Prawncrackers

Mackerel, just cured sashimi style. So cheap and so delicious, tastiest fish per £ no doubt in my mind.

I have just read best actual restaurant review by Giles Coren ever in today's Times. Wow! ETA: Well Done!

Ah that's a shame the recipe didn't work out for you. I've never tried it in the oven, that could be the reason it didn't turn out great. What brand of soy are you using? I usually use Kikkoman light soy and Pearl River brand dark soy, I don't find them very salty. Also did you take it out of the poaching liquor to press overnight? On your recommendation I should try Sunflower's recipe.

Fairy muff Nick, you know i'm protective of Ebi Sush. I only introduce the best poeple I know to it Our dear old David will love it too i'm sure! Here's a photo of, to me, sushi perfection from Ebi. Saba (mackerel) and Otoro (fatty tuna belly): As for London sushi/Japanese places, I think every knows from the Sushi of Shiori thread that i'm a big fan of the place. I didn't like Dinings, I went soon after it opened and got unanimous rave reviews in the press. I felt it was mean, cold and overpriced. The only redeeming item we ate was the foie gras and unagi nigiri, oishi! If you want to try something other than sushi then Tosa in Hammersmith does fantastic Yakitori and other chargrilled food, I could eat the whole menu at that place.

David, I feel I must caveat Nickloman's Ebi Sushi recommendation and manage expectation slightly. From the outside it looks like a run-down café on a Derby backstreet. Inside it's very basic and the food is very traditional, you will not find any flourishes or avant-garde touches here. Sole Chef-Patron Mr Ebina caters for the Japanese ex-pats at the nearby Toyota plant, so while his customers are very discerning they are also very conservative, they want the taste of home. I love the place, I reckon it's my most visited (non-Chinese) restaurant. But there are flaws, he runs out of my favourite things quite early and stubbornly refuses to refurb the toilets. He was supposed to upgrade them last year but spent the money on a new Toyota Land-cruiser much to the chagrin of his regulars.

Hi Franci, yes it seems to me to be two totally different recipes! Sunflower's is much more sophisticated than mine, the flavours will be totally different too. Hers has Sichuan pepper, oyster sauce, tea but no star anise at all. Whereas mine is sweeter with a big hit of anise, I think mine will taste the bolder but her's definitely more subtlely complex. I think there's only one thing for it, you will have to try my recipe and report back with a comparison forthwith! Btw I do recommend the overnight resting of the braise. It tastes much better the day after and you can strain the fat too.

David, have you had real American style bbq before? If not then yes you have to go as by all accounts it's the real deal. I haven't been myself (planning to though) because I can cook this in my backyard whenever I like. From my point of view this is why there has been a certain amount of hype about this venture. The people who go there have never tried this sort of bbq before, I'm going to grossly stereotype them as young London foodies who can only dream of a backyard let alone one with a bbq smoker in it. This kind of bbq comes as a revelation to the uninitiated. No wonder they are evangelical in their praise.

Inspired by Sheepish's blog this week I pulled out a shoulder mutton from the freezer for a traditional Sunday roast. I rubbed it down with a mix of oil, garlic, cumin, thyme, oregano and lemon zest and left it overnight. It was slow roasted for 5 hrs today till the meat was tender. We had a Kenyan friend round who is a big meat-eater and between the three of we managed to eat it all up! It was good, really good. We had duck fat roasties, brocolli, glazed carrots and a big bowl of salsa verde. As it was our friends birthday I also baked him a birthday cheesecake: Last week I cooked a Roast Chicken the Heston Blumenthal way. I roasted it at around 95-100C till the thickest part of the breast was 65C. He recommends cooking till 60C but I'm glad I took it a little further, the legs were just cooked but still looked quite pink. I shudder to think what they would have been like had I followed his 60C, still clucking probably. The meat was moist in that poached chicken kind of way which being Chinese suited us fine but even after the second high temp blast in the oven it really didn't have that roast chicken flavour for me. Slightly disappointed. We had cavalo nero and an inspired chicken fat mash that contained pieces of fried chicken skin. The mash I can highly recommend: And my wife's go-to favourite meal of tonkatsu with guacamole, yum:

Looking forward to this one Boyo! Tamworth and Welsh Black are two of my favourite breeds of meat. Do we get to see some butchery this week?

