restaurant is in the basement of one of the old buildings, the low ceilings suit the traditional tapas bar vibe. We got there quite early around 6pm and by the time we left around 9 it was packed with big groups of locals eating and being merry. The restaurants in Reykjavik cater for large groups and certainly we found the service to be uniformly friendly, helpful and welcoming. In Grill Market we asked one of our servers whether the bill included a service charge, she said that all servers were well paid in Iceland so it’s up to you whether you wanted to leave genuine tip. We had to cancel some reservations in the end, regular holiday sightseeing stuff like Geysirs, Lagoons and Northern Lights got in the way of eating at Fish Market and the Seafood Grill. These will have to wait until we return along with Vox, Perlan, Lobster House and revisiting Grill Market and Fish Company of course. We’ll have to get a week off next time.

Don't be silly now, this meal was before the Pasty tax hike. And besides, of course David had one, it's what us 'Northerners' eat all the time. Been trying to avoid this thread as I have a reservation for next month. Though the wife can't make it now, Nick fancy coming with?

Yes as in one on each side of a cows mouth. They are a wonderful cut of meat, imagine your cow chewing the cud all day excercising these cheek muscles. They are similar to beef shin to cook with but have an extra gelatinous quality. I can get them from my local supermarket for £6 per kilo. A pretty good price.

I can only get frozen soft shell crabs and yes they are very wet. The only way round it is to thaw them on a rack or lots of changes of kitchen paper till they are sufficiently dry. There's only cornflour (cornstarch) in the coating and when I deep fry them it takes up to five minutes to get them crispy. It's kinda counterinituitive as you normally fry fish or shellfish very lightly but those soft shell crabs can take some serious frying. Try not to use too hot an oil.

My apologies to the Reuben purists out there, but it is really great with beef cheeks. They have a sticky juicy quality that works really well with the crispy bread. I've been getting a few tips from the reuben thread and have been frying the sauerkraut first and trying to get the balance of components. It is a brilliant sandwich.

Made lobster noodles the other week as I had some very nice stock in the freezer. This dish is usually a celebratory treat but the recipe is so quick and easy that I should make it more often. Soy pheasant: And my ubiquitous Chicken Rice and a side salad of soft-shelled crab:

IMHO, FWIW the best, my favourite curry house at the moment in Brum is Mughal-E-Azam. YMMV don't get het up about it I know there are 20 other great Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Punjabi, Goan, Afghan, Kenyan Indian, Posh sub-continent restaurants in town

Wow the Dinner thread is a constant source of inspiration, I love coming back to it after a break. Iberico ham croquettas are so now it's unture, and those look awesome. A few dishes from me from the past week or so. First up was pan fried Sea Bass, crushed Anya potatoes with Thai red curry sauce: A friend got hold of some pigeons from a local breeder and wanted some help plucking and drawing them. I took two big ones in return for helping. He made a casserole with his but said the birds were a little tough as they were bred for racing. So he suggested making Pastillas out of them as he'd eaten them in Morocco and said they were an incredible dish. So that's what I did. First time eating these let alone cooking them so I have no point of reference but these may be the best things i've eaten so far this year. Wonderful dish! I've been smoking my own beef cheek pastrami for Reuben sandwiches, I think I may be an addict.

Best curry house in Brum at the moment is Mughal E Azam, all my Pakistani friends rave about it. They say it's just like home, one is convinced that they must ship in their their masala direct from Pakistan because the taste is so authentic. I don't know about that, but what I do know is that the food is lush and the church restoration it's in is lavish. You might as well be in Dubai or Las Vegas, no expense has been spared on the decor. Sadly no balti on the menu though. ETA that was a typical sardonic brummie 'sadly' if you hadn't caught that

hi beebs, there's almost no recipe for this it's mostly technique! Fillet your mackerel but leave the pin bones in. Sprinkle with salt and sugar, let rest for 2 hours, rinse, soak in rice vinegar with a small piece of kombu for another hour. This is for a very fresh fish, cure for longer each stage if not supremely fresh. When you're ready to slice, pin bone it and carefully peel the skin off. If you're not careful with the skin you will tear up the fillet. Steamed turbor is also a fave. The slippery bits around the head, the skin and frilly nuggets on the fins. Engawa in sushi terms but with the added sticky gelatinous skin. I'm weary of the dark skinned wild turbot nowadays, they can taste very muddy. The consistently best fish at the market is the farmed light skinned Norweigian variety. Every scrap of the fish is so clean tasting. The real gems are the livers, truly the foie gras of the sea forget monkfish liver.