Amy D.

Went to the Manchester branch yesterday - enjoyed the salt & pepper bean curd which had lots of garlicky goodness although the fried soft Chinese mushrooms were bland in comparison but still quite tasty. I had the stir fried eel slices with chilli which involved a mound of crispy nuggets of eel in a rather sweet sauce which was lacking in the advertised chilli, it was quite nice but reminded me too much of take-away crispy beef which gets a bit sickly. The OH had the spicy hot poached bean curd, a huge portion of fried bean curd and lettuce swimming in a savoury chilli sauce- obviously the veggie option for the lamb dish though the broth was a different beast to that I encountered at Leeds, although really spicy it was not impossibly so (we definitely didn’t have those little chillies at Leeds) like this it’s really addictive stuff. I wonder if it’s toned down for the non-meat eaters, that’s one theory to test next time.

a word of caution - I made a chocolate fudge a couple of months ago, though for some reason I didn't look for a specific recipe but instead decided just to adapt a vanilla fudge recipe by adding 70% to the cooled fudge mixture. I obviously did something wrong as I then ended up with fat (probably the cocoa butter) leaching from the mixture. At this point I was in a bit of a panic so I tried to rescue the fudge by adding cocoa powder (thinking to absorb the moisture). I ended up with probably the best tasting chocolate fudge I've ever had but annoyingly I don't know the weights to recreate!

mmmm..Ann_T they do look tempting.. I really must try an oatmeal recipe next time..

the eggs with the yolks were a stolen idea I thought I'd have a go at - but as there were so many different versions of these in the shops this easter (in the uk) i'm not sure who actually started it!

(I'll try again) these were my first attempts at eggs, these are hollow half shells, just slightly bigger than a cream egg in size. These were some of the more successful of my Christmas efforts (given as gifts for the family) These were some of the more successful of my Christmas efforts (given as gifts for the family), not brilliant but not bad for my first venture into dipping. The top is a salted caramel , the middle a raspberry butter ganache, and the bottom one a toasted hazelnut marzipan

the simple things in life, some soft baked double choc & pecan cookies

these were my first attempts at eggs, these are hollow half shells, just slightly bigger than a cream egg in size. http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/12375261...6581_118468.jpg These were some of the more successful of my Christmas efforts (given as gifts for the family) http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/12375261...6581_424190.jpg These were some of the more successful of my Christmas efforts (given as gifts for the family), not brilliant but not bad for my first venture into dipping. The top is a salted caramel , the middle a raspberry butter ganache, and the bottom one a toasted hazelnut marzipan http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/12375261...6581_187574.jpg

cake, even a mediocre cake is far more pleasing than pie

although i'd probably just make some simple sushi (filled with advocado, pepper or cucumber), how about some sort of Yakitori using chicken breast? or perhaps to make the idea of edamame more interesting for your son maybe he could also take in a bag of wasabi peas for the more daring of his friends?

try "my old place" on middlesex street near liverpool street station. really tasty & good value though not the best atmosphere & the service can be a bit patchy

gourmet dream was taken from the corn exchange website & whilst I wouldn't necessarily describe the market as such its the best place to get fish & has a few other gems that put it far above a virtually empty building & is a whole lot less pretentious

I could have done with homer simpsons wax mouth aproach! I didn't see any little dried chillis in the dish but lots of flecks of chilli, either dried or well cooked fresh, throughout. perhaps I should try the mancunian version...

I ventured into the corn exchange on Saturday, curious to examine the "gourmets dream" & was a little shocked to find the once thriving building is now empty except for the basement. I have to say I was left wondering why all the previously bustling shops had been forced out, seemly just to give the interior of the building a rather bland paint job and install some rather expensive & slightly unnecessary lights in the ceiling. Still I descended into the basement to explore the shops; we were eating at red chilli later so just a browse of the shops for us. So deli selling the usual overpriced items with a cheese room at the back, we can both be fanatical about our cheese but these seemed out of bounds as they were in their own sealed room, & with no servers around we were none the wiser. a look at the patisserie items sparked my interest I decided upon a pre-meal indulgence only to discover there was no one waiting to serve us, he had disappeared to take something to the sat down diners. Other times I might have waited but this was a spur of the moment thing & I was becoming peeved at the lack of service in this place. I was a bit mystified by the chocolates, true I wouldn't have bought any because I'd prefer to make my own, but these reasonably nice looking confections were ruined by their presentation. It's difficult to explain but it's almost as though the chocolates have been stored in a box which was then shaken to slightly dull some of the exteriors & create small chocolate flakes with the chocolates then neatly piled onto the display plates & the resulting chocolate flakes/dust in the box then poured all over the display case, more misshapes than high end. Perhaps it sounds like I’m complaining for the sake of it, me without trying any of the food. But if you want to people to buy the products it really helps if there's people there waiting to sell the stuff. I really wanted to try the bread & butter? Muffins & the Madeleine looked really tasty. Hopefully they'll manage to fill the many empty shops in the building & it'll again be a place to visit but for now if I’m in Leeds & want to visit a gourmet’s dream I'll head straight past the corn exchange & into the market

I went to the red chilli in leeds on saturday, it was the first visit by myself, the OH and a couple of friends, and after reading this thread I was expecting great things. My OH and a friend both went for the forever vegetarian set menu, the highlight of which was the vegetarian hot & sour soup - a revelation for my soup hating boyfriend, although the main tofu and aubergine dishes were more average. Whilst they both enjoyed the set menu, it definately wasn't the best value for money in this restaurant & if one of them hadn't also been eating the meat dishes I think they would have gone a bit hungry, or at least needed to order more food. For the carnivores of the group we ordered the Guotie which were really moreishly tasty. Then arrived the spicy hot poached lamb, in its huge bowl, the lamb was suclently tender, and the broth complex with spices. It seemed a shame that someone tried to ruin the dish by adding quite so much chilli (easily triple the amount you could ever want to consume in a single serving), and then adding half a jar of firey chilli oil in the centre of the dish, and then a handful of chopped chillis on top. I enjoy chilli, I really do, & I was expecting hot, maybe a some persperation, I even stupidly thought my seven years of eating Bradford curries may have built up my tolerance levels. Obviously not. The flavours were brilliant, it just proved very painful eating. The belly pork clay pot arrived second & my friend feeling defeated by the lamb quick moved to eating this dispite her disapointment that the pork wasn't in big chunks but instead came in long thin slices. Personally I found the pork bland after the lamb dish, although this could easily be due to the destruction of my tastebuds by the firey chilli broth, so I continued to eat the lamb, desparately trying to avoid the central mass of chilli oil. still with two of us eating the lamb we ended up leaving a good portion, & whilst I can't bear to waste food I really couldn't imagine trying to eat leftovers of this particular dish. I enjoyed red chilli & will definately return as the restaurant is good value, has a great atmosphere & some good food. though I think it'll be long time before I try the chilli poached lamb again! I have to say though foodwise (from what I've had so far) the red chilli is outshone by two other great value chinese restaurants I've been to recently - one Szechuan in the capital is "My Old Place" on Middlesex St, & the other is a good example of cantonese and local to me is the "Rising Sun" in chesterfield.

traditional English sunday lunch?? shouts roast beef (a big hunk of rib) and yorkshire puddings, a more garish/retro spin would be to serve the roast inside giant yorkshire puddings. other ideas include toad-in-the hole, or pie and mash. instead of bakewell tarts, how about the more scrumptious (and supposedly traditional) bakewell pudding? Other hot puds could include Treacle tart, Bread and butter pudding, Sticky toffee pudding, all served with creamy custard and/or cream and/or ice cream. Or for cold options how about a trifle or summer pudding? or for a more refined option perhaps traditional cream teas; savories to include a selection of neatly trimmed sandwiches, cucumber a must, maybe some mini pasties, pork pies and scotch eggs. Sweets to include a large selection of cakes (we brits do tend to have a sweet tooth!) perhaps victoria sandwich, eccles cakes as well as the obligatory scones serves with jam and clotted cream!

fried smoked bacon between two buttered slices of white bread. crispy, soft, salty and lots of finger licking of the escaping buttery juices... mushrooms sauteed in lots of butter and garlic, plenty of salt, sometimes with parsley, served with some crusty bread..for that quick full powered garlicy hit. but best of all is tearing a piece of crust of some freshly-baked-still-warm bread and scraping it across the top of a block of refrigerator-hard salted butter... my OH has a favourite sandwich that involves: a baguette, some brie, avocado, raw onion and roquette all topped off with sweet chilli sauce..as crazy as it sounds the sauce really makes the sandwich

is there really any need to worry about botulism? I mean as long as you steralise the jars in an oven (or even dishwasher), & besides preserving generally involves cooking things to high temperatures anyway. but then perhaps things are different in the canning processes? Have to say I often adjust vinegar/sugar levels to personal taste (particularly in chutneys), as whilst the vinegar can mellow during maturing I found that if its overpowering the other ingredients before it'll probably still be overpowering after several months! I think the only really difficult thing with preserves is making sure you've reached setting point for jellies and jams, but it's easy to check this as long as you've got some plates chilling in the freezer to test for the wrinkle stage (personally I find this more reliable than thermometers). other things to watch for, perhaps more obvious, are that jams etc involve boiling hot sugary liquids, which can: - occasionally spit so watch out as jam burns! - catch on the bottom of the pan (mainly jams) which can ruin a batch (although if this happens you may be able to save most of the pot if you don't stir once you've noticed it's caught on the bottom, instead just transfer any untained jam into a clean pan) - sometimes boil over, creating nasty, sticky, clean up jobs - worse if you've left it to caramelise onto the hob apart from that most preserves tend to be good easy one pot cooking where, to be honest, the most labour intensive part is in the preparation - especially slicing citrus fruits for marmalade which for some reason seems to take forever & involve lots of knife shapenings.

ooooh definately the spoonful of condensed milk straight from the tin, have been known to open the tin just for that first spoonful... failing that a spoonful of honey or jam... & my homemade lemon curd never makes it's way onto bread..

I bought "the complete book of Preserves & Pickles: jams, jellies, chutneys & relishes" by Catherine Atkinson and Maggie Mayhew a few years back & I have to say I haven't wanted to buy any more preserve books since (despite looking). This book seems to cover just about everything you need - starts with long introduction of basic methods, setting qualities of different fruits etc. then has lots of different preserve recipes as suggested by the tittle, includeding lots for marmalades and curds. The methods are easy to follow step by step with plenty of photos, great for the novice, but also includes some more unusual recipes for more seasoned preservers.