Franci, i'd say that you were half way there in that you at least realise the essence of another cuisine is an elusive thing. A lot people will learn a couple dishes, recreate them proficiently and proclaim themselves an expert. (Look ma I can make a paella and a creme catalana, let's go on Masterchef TV and say I'm deeply influenced by Spanish cuisine!) In your case, you want that deep understanding of Chinese cuisine so that you can cook Chinese food for you family. I say just keep at it and it will come to you, be open to criticism and feedback. Sometimes it difficult for non-Chinese speaker to appreciate the different words we have for the textures in Chinese foods and by extension it can be hard to appreciate the different textures themselves. But maybe your husband can help in this respect? I must protest vehemently about anyone associating "excellent" with Ching He Huang. With Chinese New Year just gone, she's been on UK cable stations with her pretty face and perky personality representing the whole of Chinese cuisine. I'm embarrassed that after so many decades of Ken Hom that's she been thrust forward as some sort of bastion of Chinese food. She's a giant step back from even Ken Hom's beginner level of cooking. It would be like having Rachael Ray represent all of American food on Chinese TV.

Sushi of Shiori is in it's third year now and this little place is going from strength to strength. I'd not been back for a while, almost a year, but what they served me for my 8-course Omakase meal last weekend was a good a meal as I've had in that time. The place itself has changed a little, gone is the counter-seating facing the shop front. Now there are two small tables, increasing the seating from 7 to a whopping 8 or 9 at a push! Here's what we had. First appetiser was... badly focussed! Must have been too excited about the very interesting trio of Yam and Uni, Herring Roe and Pickled Crosnes Abalone, Pickled Persimmon and Cucumber Turnip "chawanmushi" Sashimi selection, including Hamachi Belly, Mackerel, Otoro, Chutoro, Squid two ways (one with bottarga), sea bass with shiso and spot prawn wrapped in yubu and topped with gilded caviar The green blob on top of the chutoro was slimy okra, much to the amusement of our dinner companion Sushi selection, from R to L, Scallop & Black Truffle, Crystal Bay Prawn & Shiso Pesto, Turbot & Engawa (side fin) with Plum, Salmon & Ikura and lastly more tuna, this time a special cut from the collar Hot Eel and Shitake Sushi Wagyu Beef Chestnut Ice Cream A wonderfully refreshing cup of tea, I forgot to ask Hitomi what this was but it tasted very much like a Pu-erh I really hope this place is still around in another three years, it's small but perfectly formed. The welcome is genuinely warm and friendly. Every time I leave there I leave with a sense of glowing satisfaction.

It's been a busy start to the year at work, not had much time or energy to cook after a long day. So dinner has been sketchy recently, but here's a few from the past few weeks. Rummaging through the freezer I found some scraps of beef, ox cheek, feather steak and some well aged end of a rib that I've been saving for burgers. So burgers it was, with some homemade briochy type buns and onion rings: Flame grilled John Dory, Smoked Eel and Beetroot Salad with a Dashi Vinaigrette: Ras-al-hanout spiced Duck Breast, Couscous and Honey Lime Sauce Carnitas made with smoked beef ribs in a mole poblano sauce: Tonight Spaghetti alla Bottarga with roasted Sea Bream (in the background):

Dakki I really don't have any ground breaking insight i'm afraid, i'm a happy snapper like you. Just keep your hand still and squeeze that shutter gently!

You've got a very keen eye and great techinical knowledge dcarch, I would never have realised the distortion of that picture. To me it's a tin of petit fours but to the photographically trained eye it's wonky!

Dakki I've been using a low-end Olympus DSLR for over 5 years, most of the photos I post have been with that camera. I should have read this thread earlier because I actually bought a Canon S95 a couple of months ago. It's a genuine pocket sized camera that takes quality food snaps and I'm really happy with it. Here are some photos of a recent meal at The Ledbury using the S95. It was at lunch time on a murky overcast day and as we were sitting by a window there were some issues with the white balance but as you can see the camera took some really good shots. Only a little post processing was required, up the brightness a little and I always like a little more saturation. The third shot down of the the skewered pigeon heart and wings shows the great DoF of the f2.0 lens:

I remember commenting on how black your paella looked, now I know your secret! I've never seen jars of ink on sale in the UK, only the sachets.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

Hey, thanks Soba I knew what you meant! I see the Dinner thread more for inspiration not competition. But most of all it's a damn good way to have a look at what other folk are cooking up, because I'm nosey like that. My bacalao fritters are more beignet based. One large floury potato mashed, mix in equal amounts of salt cold that's been poached in water with a bay leaf. I make a roux with flour and olive oil, then stir in the cod poaching liquid to make a white sauce. When everything has cooled a little the potato and cod mixture is stirred into the white sauce along with parsley, one egg and seasoned. The mixture should be loose and just able to drop off the spoon into plenty of hot oil. If they're too loose, add a little more flour.

Shame about your dish not turning out well patrickamory. But I would be very wary of any recipe calling for those amounts of spices being measured out in cups. It's such a massive variable, that's why I think it takes years of dedicated practise to get the balance right in Indian cooking. I love the look of the black olive monkfish dish mm84321, it's going on my dishes to try. Seems quite straightfoward, anything to look out for? I always add a little anchovy to my tapenade, do you think adding it to this dish would improve it? scottyboy, I predict great things from you this year with your own kitchen/dining space. Might have to make my way to California!

Cheers mate! Yeah this photo does pop doesn't it? It was just taken, as usual, on the fly with the flash on my SLR bounced off the ceiling. The exposure was just right, I didn't have to do anything to it. If you're intersted then the exif info is here. Unlike the last one of the bacalao, it came out really dark and I had to brighten it. The metering on my camera is a little erratic. You know they can (tin-can that is) all kinds of seafood in Spain. I think my favourite are the Catabrian anchovies aka pure concentrated umami. The canned sea-urchin were a bit disappointing, very broken and mushy, not the fat lobes you see in the shell. The flavour was good if a little mild but topped with the just melted lardo was very tasty. Nice to have in the store cupboard I suppose but does not compare with fresh. Which is a shame because the canning process does change and some say improve the flavour of oysters and mussels. I still have some canned angulas (baby eel) from a recent trip to Barcelona, will definitely post a pic of those when I crack them open. I think you did a good job with the black paella. You do need a few ink sacs to get it that black. Sometimes you think about picking one big squid for this kind of dish but the ink from one sac gives an unappetising murky grey colour.

Go back to basics, back to the simple comfort food. For me, steam a whole fish, stir fry some veg and eat with plain rice. That is exactly what i did this week.

All this talk of pata negra reminded me that I made a little Spanish inspired meal a couple of weeks ago. We started with a little board of pata negra ham and my own home-made chorizo, canned razor clams, tortilla, teal escabeche and bacalao fritters. I also cracked open a can of Spanish sea urchin and made little crostini with lardo but forgot to photo it (doh!). Our guest brought over a wicked chocolate fudge cake and I also made some crema catalana. A knockout meal!

Ready smoked eel are so expensive to buy, at £12.75 for a measly 200g pack it's almost a luxury item. So now i've gotten over my initial reticence about handling them, i'll smoke more than one of them at a time. That'll make it even more worth while!

Eels!! Loads of them at the market last week in the run-up to Xmas, big fat silver eels for £25 per kilo. Not cheap but in a fit of madness I bought a fairly big one for just under 20 quid. It's madness because I really don't like dealing with them; slimy, slippery, snakelike creatures that refuse to die. I left this one in a briney solution for about an hour, and it jumped out of the pot and tried to slither away. It gave my wife such a shock when she stepped into the kitchen!! So I made a much stronger saturated salt solution and tied the lid down on the pot to make sure it wouldn't escape. After half an hour the salt did it's job, not only did it kill the eel but it also removed most of the slime. Although it was definitely dead it nonetheless twitched madly as I gutted it. I gave it a rub down with a little coarse sea salt and left it to cure for a few hours. To get it ready for the smoker in the morning I dried it off and left it overnight for the pellicle to form. It was hot smoked over oak for an hour at around 90-100C: Was it worth it? You bet, eel hot off the smoker is the best smoked food ever. EVER! Tonight I lightly fried some eel chunks and served it with a tangy crispy goats cheese börek, a spiky fresh goats cheese & horseradish cream, beetroot, radish and rocket:

I assume 'berried' means carrying eggs on the underside of the body, correct? Correct, like this one I found at the market a couple of years ago: